(Minghui.org) A 68-year-old woman in Tieling City, Liaoning Province spent almost 12 years behind bars during the past two-plus decades for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Liu Qingxiang took up Falun Gong in 1996 and soon recovered from gastric ulcer, arthritis, psoriasis, and tracheitis. After the persecution began three years later, she was repeatedly targeted because she held firm to her faith.
She was given one year of forced labor shortly after her arrest in October 1999. The guards at the now closed Masanjia Forced Labor Camp tortured her so brutally that she had a mental collapse. She was released before her sentence was over.
Ms. Liu was arrested again on March 18, 2002 and sentenced to five years in the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison. Her employer deducted the five years she spent in prison from her years of service used to calculate her future pension.
Ms. Liu was already retired when she was arrested on November 1, 2014. She was sentenced to three years and sent to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison. Her pension was suspended during the three-year term.
Ms. Liu’s latest arrest took place on May 11, 2020, followed by a three-year prison term. Her pension was again stopped during the three years and did not resume until the day after she was released on May 11, 2023.
See the related reports for details of Ms. Liu’s suffering at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp and each of her arrests and subsequent trials and sentencing. The rest of this article reports on her ordeal at the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison, where she served all three jail terms.
Tortured During First Prison Term (3/18/2002 – 3/18/2007)
Ms. Liu was admitted to Division Nine of the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison on October 10, 2002 after she was sentenced to five years. Division head Wu Li and instructor Li Hong forced her to do hard labor for long hours without pay. They also instigated guards and inmates to verbally abuse and physically torture her.
Ms. Liu refused to sign her job performance report and Na Dongfang grabbed a three-foot-long metal bar and beat her face. Her face became swollen.
One winter Ms. Liu sat down to meditate and she was reported to team lead Guo. Guo kicked her left rib cage hard. She felt sharp pain and her left hand became too weak to hold anything. Guo not only did not seek medical attention for Ms. Liu but forbade her from using bed covers at night or purchasing daily necessities. She was also forced to stand all day long and do hard labor the very next day.
Ms. Liu was not the only Falun Gong practitioner abused by Guo. Ms. Sun Shuzhen, who was serving five years, was also forced to do hard labor and was not allowed to purchase any daily necessities for extended periods of time. She had to use wrapping paper to clean herself when she used the restroom. Ms. Liu once secretly gave her some toilet paper and other necessities when inmates were not watching. Ms. Sun later developed stoke symptoms and was released on parole.
Another practitioner, Ms. Liu Xia, a resident of Dalian City, Liaoning Province, was sentenced to 12 years. She was handcuffed to a heating pipe at night with her mouth taped shut and was shocked with electric batons. The guards also did not allow her to sleep.
Ms. Liu Qingxiang also witnessed the abuse of her cellmate, Ms. Wang Jie, a Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, resident serving seven years for practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Wang never recovered from the injuries suffered in prison after she was released. She died on April 21, 2012, at the age of 48.
Tortured During Second Prison Term (11/1/2014 – 11/1/2017)
Ms. Liu was admitted to Division Nine of the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison again after she was sentenced to three years following her arrest in November 2014.
Upon her admission, Ms. Liu learned that Ms. Wang Chunxiang, a practitioner who she met while serving her first prison term, was beaten to death. Ms. Wang was sentenced to eight years after being arrested on October 31, 2006 and sent to the prison in 2007. The guards instigated an inmate to beat her on the head with a shoe sole and kick her lower body. They also put her in a cold, unheated warehouse. She was diagnosed with heart disease, high blood pressure, kidney failure and stroke. Her family applied to have her released on parole but the appeal was denied. She died in prison on September 25, 2011, at the age of 55. Ms. Liu recalled once seeing bruises everywhere on Ms. Wangs body.
Ms. Liu refused to write statements to renounce Falun Gong and was threatened with solitary confinement.
Tortured During Third Prison Term (5/11/2020 – 5/11/2023)
Ms. Liu served her third prison term again in Division Nine of the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison. She was admitted there several months after she was sentenced to three years following her latest arrest on May 11, 2020.
Team lead Ding Xiaomei of Division Nine ordered Ms. Liu to make clothes in the workshop for more than ten hours every day. Sometimes she did not even have time to eat lunch. The long-term hard labor took a toll on her health and she had a stroke and was rushed to the hospital.
As soon as she got better, she was brought back to the prison and again subjected to torture and forced labor. One day after she worked for hours, her body suddenly twitched and she vomited. She could not talk or open her eyes. She was then sent to a hospital to get oxygen. She got better two days later and was brought back to prison to do hard labor.
Related reports:
64-Year-Old Secretly Sentenced Three Months After Latest Arrest for Her Faith
The Persecution of Ms. Liu Qingxiang, Tortured to Mental Collapse
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