(Minghui.org) A woman from Wenling City, Zhejiang Province, was detained for one month in early 2024 for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Wang Lijun, around 54, was drugged and beaten during her detention. She felt like she was dying at one point. Months after she was released on March 22, 2024, she still felt dizzy and struggled to keep her balance as she walked. Her teeth are now so loose that she can’t even bite into an apple. She also cannot stay home alone due to panic attacks and she’s lived with a relative for more than four months. Her eyes still hurt and tear, and her vision is blurry.
This is not the first time Ms. Wang has been targeted for her faith. She went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in late 1999 and was arrested. After months of criminal detention, she was given one and a half years of forced labor in Moganshan Labor Camp in July 2000.
Ms. Wang returned to Beijing in 2001 to appeal for Falun Gong and was arrested and given three years of forced labor.
After another arrest in March 2007, Ms. Wang was sentenced to seven years in the Zhejiang Province Women’s Prison. She was released on March 11, 2014.
Details of Latest Persecution
A group of officers from the Wenling City Domestic Security Division and the Taiping Town Police Station shut off Ms. Wang’s water supply around 10 a.m. on February 23, 2024. They seized her when she stepped outside to see what was wrong. After raiding her home and finding no Falun Gong related materials, they called their supervisors and told them, “There’s nothing in her home, not even in her computer.”
Their supervisors told the police to take her to the police station. A male doctor came around 3 p.m. to measure her blood pressure and examine her eyes. He asked how Ms. Wang felt about her health. She did not answer.
Two officers and two community workers came at 7 p.m. and put Ms. Wang in a car. She noticed that they were heading to Huangyan District, Taizhou City, which oversees Wenling, the city where she lives. She shared her GPS location with her family on her phone.
They arrived at the destination after driving for more than one hour. The police put a black hood over Ms. Wang’s head and led her to a secret location. They seized her phone and brought her to a small room with no window. The walls were padded with thick sponge cushions. There was a toilet in one corner and a mattress was on the ground.
As Ms. Wang looked around the room, a group of people rushed in. One of them held up her phone and asked, “With whom did you share your GPS location?” It turned out her loved ones had just responded to her location sharing.
The police then took Ms. Wang back to the police station around 1:30 a.m. but drove her to the same secret location at 7 p.m. (on February 24). Again they covered her head before leading her to the same isolation room.
The guard assigned to monitor her brought her a cup of water. Having had very little to eat since her arrest, Ms. Wang drank all the water right away. In no time her stomach started to hurt. The pain was so intense that she rolled on the mattress. She said she had never been in such pain her whole life and she wondered if she’d die that day. About 30 minutes later, the discomfort spread to the rest of her body. She felt as if something was crawling all over with stuff regurgitating from her stomach to her tongue. She fought the pain for about four hours until she fell asleep.
The next morning she was offered rice congee. She ate it and did not feel anything. The guard gave her water with lunch. She had decided to not drink any water at the secret location, but the lunch was so salty that she took two sips of the water again.
Ms. Wang immediately felt something was wrong again. Compared to the night before, the same symptoms were a bit less severe as she did not drink the whole cup. She had no doubt that the water she was given was laced with unknown drugs. She did not drink the water that was brought to her with dinner.
On the third day, Ms. Wang’s eyes began to hurt and shed tears. There was also excessive mucus. She had difficulty seeing. Her back also hurt. For the next few days she felt exhausted. She did not drink any more water. She noticed the water sometimes smelled acidic and other times looked green.
Her loved ones demanded her release and the chief of the Taiping Town Police Station promised to release her in ten days after “giving her some good education.” She was not released after the promised time was up. Her family drove to the GPS location she shared with them. However, they were unable to find it as the building was located at the top of a mountain and the GPS location was just an approximate location. Her family then went to two local detention centers. The staff said she wasn’t there. They turned to the police chief again and the chief said he couldn’t reveal the secret location. He admitted that the higher-ups ordered them to keep Ms. Wang in detention.
Ms. Wang held firm to her faith and was brutally beaten around the three-week mark. The guards threatened her and said they wouldn’t face any consequence even if they beat her to death. They also ordered her to eat when she lost her appetite after drinking the water. So that they would beat her less, she ate but her stomach hurt. She also reported hearing screams from the room next door, where another practitioner was held and beaten. The cries stopped after some time but Ms. Wang didn’t know where the other practitioner was taken.
The police finally released Ms. Wang at 8 p.m. on March 22, 2024. They covered her head with a black hood and drove her to her apartment complex.
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