(Minghui.org) A Baoding City, Hebei Province, resident, was transferred from the Tianhe Prison in Beijing to the Hebei Province Women’s Prison on November 11, 2024 to serve a four-year term for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Hu Jinfeng, 45, was arrested in Shunyi District, Beijing, on July 27, 2022, by officers from the Gaoliying Police Station. She was held at the Shunyi District Detention Center and interrogated for eight days. Her hands were cuffed behind her back most of the time.
Torture reenactment: handcuffed behind one’s back
Her brother-in-law, Mr. Zhang Lei, of Changping District, Beijing, was arrested on the same day. He was held at the Changping District Detention Center and released on bail on September 2, 2022.
Ms. Hu’s arrest was approved by the Shunyi District Procuratorate on November 2, 2022 and she was indicted in early 2023. She appeared in the Shunyi District Court on April 27, 2023 and was sentenced to four years with a 4,000-yuan fine on September 27, 2023 through a virtual trial. Her family wasn’t allowed to attend her trial. She appealed to the Beijing Third Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold her original verdict. She was transferred from the detention center to the Tianhe Prison in Beijing around March 2024 and then to the Hebei Province Women’s Prison on November 11, 2024.
Prior Persecution
This isn’t the first time that Ms. Hu has been targeted for her faith. She was previously arrested multiple times and given a two-year labor camp term.
Shortly after the persecution began in July 1999, because Ms. Hu and her parents refused to renounce Falun Gong, they were taken to the local police station, forced to kneel facing the wall, and the police used their shoes to beat their faces. The police made them sleep on the bare concrete floor for seven days.
Torture reenactment: slapped in the face with a shoe
Ms. Hu was approached by a government official on June 4, 2000 who asked whether she still practiced Falun Gong. She was arrested when she said yes, and she was taken to a lockup. She went on a hunger strike and was released a week later.
Ms. Hu went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong on July 20, 2000, the one-year anniversary of when the persecution began. She was arrested, escorted back to Baoding City and held at the Dingxing County Detention Center. She held a hunger strike in protest. After she was released two weeks later, she lived away from home to avoid the police.
Ms. Hu was arrested again on May 13, 2005 and taken to the Dingxing County Detention Center. Four days later the police gave her a two-year term at the Baoding Forced Labor Camp.
At the labor camp, Ms. Hu was held in isolation and watched around the clock. After she held a hunger strike to protest, the guards force-fed her and also instructed the inmates to handcuff her tightly. She was unable to lift her left arm for several months. She lost the feeling in her thumbs for six months. The guards who participated in the torture included Zhang Guohong, Wu Wenshuang, Bai Jie, and Yan Qingfen.
Torture illustration: force feeding
The guards later forced Ms. Hu to stand or squat for long hours without moving and deprived her of sleep. Guards Wu, Zhang Guohong, and Zhang Haoxin beat her, yanked her hair, held her down on the ground, and stood on her. They also subjected her to brainwashing and ordered her to renounce Falun Gong.
Torture reenactment: standing on someone
Ms. Hu faced constant harassment after she returned home. When she went to the police station to have her ID renewed, the police not only refused to renew it, they detained her briefly. She was unable to find a full time job without an ID and struggled to make ends meet.
Related Report:
Shunyi District, Beijing: 7 Tried for Practicing Falun Gong, 6 Sentenced to Up to 7 Years
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