(Minghui.org) Minghui.org previously reported on the three-year prison sentence of 66-year-old Ms. Xu Fengliu because she practices Falun Gong. Ms. Xu, who lives in Wuhu City, Anhui Province, was released in May 2021. She recently recounted details of her arrest, sentencing, and abuse while she was imprisoned.
I was home at 6:30 p.m. on May 24, 2018, when more than twelve plainclothes officers used a master key to open my door. I later learned they were from the Fanchang District Police Department, the Digang Town Police Station, and the Taochongkuang Police Station.
Some of them held me down on a chair in the living room, while the rest searched my home. One of them identified himself as deputy chief Xu Zequn from the Fanchang District Police Department. I protested against their illegally breaking into and raiding my home without a search warrant. They ignored me.
About one hour later, another group of officers arrived with a search warrant. They flashed it in front of me without allowing me to read it.
The police confiscated my computer, printer, cell phone, Falun Gong books, over 1,200 yuan in banknotes printed with Falun Gong messages, and some other personal belongings. They wrote a list of confiscated items but didn’t verify it with me as required by law.
I was taken to an interrogation room in the basement of the Digang Town Police Station that night. The police later returned to my home a few more times and seized my screwdriver, hammer, pliers, electric drill, and laminator. None of these items was added to the list of confiscated items. I lived alone, and the police never notified my family of my arrest. Three days after I was arrested, they forced my parents to open the door of my other residence and they ransacked it.
Officer Li transferred me to the Wuhu City Women’s Detention Center on the night of May 25, 2018. He cursed at me and tightened my handcuffs a few times while en-route there.
The detention center guards beat me twice while I was held in cell 702. The first time was around 10 a.m. on May 31, 2018. Six female guards suddenly came in. Zhang Ying twisted my arms behind my back. It hurt so much that I had to sit down. The guards slapped my face, yanked my hair, and punched me. They then dragged me to the hallway before carrying me to a meeting room. They dropped me on the ground and cuffed my hands to a bench.
Zhang stuffed some toilet paper into my mouth as it was bleeding from the beatings. Guard Sun Xin flicked my face with her fingers when she saw blood stains on the toilet paper.
The guards later left except for Zhang. She threatened to target my son and daughter-in-law. I asked why they beat me. She replied, “Who beat you? Who witnessed us beating you?”
The second time was around noon on June 1, 2018. Zhang ordered me to report to the meeting room for a “talk.” I went and saw eight guards. One of them, who was sitting in a chair, suddenly sprinted out of the chair and slammed her hand on the desk, yelling, “Get out of here!”
I walked out but she followed me and punched my head. She yelled, “I am a member of the Chinese Communist Party. I’m here to persecute you today! What can you do about it?!”
She also screamed into my ear at the top of her lungs. The other guards were amused by her behavior and laughed. Her badge number was 009662, and I learned later that her name was Ji Zhaoyan, and she was a vice director of the detention center.
As I walked towards my cell, Ji kept beating me until she saw guard Xia Chunhong near cell 804. She said, “I’ll turn her over to you.”
Xia put me in cell 804, and ordered me and the inmates to yell our inmate numbers 30 times, twice a day (morning and evening). The inmates hated me for bringing them trouble as they didn’t have to do that before I was added to their cell.
Prosecutors-in-residence Song Bin and Zhang Jingping came to cell 804 a few days later. I reported the two beating episodes, and Song said that I should write down everything. I asked head inmate Zhang Yuyan for a pen, and she said guard Xia had already instructed her to not give me one.
I went to see guard Xia, and she said I could have inmate Zhang write my complaint for me. Zhang refused and referred me back to Xia. I ended up not being able to write anything.
Due to the abuse, I developed severe hypokalemia (low potassium level) and tachycardia (rapid heartbeat). I struggled to utter a sound when I tried to speak. I felt weak all over, and experienced numbness in my hands and feet, and mental confusion. These issues were discovered during a physical exam the detention center gave inmates in June 2018.
Guard Xia reported my situation to the police. Officer Zhou Bin came and took me to an outside hospital for another checkup. The detention center doctor on duty that day said I was unfit for detention when she read the exam results. She requested that Zhou release me on bail. Zhou refused, and I remained detained.
In order to keep me in detention, Xia instructed an inmate to pour some drug into my water cup to raise my potassium level. I felt like I was dying after I drank it. My family eventually managed to have me released on bail on August 22, 2018.
Prosecutor Li Jun from the Fanchang District Procuratorate deposed me on October 8, 2018. I refused to answer his questions, so he fabricated the deposition records.
I stood trial at the Fanchang District Court on November 30, 2018. My lawyer Zhang Hao pointed out that the list of cults issued by the Ministry of Public Security did not mention Falun Gong. Prosecutor Li said the media reports have repeatedly reported that Falun Gong was a cult. I reminded him that the CCP’s slanderous media reports could not be used as law to prosecute me.
Li retaliated against me in response. My lawyer was threatened with having his license revoked if he dared to continue representing me. The court issued a verdict in January 2019 but I was not told what it was or given a copy of it. I was then informed that I must face a retrial.
The new trial took place on April 4, 2019, and a new verdict was not issued until August 6 that year. I was sentenced to three years and fined 8,000 yuan.
I broke my left leg during the trial period, and I suspected prosecutor Li intentionally urged the judge to postpone announcement of my sentencing because he wanted to wait until my leg got a bit better so I would not be denied prison admission.
I appealed but lost.
I was taken back into custody on January 15, 2020, and put in the Wuhu City Detention Center. On July 17 that year, I was transferred to the Anhui Province Women’s Prison. We were only given three minutes to brush our teeth and wash ourselves. I still had to use crutches at the time, and struggled to keep up with the fast-paced inmate life in the prison.
I refused to renounce my faith so I was forced to stand from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. every day. During the standing torture, I was only given one cup of water and two small steamed buns (one in the morning and another at night). While other inmates were given fruit once a month, I got nothing. I was also not allowed to purchase additional food using my own money. I could only purchase a limited amount of daily necessities.
I developed hypertension and heart failure after standing for hours every day. I was then “treated” in the prison clinic by inmates who used to be healthcare workers, but they were not physicians.
After the long-time standing torture in the tenth division (the division for the elderly and the infirm), I was later taken to the transformation base on the second floor of the prison administration building at 8 a.m. every morning and I was not allowed to return to my cell until around 5:30 p.m.
Guard Zhang Ling and two former practitioners who renounced Falun Gong under pressure “worked on” me. Zhang warned me that if I died in the prison, it’d be like an ant that had died. I refused to write statements to renounce Falun Gong, and the two former practitioners were instructed to write them on my behalf. They later grabbed my hand to write the statements and said I wrote them voluntarily.
One day warden Meng summoned me to the transformation base earlier than usual, around 6 a.m. She didn’t give me anything to eat or drink all day. She also didn’t allow me to use the restroom. She even took away my crutches. At 11:30 p.m., she called in anti-riot police officers. The police turned on their electric batons but didn’t really shock me. (My family talked to a prison official a while back and urged them not to abuse me.)
Another time I was not allowed to return to my cell at 5:30 p.m. as usual. Guard Miao Yonghong asked the two former practitioners to leave. When we were alone she threatened to shock me with two electric batons. At that moment I was consumed by fear and wrote statements to renounce Falun Gong against my will.
The pain of having to betray my faith was beyond words. After I returned to my cell, I felt chest tightness and shortness of breath. I was also depressed.
At the end of 2020, I refused to recite the prison rules and was reported to the guards by inmate Wu Geng. I was forced to stand for hours as punishment. I didn’t attend the test for all inmates, and guard Miao blamed me for lowering the entire 10th division’s average test score and affecting their year-end bonus. She forced me to study materials that slandered Falun Gong. For almost six hours in the morning, I was not allowed to use the restroom.
I couldn’t hold it any longer and ran to the restroom. Inmate Zou Weiqin, who was instructed to watch me, immediately yanked me out of the restroom.
Guard Miao also went to the transformation base many times and volunteered to work on me there.
Due to lack of sodium, I had heart failure symptoms again.
I was not allowed to shampoo my hair, and it became extremely greasy. When I was finally allowed to return to the cell at 10 p.m. the inmates were already sound asleep. To not disturb them, I had to be extra quiet, which caused me further stress.
In late December 2021, the prison conducted a contraband inspection. I had an old prison-issued newsletter in my dresser that I had forgotten about. There was one article written by an inmate singing praise of the prison guards for staying with inmates during the COVID-19 pandemic. I wrote a comment there indicating the guards were working for money, not the wellbeing of the inmates.
The guards also found a paper slip on which I wrote a Chinese character which they interpreted as I was implying the guards were dogs that could speak human language. They took turns having “talks” with me and demanded to know why I was blaspheming them.
I explained that it was just a Chinese character and that I didn’t mean anything beyond the superficial meaning of the word itself.
The guards forced me to attend a study session and transcribe the prison rules. I went on a hunger strike a few days later. They stopped the study session but didn’t allow me to go to bed before midnight – an abuse that lasted the rest of my prison term.
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