Beijing Woman in Critical Condition Three Months After Imprisonment for Her Faith, Dies Ten Months Later

A Beijing woman was in critical condition about three months after she began serving time in prison for her faith in Falun Gong. After months of suffering, Ms. Liu Yanmei died on December 11, 2018. She was 52.

Ms. Liu's ordeal began after she was arrested for distributing invitations about a public hearing of three Falun Gong practitioners in November 2016.

At Tongzhou Detention Centre, Ms. Liu was beaten and verbally abused for trying to do the Falun Gong exercises. The guards also handcuffed and shackled her for five months.

The detention centre initially didn't allow her lawyer to visit her. When he was eventually allowed to see her, she was emaciated and much of her hair had turned grey.

Ms. Liu told her lawyer that an inmate imprisoned in the same cell as she ran out of money and asked if the lawyer could inform her family members about it. When the guard found out about it, she beat Ms. Liu, blaming her for leaking information to the outside.

With her hands cuffed, the guards pulled Ms. Liu's fingers, leaving her hands swollen. They also sat on her knees, causing tremendous pain.

After several months of torture at the detention center, Ms. Liu was tried by Tongzhou District Court on July 6, 2017, and sentenced to four years in prison three weeks later, on July 27. She began serving time at Beijing Women's Prison around November 2017.

On January 24, 2018, Ms. Liu's family received a call from the prison. They were told that she was on the verge of death and were asked to come and see her at the hospital.

When they rushed to the hospital, Ms. Liu was unable to recognise them. Her back had festered and it was difficult for her to put clothes on.

The doctor told her family that she was suffering from cervical cancer and multiple organ failures. They had no medication that would help cure her but did recommend dialysis to prolong her life.

As her family deliberated on what to do, the police threatened Ms. Liu's sister that they had installed a surveillance camera at her home. They said that if she contacted local Falun Gong practitioners, the police would be at her home in five minutes.

Ultimately, Ms. Liu's family was intimidated by the CCP's implication policy and didn't take her home, but left her in the hands of the prison authorities until she passed away.

Since the suppression of Falun Gong began in 1999, Ms. Liu has been detained several times and held in forced labour camps and brainwashing centres for not renouncing her faith. She lost her job and also had her name removed from the title of her house while she was held in the labour camp.

Ms. Liu was arrested in May 2015 while talking to people about Falun Gong at a bus station. She was detained at Nihe Detention Centre and locked in a spread eagle position on a bed for three days.

Ms. Liu was arrested again and kept at Nihe Detention Centre for a month in February 2016 for filing a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin, the former leader of the Chinese communist regime who ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999.