Belated News: Two Heilongjiang Residents Pass Away After Years of Persecution for Their Faith

It was recently confirmed by Minghui.org that two Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province residents passed away in 2018 and 2019, respectively, as a result of the persecution of their faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been targeted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Liu Jinghua
A group of officers went to Ms. Liu Jinghua’s home on September 5, 2017, after suspecting she had been involved in hanging up a banner that said “Falun Dafa is good” at a plaza in January 2017.

Ms. Liu wasn’t home at the time, so the police asked for her husband’s and neighbors’ phone numbers. After the police came back to harass Ms. Liu on February 2, 2018, she decided to live away from home to avoid further harassment.

After suffering several months of displacement alone, Ms. Liu was found dead in a rental place in late 2018. She was 56.

Ms. Liu Guiyun
Before Ms. Liu Guiyun started to practice Falun Gong in 1998, she struggled to get over the murder of her teenage daughter by a thug. Seeing that she was grief-stricken, her neighbor introduced Falun Gong to her. The teachings of Falun Gong helped her understand the karmic relationship of worldly things and gave her the strength to move on in life.

After the communist regime started the persecution of Falun Gong, Ms. Liu went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong on April 26, 2000. Before she reached the national appeals office, she was arrested by a plainclothes officer. After three days of detention, she was taken back to Heilongjiang and put into a detention facility in Harbin. Nineteen days later, she was transferred to a senior center and held there for one more week.

During her detention, the police first extorted 2,000 yuan from her family to cover the police’s travel expenses to Beijing and then another 2,000 yuan to cover her meals while detained.

Ms. Liu was arrested again on May 23, 2003 after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. She was held in the police station for a few hours and the police extorted 5,000 yuan from her brother in exchange for her release.

A group of village officials broke into Ms. Liu’s home on February 28, 2004 while she was cooking. They ransacked her place and confiscated her Falun Gong books. She was held at the Shuangcheng Detention Center for 12 days, before being transferred to the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp to serve a 1.5-year term.

Ms. Liu once recalled the torture she suffered in the labor camp. She said, “All newly admitted Falun Gong practitioners were first held at the training ward. I was ordered to run in laps from morning to evening, with a short break at noon. If I was too exhausted to continue running, the guards would whip me.

“After I was transferred to the regular ward, I was forced to make chopsticks from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. We were all given quotas. They wouldn’t allow us to sleep if we didn’t finish our quota.

“Because I did the Falun Gong exercises, the guards beat me with a stick, to the point that I could no longer move. I was also held in solitary confinement and forced to sit on a small stool without moving, while watching propaganda videos attacking Falun Gong. If I didn’t follow their rules, they beat and verbally abused me.

“Every day, we were forced to hold up a fist and condemn Falun Gong and our teacher three times. They also beat us if we didn’t comply. Being forced to do this caused me tremendous mental pressure. My health deteriorated quickly. I felt very weak and didn’t feel like eating. I soon became emaciated. Fearing that I would die in the labor camp, the guards released me ahead of time.”

Ms. Liu’s health continued to decline after she was released. She had trouble walking and couldn’t keep food down. After she resumed practicing Falun Gong, she gradually recovered. In 2019, she began to experience serious symptoms again. She couldn’t eat and kept coughing. A checkup in the hospital indicated that she had tuberculosis. In the last few months of her life, she was bedridden, incapacitated and mentally disoriented. She passed away in November 2019, at the age of 64.