Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Yi Xianmei Still Suffering Hardship Following Release from Three Years of Forced Labour

Ms. Yi Xianmei returned home on April 20th, 2007 after serving three years of forced labour. She has suffered severe physical abuse and mental pressure due to persecution. Even now, her limbs are often in pain, itch and feel numb. When she has heartburn she vomits frequently and cannot seem to stop. Her entire family continues to struggle to make a living.

Ms. Yi Xianmei was persecuted for eight years. The local police and 610 Office¹ agents demanded a large amount of extortion money from her. She had no income for two years and four months, from September 2002 to January 2003, and from June 2004 to March 2007, because her employers refused to pay her. They eventually resumed payment in April 2007, but the credit union withheld her wages to pay her loans and also deducted her daughter's monthly college expenses from her wages. So the family still didn't get any money from her wages. Her husband's wages were initially withheld by the credit union and he also had to pay other debts, including high interest rates. Loan sharks were after them, and the family could not live in peace.

We have heard that agents from the local 610 Office and police station are planning to further persecute Ms. Yi. Her mother-in-law, in her seventies, is so worried that doesn't eat well and hardly sleeps.

Ms. Yi Xianmei used to teach at the Tangwan Elementary School in Hongjiang City in the Huaihua Region of Hunan Province. Her civil rights were taken from her after July 20th, 1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong began, simply because she practises Falun Gong.

Officials incarcerated Ms. Yi on July 22nd, 1999 in the Hongjiang City Detention Centre. The police eventually learned that she was pregnant. The police officials forced her family to pay a 4,000 yuan² fine and then forced her to have an abortion regardless of her weak condition. She had not eaten for five days. On August 27th, 2001, the local 610 Office official, along with personnel from the City Education Bureau, demanded that Ms. Yi write a so-called guarantee statement promising to give up Falun Gong, and pay 6,000 yuan as "guarantee money." She decided to leave home to avoid further persecution. During this time her husband lost his teaching job. City 610 Office agents and the town political and judiciary head compelled him to look for his wife. They even made the family pay all the expenses for hiring people to search for Ms. Yi.

Between July 5th, 2002 and December 2nd, 2002, city 610 Office agents held Ms. Yi in detention. She had heart problems, which led her to becoming comatose. The police rushed her to the People's Hospital, but her condition did not improve, so they notified the family and she later returned home.

Ms. Yi was arrested during the evening of June 7th, 2004. Participating in the arrest were agents from the city 610 Office, Tangwan Town police station and elementary school officials. Ms. Yi was transferred to the Baimalong Forced Labour Camp to serve a three-year term. While there, her physical condition deteriorated. She became comatose three times. She lost too much blood during her periods and also developed a rash. Her ankles swelled. She was paralysed several times and developed irregular heart pain along with frequent vomiting, and had trouble breathing due to the heart pain. The agents injected her with unknown substances while she was in a coma. This caused her to have blurred vision. Her family was under persecution as well. To make a living, her husband decided to borrow money at high interest in order to pay their daughter's college expenses. Their daughter was once prevented from entering the dorm because she did not have money to pay the tuition. Ms. Yi's husband was abducted and abused by people who had lent him money at high interest rates.

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

2. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/11/27/167287.html