Two 68 Year-Old Women Imprisoned for Three Years in Yueyang City, Hunan Province

Sixty-eight-year-old Falun Gong practitioners Liu Bilian and Cai Fengjiao are residents of Yueyang City, Hunan Province. In March 2004, they were both arrested and detained in the Huarong Detention Centre for four months. They were sentenced to Changsha City Women's Prison. More details follow:

On the afternoon of March 17th, 2004, the two women were reported while distributing leaflets exposing the persecution in Tongfu Village, Chaqi Township, Huarong County. They were detained in the Chaqi local police station. The policemen asked them from where they got the materials. Refusing to cooperate with the police, Liu Bilian started to meditate. The police violently beat her feet.

In the evening, the two were transferred to the Huarong County Detention Centre. On their way there, Ms. Liu shouted, "Falun Gong is good." Whenever, the police vehicle stopped, she would tell people how practitioners were tortured. The officers tried to stop her.

In the Huarong Detention Centre, the guards hit Ms. Liu and complained that she walked too slowly. When the two practised the Falun Gong exercises, the guards slapped their faces. Because they refused to wear the prison clothes, the guards handcuffed them behind their backs for a whole day. The next day, when the prison head came to unlock the handcuffs, he said, "I couldn't fall asleep the entire night because of a bad headache." Ms. Liu told him, "Falun Gong practitioners follow 'Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance' to be good people. Because you handcuffed good people, your head ached." She went on to explain the facts about Falun Gong to him.

Four months later, Ms. Liu was sentenced to three years, and Cai Fengjiao was sentenced to three and a half years. They were both transferred to the Changsha City Women's Prison.

The first day there, a prison guard instigated criminal inmates to drag Ms. Liu up to the fourth floor. She was forced to do odd jobs such as putting dried tofu onto sticks, making plastic flowers, etc. If she could not finish her quota for that day, the guards would not let her rest.

Ms. Liu did not give up her faith. She was once reported for practising the Falun Gong exercises. After that, the guards made her go to the "Education Field," and made her stand for four hours before she could go to sleep. Ms. Liu refused to stand. She sat down and started to practice the exercises again right in front of the guards. The guards threatened, "If you do them again tonight, we'll tie your feet to the bed board." Ms. Liu still would not cooperate.

The next day, the guards told Ms. Liu that if she did the exercises again, she would be put in solitary confinement. Not being intimidated, Ms. Liu continued to do the practice. The guards sent someone with the last name of Chen to try to persuade her. Chen said that the guards told her that Ms. Liu would be put in solitary confinement. Staying firm, Ms. Liu said, "I did not violate any law. I am a cultivator of 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.' To imprison me is illegal, hence I must practise the exercises. It is my faith." The guards said, "Do you know where you are right now?" Ms. Liu replied, "I don't care what this place it is. I must do what a Falun Gong practitioner should do." After returning to her cell that night, she continued practising.

On the third day, the guard took her to an office with seven guards. They told Ms. Liu to stand still, but she sat to meditate. The guards got very angry and yelled, "How dare you practise here?" Ms. Liu replied, "I can practise everywhere. I have not done anything wrong. Why shouldn't I practise this magnificent exercise?" Confused, the guards moved her to another cell. (The one she was in before had six other practitioners. The guards were afraid that she might lead the others to resist the persecution.) The guards also quickly passed by her cell, not wanting to see her doing the exercises.

In addition, the guards ordered her to renounce Falun Gong. She firmly refused to write the guarantee statement to stop practising. Hence the guards ordered Wu Xiang, a criminal inmate who was sandwiching Ms. Liu, to press her fingers on the paper taking her fingerprints. They bruised her fingers, but she firmly resisted writing anything.

With her help, another practitioner, Liu Qin, also started to practise. When the guards tortured her, Liu Qin started a hunger strike. Eventually, the guards took her to the hospital where they injected her with a drug that caused Ms. Liu to become mentally disoriented.

Ms. Liu had a Falun Gong badge on a new jacket. The guards confiscated both the jacket and the badge. To get the badge back, she started a hunger strike for three days. The guards lied that they would return the badge to her when she will be released. However, when she asked for it before she went home, the guards pushed her out of the prison gate. The village cadres and her family members waiting outside were all witnesses to the scene.

This is an account of the brutal treatment of a 68-year-old female practitioner. For three years--more than one thousand days and nights--she was imprisoned just because she told people the facts about Falun Gong. Upon her release, she was 71 years old. An old lady was imprisoned in the Changsha City Women's Prison and subjected to all kinds of torture simply because she is a Falun Gong practitioner. Think about it. Why do practitioners endure immense suffering? They do so because they hope that people will learn the truth that Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance is good so that they will all have a bright future.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/3/13/174252.html