Elderly Woman Arrested on Her Way to the Grocery Store

Ms. Shi Lanfang, in her 70s, is retired from the Aerospace Technology Institute in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province. On April 23rd, 2009, she was arrested and taken to a brainwashing centre, where she was held for 42 days. This is Ms. Shi's own account of what happened:

"At around 8:00 a.m. on April 23rd, I was about to go grocery shopping when I saw five or six police officers in front of my house. One female officer called out to me and said that she wanted me to accompany her to the community centre to 'have a talk.' I told her that I did not have time. At that point, the police officers dragged me into the car and took me to a place called the 'Law and Order Centre' in Xinjin to try to brainwash me.

"They kept me there from April 23rd through June 3rd, a total of 42 days. A staff member named Yang said that it was wrong for me to tell people about Falun Gong and the persecution, and she told me to write a statement pledging never to do it again. I replied that Falun Gong taught us to be good people and that I could not lie to or cheat people like the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) did. I refused to write the statement. She asked, 'Do you want to go home or not?' I replied, 'Now that you have brought me here, I will tell you the facts, too.'

"She said that if I wanted to go home, I would have to write the statement. I said, 'No. I don't know how, and my eyesight is too poor.' So she wrote a draft, borrowed a pair of reading glasses for me, and told me to read it. I saw that it was a pledge statement. I recalled that I had written three such statements when I was at the brainwashing centre in Hongshun Lodge in 2004, and I remembered how I felt after that. I thought to myself, 'I can never act against my conscience and write such lies again. I cannot hurt myself and others.'

"The next day, Yang came to see me. I told her that I could not write the statement. She said viciously, 'If you don't write it, you won't be permitted to leave your home at night anymore.' Later she handed the draft to an assistant and told her to watch me. The assistant grabbed my hand and and held it as he copied the statement. I said, 'This was written by you, not me. I don't acknowledge it.'

"After that Yang verbally abused me every day. She said that I would be held forever and sent to a forced labour camp or prison, and that I might even be executed. But about a week later, on June 3rd, 2009, I was released, and a colleague from my former company took me home."

Note: Yang's remarks to me were not idle threats. Practitioner Xie Deqing, a retired engineer from the Water Research Bureau of the Chengdu City Land Management Institute in Sichuan Province, was arrested by the CCP police on April 29th, 2009, and jailed in the "Chengdu City Law and Order Centre." As a result of the mistreatment he suffered, he became extremely thin, incontinent, and unable to eat or drink. He also suffered from severe chest pains. Less than a month later, on the evening of May 27th, 2009, he passed away. He had been sent home only four days before.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/7/13/204448.html