Assistant Professor Imprisoned for Three Years

Name: Yang Yongping
Gender: Female
Age: 50
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Assistant Professor
Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 11th, 2002
Most recent place of detention: Heilongjiang Provincial Women's Prison
City: Harbin City
Province: Heilongjiang Province
Persecution Suffered: Detention, imprisonment, beatings, brainwashing, torture, forced labour, fired from workplace

In 2002, Ms. Yang Yongping was sentenced to a three-year prison term in the Heilongjiang Provincial Women's Prison, where she was persecuted because of her Falun Gong practice. After being released from prison, she was fired by her university. Ms. Yang can now barely make ends meet. Below is her statement.

I started cultivating Falun Gong in April 1995. Before I started cultivation practice, I had a serious illness although I was not even 40 years old. After my lung was removed through surgery, I became extremely weak. I was not able to do regular housework and could not fulfil my normal teaching duties. I was fortunate to start Falun Gong cultivation practice. The power and magnificence of Falun Gong renewed my life and I was full of vigour.

After the persecution of Falun Gong started in July 1999, one day in April 2000, Wang Ming and Wang Yuchen from Campus Security went to my home and took me to the Xiangyang Division of the Public Security Bureau in Jiamusi City. They did not allow me to return home until after 9:00 p.m. They talked to me only about whether I would keep practising Falun Gong.

At around 4:00 p.m. on June 20th, 2000, Wang Ming went to my home again. He took me to the Xiangyang Division again with the excuse of getting information about my current situation. After Liu Tiejun and Cui Rongli talked to me, I was detained there for 15 days. After I was released, Jimusi University demoted me from the position of the director for the Office of Teaching and Research. In addition, they confiscated my bonus.

On January 28th, 2002, while I was teaching a class for the Hejiang region teacher training session, I mentioned that I cultivate Falun Gong. A student reported this to the university vice president, Qu Fengyu. In the March 2002, the university terminated my teaching position.

At about 8:00 p.m. on April 11th, 2002, a young man from Campus Security led four plainclothes police officers from the Xiangyang Division of the Jiamusi Public Security Bureau--including Zheng Baoxin, Wei Wei, and Xia Jinghuai--to break into my house. After searching my home, they took me away to the Jiamusi Detention Centre and detained there me for 15 days (I still have the detention ticket signed by the security bureau chief officer Wang.). Wan Liansheng from the Xiangyan Division and Wangming and Han Zhiling from Jiamusi University were also involved in persecuting me.

On April 13th, 2002, before interrogating me, Zheng Baoxin and Weiwei said to me, "As long as you say that you will quit practising Falun Gong, we can immediately go to a restaurant and I will release you after treating you to dinner." I was not moved by them. After a while Zheng said, "From now on, you are detained as a criminal." I asked why. He replied, "There is no reason." On May 16th, they d dressed up in a uniform and announced a so-called "order to arrest" and ordered me to sign it. I refused and rebuked them.

The Xiangyang Court gave me a notice saying I was allowed to have my own attorney. After I told them that I would like to hire a particular attorney, two officials from the Xiangyang Procuratorate, Tang and Zhang, secretively prevented the attorney from being involved in the case.

On June 4th, 2002, the Xiangyang Court in Jiamusi City opened. The judge was Han Weixing, the other officials were Yu Xuejun and Zhang Haiyan, and the clerk was Ji Zhong. About a dozen people, apparently personnel from Judicial and Public Security organisations, sat in on my hearing. During a break, Han Weixing said, "She is a university professor. Since she takes [the founder of Falun Gong] Li Hongzhi as her teacher, why not sentence her?" Therefore, three days later, on June 7th, the Xiangyang Court sentenced me to three years in prison. On September 4th, I was imprisoned in the Heilongjiang Women's Prison.

At about 11:00 a.m. on September 4th, 2002, I was forced to transfer to the Heilongjiang Women's Prison along with practitioners Bian Fenglan, Xun Lishan, and Dong Lingui. Because we did not acknowledge that we were criminals, policewoman Wang Yanli slapped us with a magazine over ten times and then punished us further by forcing us to squat until after 6:00 p.m. Each of us was then watched by two guards who tried to force us into renouncing Falun Gong. If we did not conform to their demands, we would be "punished" with forced squatting, tortured in small cells, subjected to brainwashing, and forced to attend "training sessions" for the entire day.

Beginning in February 2003, we were forced to do hard labour for at least 14 hours each day. The Chinese Communist Party intensified the persecution by giving the prison money to build new buildings, and forced the prisoners to eat and live in the factory production room. At that time, in the prison section where I was held, over 200 people lived in a 2,153-square-foot production room. Each person only had a bed space a little wider than a foot and a small place to stand to eat. We had to sleep face to face. That time was during the peak of the SARS episode. We had to get up at 5:00 a.m., go to work at 5:30 a.m., and do forced labour until after 10:00 p.m. We were allowed only a few minutes to have meals. In such a harsh environment, a dozen practitioners went on a labour strike and hunger strikes to protest. I was imprisoned in a small cell, handcuffed with my hands behind my back, and my feet were chained to the ground.

In the same year, we went on a work and hunger strike twice to protest. The guards then forced us to squat for a long time. In December, they dragged us outside to stand in the snow from 8:00 a.m. to after 4:00 p.m. without warm clothing, and we were not allowed to move a bit. Some practitioners were forced to lie on their stomachs on a hill of snow. The hands of some practitioners were frozen dark, some had blisters and were swollen, and some fainted in the cold. If anyone could not stand still and moved around, the police ordered the inmates to beat them. At night after we returned to the cell, we were continually punished by being forced to sit on a small bench until after 2:00 a.m. If we did not conform to the authorities' demands, we were sent to a small isolation cell to be tortured and brutally beaten. When we were forced to sit on the small bench late into the night, if we felt sleepy and closed our eyes, they used a thin stick to poke our eyelids and nostrils to keep us from falling asleep.

Some of us were pulled out to run without stopping from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. We were beaten if we stopped, and were not allowed to use the toilet.

When I was sentenced to a three-year term, my child had not yet turned 17 years old. Struck by such a sudden trauma, during the three long years without a mother's love and care, my child developed a serious kidney disease, which later developed into uraemia. My child had to have dialysis for two years just to stay alive.

After I was released in April 2005, Jiamusi University fired me. I clarified the truth to the university president, the human resource director, the director of the 610 Office, the party secretaries of the Discipline Inspection Committee, and the party secretaries of the Chemistry and Medical schools almost 100 times. I talked about the rationality of my returning to work. Finally, they agreed that I could work temporarily as a janitor in the university history museum. The salary is only 700 yuan and I can now hardly make ends meet. My life is very hard. I am currently in the process of an appeal.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/11/8/212125.html