Daughter Arrested, and a Mother Overcome with Grief Passes Away

The mother of Ms. Gao Huijie, a Falun Gong practitioner, passed away on October 22nd, 2009. She was 74. Ms. Gao was arrested on August 21st, 2005, and her mother never got the chance to see her daughter again before her death.

On August 21st, 2005, Ms. Gao was arrested from Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, by a group of individuals claiming to be Beijing police officers. She was detained in the Beijing Police Station. Later on she was transferred to the Dongcheng District Police Station in Beijing. As has already been reported, Ms. Gao Huijie was put on trial in Dongcheng District court in March 2006, but the court didn't tell her family the specific court date. They were told to check on a public notice board in front of Dongcheng District court for the actual date. Her family therefore wasn't able to attend any court hearings. On August 9th, 2006, Ms. Gao was returned to Shenyang City, where she was incarcerated in Liaoning Province Women' Prison.

During her imprisonment, Ms. Gao was not allowed to meet with her mother. When she was brutally beaten and injured by thugs in the prison, and while she was in the hospital for surgery, she asked to see her mother, but her mother was never notified.

Her mother missed her daughter so much that one time she went to the prison by herself, asking to see Gao Huijie. She was led by female prison guards Li Jing and Xia Bing to an empty room with one male guard standing outside. These two asked the old lady, "Is your daughter a good or bad person?" She said, "A good person." Then she asked, "Has my daughter been brutally tortured?" They lied, saying, "No, she's been pretty good." In fact, Ms. Gao had been seriously beaten, injured, and was physically very weak at the time.

The old lady not only didn't get permission to see her daughter, but ended up being unreasonably questioned, causing so much mental anguish that after returning home she wasn't able to sleep that night and stayed awake weeping.

On September 18th, 2007, the prison rejected the request Ms. Gao's folks made to see her. On September 19th, a section chief in the prison said rudely, "For a married woman, only the husband and children are considered direct next of kin, mothers are not included." Later she continued, "Parents and sisters may be permitted to visit if they can convince her to be "reformed" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong]". The old lady tried to see her daughter many more times afterwards, without success, before she died of a serious illness.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/11/25/213286.html