Ms. Li Nianchun, a Retired Manager, Persecuted in Yueyang City, Hunan Province

Ms. Li Nianchun, who is 70, is a retired manager of Junshan District Export and Trade Company in Yueyang City, Hunan Province. When the persecution of Falun Gong began, she was the victim of many forms of persecution. Most recently she served seven years in the Hunan Province Women's Prison.

Ms. Li went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in October 1999, and stood together with other practitioners from Yueyang City. One of the practitioners who was deceived by the police reported on the group, which resulted in their arrests.

Yu Zhihe and Zhao Wenhua from the Junshan District Domestic Security Division went to Beijing to seize her and confiscated 400 yuan¹ in cash from her. After taking her back to Yueyang, they kept her captive at the Huarong Detention Centre. They didn't release her until she was in critical condition from her hunger strike. Moreover, they extorted 3,000 yuan from her husband and withdrew 4,000 yuan from her salary account.

More than 20 practitioners including Ms. Li Nianchun were practising the Falun Gong exercises outside a repair shop on March 2nd, 2000, when Jiang Renwu and Deng Hongqiu from Cengshan Police Station, together with agents from Cengshan 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), arrested them and took them to Yueyang City Women's Correction Centre. Not long after, Ms. Li was transferred to Linxiang City Detention Centre. Upon arrival, the guards searched her and whipped her with bamboo boards. Witnessing this, some detainees even cried, fearing that she might be beaten to death. After the beating, the guards had people handcuff her behind her back. She went on a hunger strike to protest. By the time the guards removed the handcuffs, they had cut deeply into her flesh and her wrists were bleeding. Her hands were so swollen that she was unable to make a fist. Ten days later, Yu Zhihe and Zhao Wenhua took her back to Yueyang City Women's Correction Centre, where the detained practitioners decided to go on a group hunger strike. The guards reluctantly released those who were in critical condition, which included Ms. Li. Again, the police in the Junshan District extorted a large amount of money from her husband, who even today has never revealed to his wife how much money was extorted from him during the past several years.

Li Nianchun and her husband were visiting a relative on May 17th, 2000, when Yu Zhihe and Zhao Wenhua followed her there and seized her. They held her at Yueyang City Detention Centre for more than 30 days. She wasn't released until after four days into her hunger strike.

Yu Zhihe and Zhao Wenhua, as well as Li Qiliang, Deng Hongqiu, and Jiang Renwu, broke into her home on October 10th, 2000. They dragged her all the way from the third floor apartment to the first floor and then carried her into a police vehicle. That night they kept her at Huarong Detention Centre. A total of seven people, including Yu Zhihe, a person surnamed Li from Yueyang City 610 Office, and several others from Junshan District 610 Office, interrogated her for three days and two nights. She wasn't allowed to sleep and had to sit on a cold stone bench while they sat by a fireplace.

A few judges from Junshan District Court and Yu Zhihe informed Ms. Li and practitioner Ms. Lu Yuanxiu in March 2001 that they were going to be tried in Junshan District Court. However, the actual trial took place in a dark room in a small alley in Huarong. They sentenced Ms. Li to seven years and sent her to the Hunan Women's Prison in late 2001. Guard Xue Fang handcuffed her and locked her up in a solitary confinement cell. She wasn't released until after eight days of being on hunger strike. To this day there are still visible marks on her hands. Afterward, Xue Fang kept her in a strictly controlled team for more than two months.

While at the prison, Ms. Li was also made to do hard labour with a workload 3-4 times that of non-practitioner detainees.

During her seven years of detention, Junshan District 610 Office ordered her workplace to suspend her salary and not give her any pay raises.

Note

1. "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/2010/9/26/230177.html