Name: Yang Guifang
Gender: Female
Age: 46
Address: Gucheng County, Hebei Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: January 25th, 2008
Most recent place of detention: Hohhot Women's Labour Camp, Inner Mongolia
City: Hohhot
Province: Inner Mongolia
Persecution Suffered: Detention, home ransacked, forced labour reform, brainwashing, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, forced labour.
Falun Gong practitioner Yang Guifang and her family live in Beijing. They make their living as labourers. From January 23rd-25th, 2008, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) personnel in Beijing suddenly arrested over 40 practitioners. Yang Guifang and her oldest daughter Liu Yan were arrested by policemen from Beijing's Dongcheng District Public Security Bureau. They were held for two months in Beijing and were sentenced to a labour camp. Yang was sentenced to two and a half years, and her daughter was sentenced to two years. They were then transferred to the Hohhot Women's Labour Camp in Inner Mongolia.
Yang Guifang had breast cancer before she started practising Falun Gong and was dying. She was very fortunate to learn Falun Gong and after three months, her cancer disappeared and she regained her health.
In order to expose the CCP's lies, Yang Guifang went to her hometown village to pass out informational materials about Falun Gong, and was arrested by policemen from the Wuguanzai Town Police Station in Gucheng County and the County Public Security Bureau. She was held in the Gucheng County Detention Centre for seven months. While there, she developed severe illnesses and had scabies all over her body. The detention centre authorities were afraid that she was contagious and released her. While she was in detention, her 70-year-old mother and two young daughters were on their own and had no financial support at all.
Arrested in Beijing
In June 2007, a healthy Yang Guifang took her two daughters to join her husband in Beijing. On January 24th, 2008, her daughters, who worked in a company in Beijing, were suddenly taken away by policemen from the Public Security Bureau from Dongcheng District. The next day, shortly after midnight, Yang and her husband were awoken when they suddenly heard their youngest daughter knock at their door. As soon as they opened the door, five policemen broke in. Three policemen held the family while the other two searched the home. They turned the house upside down, but still found nothing. They then took Yang Guifang away. Her husband attempted to stop them, and they almost took him as well. Ms. Yang's family learned that the police had deceived their youngest daughter and followed her to find where they lived. After the police arrested their daughters, the police told the younger one, who was just seventeen, “Here is 20 yuan1, you can go home.” The police then followed the girl home.
Yang Guifang and her older daughter Liu Yan were held in the Beijing Qinghe Detention Centre for 34 days. On February 28th, 2007, they were transferred to a transitional facility for another month. At the end of March, they were transferred to the Hohhot Women's Labour Camp in Inner Mongolia.
At the same time, Liu Yan, along with several dozen practitioners, were given various sentences. Liu Yan was sentenced to two years and was also transferred to the Hohhot Women's Labour Camp in Inner Mongolia.
Persecution Suffered in the Hohhot Women's Labour Camp in Inner Mongolia
The next day after they arrived in the labour camp, the guard forced the two to write a “Guarantee Statement” to renounce practising Falun Gong. They also ordered inmates to watch each practitioner day and night and try to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] them. If the practitioners refused to be “transformed”, they would be held in solitary confinement, be forced to stand for days and were subjected to beatings. They used electric batons and tied them down with rope. Those who started hunger strikes were force-fed. Yang Guifang was held in solitary confinement for 15 days and deprived of sleep. The guards named Chang Hong, Huang Xuhong and Wang Dongyun threatened her, saying, “If you still refuse to write statements, there are electric batons, police clubs and a sentence extension waiting for you.”
In the meantime, they also tortured practitioners Liang Lifen, Yang Liping, Song Jiaping, Kang Dongqing and Zhao Yan. They were all deprived of sleep. The inmates would beat them as soon as they dozed off. Liang Lifen and Zhao Yan were tortured for 22 days. Their arms and legs were tied to a stand and they also tied the electric batons to their arms and in between their legs. They extended Liang Lifen and Song Jiaping's sentence by four additional months. Others were extended from half a month to two months.
On July 20th, 2009, all of the practitioners went on a hunger strike for a day. They also stopped working for one day, protesting against the new round of persecution.
Practitioners are forced to perform labour, including working on electric units, making disposable chopsticks, washing dishes, knitting gloves, making leather gloves, knitting sweaters, sewing pockets, making covers for wine bottles, knitting scarfs and making paper flowers. They are forced to work over ten hours a day and if they do not finish an assignment, they are forced to work longer hours. Yang Guifang was working on electronic units and her wrist became swollen, deformed and blistered.
On their way to work, practitioners were forced to sing songs to praise the CCP. If they refused to sing, they would be subjected to cursing or standing for long periods of time. On February 3rd, 2010, the Falun Gong group was forced to stand for half an hour. On March 2nd, 2010, it had just snowed and the weather was very cold. The guard forced Liu Yan, Yan Meiqing, and An Ping to stand in the snow for 20 minutes. Practitioner Dong Shirong, 63, shouted, “Falun Gong is good”and was tortured for four straight days in confinement. The guards Yuan Mengqin and Dan Na slapped her face, pinched her neck and forced her to write repentance statements. In March of 2009, Falun Gong practitioner Wang Guihong refused to write a “guarantee statement” not to practise Falun Gong. The guards instigated inmates to beat her to the ground and step on her neck. They did not stop until she passed out.
Practitioners were forced to work for long hours, and they were fed mouldy or spoiled food. During the Dragon Boat Festival (falling on the fifth day of the fifth lunar month), they were fed mouldy tofu, causing massive food poisoning. 80% of people had diarrhoea and stomach cramping. Yang Guifang had diarrhoea seven to eight times that day, and many people could not get up the next day. The situation was reported to guard Peng Yumei, who was afraid to take responsibility and threatened the practitioners, “Nobody reveal that the tofu caused the diarrhoea. Anyone caught doing this will have their sentence extended.”
The Falun Gong practitioners held there suffered both mental and physical persecution. The guards often extorted money from them in the name of a donation for a natural disaster. The crimes committed in the labour camp happen constantly. Each practitioner carries scars upon scars on their bodies and have developed all sorts of illnesses. When Yang Guifang and her daughter came home, they were mere skeletons. Both of their hands were deformed and Yang Guifang's legs were covered with scabies. They have been home for several months now, but they have still not recovered.
Related article:
http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/9/26/120260.html
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/2010/12/18/233818.html
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