Elderly Associate Professor at Yanbian University, Ms. Xu Xianzi, Dies as a Result of Persecution

Name: Xu Xianzi
Gender: Female
Age: About 70
Address: Yanji City, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province
Occupation: Associate professor at Yanbian University in Jilin Province
Date of Death: October 4th, 2007
Date of Most Recent Arrest: February 2000
Most Recent Place of Detention: Yanji Detention Centre
City: Yanji
Province: Jilin
Persecution Suffered: Forced labour, brainwashing, imprisonment, home ransacking, interrogation, detention.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Xu Xianzi passed away on October 4th, 2007, due to long-term persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Ms. Xu Xianzi, about 70, was a Korean ethnic minority in Yanji City, and worked as an associate professor in Yanbian University’s English Department. Prior to practising Falun Gong, she had a difficult life. Her father died when she was a child and she struggled after her mother remarried. Upon growing up, she didn't have a happy married life. After her eldest daughter died from illness, she developed a mental disorder and even contemplated suicide.

In August 1994, she attended a Falun Gong class held in Yanji. From Falun Gong lectures, she began to understand the meaning of life and gained the courage to live on. She has since followed the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance as her guide in life. She tried hard to cultivate away her mentality of fighting and getting angry with others. Her colleagues saw the huge physical and psychological changes in her, and as a result some began Falun Gong cultivation themselves.

After July 1999, when the CCP started persecuting Falun Gong, Ms. Xu Xianzi began to suffer unceasing adversity.

Because Ms. Xu Xianzi persisted in practising Falun Gong, the CCP in Yanbian denounced her in a large group meeting and she was expelled from the party. In February 2000, she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and was arrested and sent back to the Yanji City Detention Centre by police officer Song Zhekui, the party secretary of Yanbian University, and security staff. They detained her for fifteen days.

The police subsequently often went to her home to harass her family, ransack her home, and keep surveillance on her. They sent her to a brainwashing centre and forced labour camp to persecute her. Even after her retirement, in order to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] her, the leaders at Yanbian University often went to her home to harass her. Provincial officials sent people to live in her home in an attempt to “transform” her. Especially on the “sensitive days,” they would come to harass and intimidate her.

Under such long-term persecution, Xu Xianzi had great difficulty in managing her daily life. She became depressed, fell ill, and died on October 4th, 2007.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/1/22/35155.html