Tortured to Disability, Ms. Yang Guixia Is Still Subjected to Persecution

Name: Yang Guixia
Gender: Female
Age: 56
Address: Section 9, Dongfengxin Village, Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: March 2nd, 2011
Most recent place of detention: No. 1 Detention Centre in Daqing
City: Daqing
Province: Heilongjiang
Persecution Suffered: Detention, forced labour, ransacked home, extortion.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Yang Guixiang experienced severe torture resulting in disabilities at the Harbin Rehabilitation Centre in 2002. She was recently arrested again for distributing Falun Gong materials on March 2nd, 2011. She has been detained at the No. 1 Detention Centre in Daqing for 20 days.

When Ms. Yang Guixiang was posting materials about the persecution of Falun Gong in her neighbourhood, she was reported to the local police on March 2nd. Ten police officers from the Dongfeng Police Office and the Gaoxin District Police Station in Daqing arrested her and ransacked her home. They confiscated her computer, two printers, a bank book with 2,200 yuan¹, Falun Gong books and materials, and other personal belongings. The police also arrested her daughter who was home at the time. Ms. Yang's family has managed to get her daughter and the bank book back by paying extortion money to the police. Gaoxin District Police Station however, is planning to prosecute Ms. Yang for the Falun Gong materials found in her home.

Ms. Yang has had many struggles in her life. Her older daughter died in 1992 at age 12 in a car accident. She suffered from serious depression over losing her daughter, and her health severely declined. She was diagnosed with hysteromyoma and hyperthyroidism. Two tumours developed on her neck, which caused heart failure. After several years of western medical treatment which was ineffective, she was introduced to Falun Gong. She had been illiterate, but was nonetheless able to read the entire Falun Gong, book Zhuan Falun, after practising Falun Gong for a period of time. The teachings of Falun Gong opened her up to the meaning of life, and she was able to get over the bereavement of her deceased daughter. Ms. Yang gradually regained her mental and physical health by practising Falun Gong, and the two tumours eventually disappeared.

Ms. Yang was sentenced to two years of imprisonment in 2002 for practising Falun Gong. In the Harbin Rehabilitation Centre, she was forced to write statements renouncing her belief. Within a year in the centre, she developed multiple syndromes and disabilities caused by torture, including numb muscles, cramps, scabies, facial paralysis, poor eyesight, deformed legs resulting in her loss of walking ability, swallowing difficulty, and incontinence. She had lost 20 kilograms (44 lbs.) by the time her family picked her up in August 2003. Her husband then left her in a hospital, waiting for her to die upon learning the doctor's diagnosis of fatal brain disease. Some relatives didn't give up on Ms. Yang, and they brought her home and played Falun Gong audio lectures for her. She recovered miraculously. Her eyesight was regained, and she could eat and swallow food, walk slowly, and conduct basic daily activities.

Because of a lack of a normal group practice environment, like that of the period before the persecution began, Ms. Yang has not had the opportunity to practise Falun Gong regularly and sufficiently. With the mental pressure caused by the persecution, she has been unable to fully recover. Falun Gong has helped her to become healthy, but the persecution has turned her into a person with a disability.

Since her husband passed away in 2007, Ms. Yang had been living with her young daughter on minimal social assistance. Before her recent arrest, she had been trying to let more people know about the persecution.

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/2011/3/22/37944.html