Persecution of Elderly Ms. Li Zefen, from Huili County, Sichuan Province

Name: Li Zefen
Gender: Female
Age: 70s
Address: Huili County, Sichuan Province
Occupation: Retired from a brewery in Huili County
Date of Most Recent Arrest: March 28th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Huili County Detention Centre
County: Huili
Province: Sichuan
Persecution Suffered: Detention, home ransacking, forced labour, extortion, interrogation, solitary confinement, forced standing for long periods, torture, brainwashing, beatings, denial of toilet use.

Falun Gong practitioner Li Zefen was distributing leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong at the gate of Dongjie Kindergarten on March 28th, 2011, when she was followed by a man with an unusually large head whose hand was bandaged, and another man wearing black clothes. She was later arrested by Wang Zifa from the National Security Team, along with three other men, and taken to a police station. Police officers Wang Zifa and Wen Xiaohong confiscated her house key. Led by the director of the Square District, these officers, with 16 other people, ransacked Ms. Li's home. She has since been detained at Huili County Detention Centre.

Because Ms. Li practises Falun Gong and has told people the truth about Falun Gong, she has been arrested by police, detained, sent to forced labour camps many times and persecuted for the past ten years.

Ms. Li worked in a brewery in Huili County. Before she began practising Falun Gong, she had many illnesses, including gastroptosis, anaemia, chronic insomnia, and daily bouts of dizziness. She could not see clearly and had difficulty walking. Her lower leg was often cold and painful from poor circulation, and it felt like her bones were soaking in cold water. She spent a lot of time seeing doctors and taking medicine, yet her disease became more and more serious. It was truly difficult for her to get through each day.

In August 1996, Ms. Li began practising Falun Gong. A few months later all her illnesses spontaneously disappeared. At that time, she realised how amazing Falun Gong was. The founder of Falun Gong, Master Li Hongzhi, requires practitioners to follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, cultivate one's moral nature, and be good people. Since she first learned the practice, she has made sure to follow the principles at all times with whatever she is doing.

After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, Ms. Li was arrested by CCP agents several times. She was detained four times and sent to a forced labour camp for one year and three months.

The police went to ransack Ms. Li's home one morning in August 2000. When they didn't find anything, they arrested her. She was held at a detention centre for one month and the police extorted 200 yuan¹ from her.

On January 12th, 2001, several police officers from the local police station went to Ms. Li's home to ransack it. They deceived her by telling her that they wanted to talk to her, but instead took her to the police station. They asked her what she was doing at home. She told them the truth, “Doing some housework, studying the Falun Gong teachings, and doing the exercises.” Therefore, she was once again sent to the detention centre. After she protested by holding a hunger strike for one week, she was released.

Ms. Li went to Dianshaguan to distribute leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong on December 17th, 2004, and she was reported to police and arrested by officers from the local police station the next day. She was later transferred to a detention centre for one month. The police extorted 500 yuan from her family and then released her.

In 2006, Huili County police from the National Security Team used ten yuan as bait to lure children into acting as their “spies” to arrest Ms. Li. Here is the account of what happened: On the morning of November 10th, 2006, Ms. Li's daughter from Nanjiao Village and Ms. Li's neighbour invited several classmates from Xinhua Elementary School to go to Ms. Li's home to get more Falun Gong materials, “Grandma Li, we like Falun Gong bookmarks. We'd like to have some more.” They also asked Ms. Li whether she had some Falun Gong leaflets and said that they wanted to take a look. Ms. Li kindly honoured their requests and got some stools for them to sit on in the yard.

A short while later, two police cars arrived, and several officers from the National Security Team got out, including Yang Shaoliang, Liu Jianping, Guo Jianhua, and others. They broke into Ms. Li's home and ransacked it. They took some pictures and confiscated her personal belongings, including her tape recorder, walker, exercise tapes, Falun Gong bookmarks, and Falun Gong books. They also took receipts from her past three detentions and two receipts from police extortions, totalling 500 yuan (one receipt was for 300 yuan and one was for 200 yuan).

After 3:00 p.m., the police forcibly took Ms. Li to Chengnan Police Station and Liu Jianping interrogated her. At the detention centre, she noticed that the students from the elementary school were also there and that some of them were making phone calls. Police officers were talking to them. At around 6:00 p.m., the police sent the students home. In 2008, when Ms. Li Zefen was released from the forced labour camp, someone told her that on the day she was arrested, the officers from the police station gave each student ten yuan and then took a photo as evidence to arrest Ms. Li. The story they told was that she had stopped seven students from Xinhua Elementary School and asked them to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Young Pioneers. The police station recorded this statement on the forced labour camp paperwork.

On November 2th8, Ms. Li Zefen was sent to Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp in Sichuan Province and was detained there for one year and three months. Guards at Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp coerced criminals to persecute Falun Gong practitioners by telling them that their sentences would be reduced. If the inmates had slight displeasure, they would beat the practitioners and force them to stand for a long time. They denied them use of the toilet, deprived them of sleep, and forced them to work long hours, etc.

Ms. Li was detained in an isolated cell and monitored by two drug addicts. Every moment she was monitored by these inmates. She even had to ask permission to blow her nose. Each day she was allowed to use the toilet only three times. The rest of the time, including eating meals, was spent inside the cell. She was allowed to go to sleep at 2:00 or 3:00 a.m., and was awakened at 5:30 the next morning. She was not allowed to take a nap during the day. From morning to night, she was either sitting on a small stool “like a soldier” or standing up facing the wall “like a soldier.” She was not allowed to move at all. Some practitioners developed blisters on their backsides from sitting for such long periods, and some practitioners' legs became swollen. The inmates later forced practitioners to do labour for over ten hours, which caused them to have back pain.

Ms. Li Zefen and other practitioners were also made to endure brainwashing tactics by the guards and the collaborators², and were humiliated by being forced to write a guarantee statement to renounce practising Falun Gong. Those practitioners who refused to be "transformed," [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] were not allowed to use the toilet. Some practitioners ended up urinating in their trousers.

One time when Ms. Li could not hold it any longer, she asked the two drug addicts, “Don't you need to use the toilet after you eat food?” As a result, the addicts beat her. In order to reduce her toilet use, each day she dared not consume any water or food with liquid, such as soup or porridge, and this made her constipated. On two occasions, she had diarrhoea and could not eat anything. The two drug addicts beat her for this.

In February 2008, Ms. Li was released from Nanmusi Forced Labour Camp. After she arrived home, Zhang Yifen and a person with the surname of Sun from the local police station, along with officers from the Najie office and the Square District, often went to her home to harass her.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

2. "Collaborators" (former practitioners, brainwashed against Falun Gong, made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners)

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/5/20/241184.html