Healed of Cancer through Practising Falun Gong, 59-Year-Old Ms. Li Ruihua Repeatedly Persecuted for Her Belief

Name: Li Ruihua
Gender: Female
Age: 59
Address: Xifeng District Cement Factory Family Compound, Qingyang City, Gansu Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: October 2002
Most Recent Place of Detention: Jiuzhou Development Zone Women's Prison
City: Qingyang
Province: Gansu
Persecution Suffered: Forced labour, brainwashing, imprisonment, torture, harassment, home ransacking

Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Li Ruihua resided in the Xifeng District, Qingyang City, Gangsu Province. More than a dozen policemen from the Xifeng District Domestic Security Division surrounded her residence on the afternoon on June 29th. They used electric drills to get through her burglar-proof door and the lock on the metal gate. When they had gained access and found out that Ms. Li was not there, the police arrested her husband, Kou Chuangjin, a former cadre at the Qingyang City Bureau of Commerce. Ms. Li has decided to become homeless to avoid arrest.

Long-term illnesses, including cancer, miraculously disappeared

Ms. Li began Falun Gong cultivation in 1996. Before that she suffered from numerous illnesses including migraine headaches, heart problems, and arthritis. In 1995, she was diagnosed with breast cancer at the Number 4 Military Hospital in Xian City, Shanxi Province.

Li Ruihua and several of her colleagues had practised another kind of qigong together before. Her colleagues told her in March 1996 that Falun Gong was good, and they lent her a copy of the Falun Gong book Zhuan Falun to read. After reading Zhuan Falun, her husband told her that Falun Gong was really good, and encouraged her to learn it right away.

After practising for merely a month Ms. Li could feel that her body was light when she walked, and less than two months later, the lumps in her breasts disappeared. In addition, the other illnesses that had bothered her for dozens of years also vanished. Everybody in her family and all her relatives and friends were very happy for her.

Arrested numerous times for being steadfast in cultivation

Since the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20th, 1999, agent Wang Zhen from the Nanjie Police Station and his gang frequently harassed Li Ruihua at her residence. Ms. Li went to Beijing to appeal for justice.

As soon as she got home, her husband told her that Wang Zhen had ordered her to report to the police station. When she got to the station she was detained for 30 days. Seven days after her release she prepared to hold an experience-sharing meeting with other practitioners. She was again arrested and detained for ten days, followed by a third arrest soon after. This time she was held in the Xifeng District Detention Centre for 38 days.

Wang Zhen incarcerated Ms. Li for the fourth time in the Xifeng District Drug Rehabilitation Centre for 15 days. During this time, Xifeng District Domestic Security Section officer Fu Yukui held two “public sentencing assemblies.” The first one was held in a Xifeng District Hostel where Fu Yukui sentenced Falun Gong practitioners. The event was broadcast live on TV. The second sentencing assembly was held in the Xifeng District Xiaojin Theatre. After Fu Yukui publicly sentenced the practitioners, he also made sure that the practitioners would be paraded through the streets, to be humiliated. After that he announced that the five practitioners, including Ms. Li, were each given a one-year sentence.

Forced labour

Ms. Li Ruihua was sentenced to forced labour on April 9th, 2000, and locked up in Pingantai Women’s Forced Labour Camp in Gansu Province. She was forced to to hard labour; other times, she was forced to stand still for long periods of time or hung upside down. The tortures and abuse left her emaciated, and she could barely walk.

While she was in the labour camp, Division 1 head Gu Yanling often talked to Ms. Li deep into the night. Because she refused to renounce Falun Gong, political head Jing Xuefeng and guard Wang Yali went all the way from Lanzhou to Qingyang to order her husband and other family members to help “reform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] her. They said, “If she still refuses 'reform,' we’ll extend her term.” Ms. Li’s husband firmly told them, “It’s illegal to extend her term.” They finally had to release her on time.

After Ms. Li returned home, agents from the local police station frequently went to her home to talk to her. Ms. Li thus decided in late 2000 to leave her home to avoid the ongoing harassment.

When her daughter Kou Juanjuan’s illness worsened in August 2002, Ms. Li returned home and stayed for two months. An officer surnamed Huang from the Heshui County Police Department and Zheng Xiang from the Xifeng City Domestic Security Section took turns going to her residence to monitor her.

Sentenced to prison

The same officer, Huang, lied to Ms. Li’s younger brother on the phone on October 8th, 2002, saying that they needed Ms. Li to go to the police department to take care of some paperwork. As soon as Ms. Li and her younger brother got there, the police arrested her and immediately locked her up in Qingcheng County Detention Centre. She was later transferred to the Heshui County Detention Centre. Later, she was given a three-year sentence.

Ms. Li was transferred to the Jiuzhou Development Zone Women's Prison in November 2003. In the “New Arrivals Monitoring Team,” she was forced to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong, memorise the prison rules, and do overload hard labour. Later on, guard Zhang Meilan became the new team head. She claimed she would “reform” Ms. Li. After talking with Ms. Li several times, Zhang realised that could not achieve her goal. She covertly incited the two inmates to watch her even closer. She said that if Ms. Li still would not comply, they would deprive Ms. Li of her right to call her family.

Zhang also managed the inmates’ accounts. She ordered Ms. Li to help her manage the accounts since the accounts were a mess under Zhang’s management. But because Ms. Li missed one person after she finished establishing the new accounts for all detainees, Zhang hung Ms. Li upside down.

After four months in the New Arrivals Monitoring Team, they moved Ms. Li to the Third Prison District, which had the harshest condition. Regardless of the weather, the detainees had to knit huge safety nets used for transportation in the courtyard all year long. They had to get up at 6:00 a.m., start work at 7:00 a.m., and not stop until it got dark. Everyone had to finish knitting six to seven nets. The quota was later raised to seven or eight. If a practitioner could not finish the quota, the guards would shock her with electric batons. After they finished working they still needed to wind yarn in their cells for the next day's use. The earliest time they could go to bed was around 11 p.m. to midnight; their usual bedtime was between 1 and 2 a.m. The long-term hard labour made Ms. Li collapse: her joints were swollen and raw; her hands were swollen; her fingers were twisted outward; she could not even hold her bowl when she ate; her hands stung badly whenever anyone touched them; she could not put on or take off her clothes; and the pain was so severe that she was unable to fall asleep at night.

Endless harassment

Ms. Li was released on October 8th, 2005. Once home, Xifeng 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) agents repeatedly ordered her to sign on paperwork, and personnel from the provincial level 610 Office went to her residence twice to harass her.

More than a dozen officers from the Xifeng District surrounded Ms. Li’s residence on June 29th, gained access by drilling through the security door and gate lock, and tried to arrest her. They ransacked her residence, took away many personal valuables, and arrested her husband, Mr. Kou Chuangjin. Ms. Li happened to be in the countryside helping her family harvest wheat. Her husband was first detained in the Xifeng District Domestic Security Division for two days and then locked up in Balimiao Detention Centre.

Ms. Li’s mother-in-law, in her 90s, is currently at home by herself without anyone to help care for her, and their daughter, who had been suffering from depression, was severely hit by the fact that her father was arrested and her mother has to stay away from home. The daughter's depression has become worse. At present, Qingyang City Police Department agents have been everywhere searching for Ms. Li.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/8/2/244818.html