Tianjin Architect Ms. Li Yanxia Sentenced to Four-Year Prison Term

Name: Li Yanxia
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Architect for Offshore Oil Engineering Co. Ltd
Date of Most Recent Arrest: January 13th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Tanggu Detention Centre
City: Tanggu
Province: Tianjin
Persecution Suffered: Brainwashing, imprisonment, torture, force-feedings, dismissal from workplace, physical restraint, detention

At around 3:00 p.m. on January 13th, 2011, Ms. Li Yanxia, from Tanggu, Tianjin, was arrested by officers from Tanggu Domestic Security Division and taken to a detention centre where she was detained for six months. Without informing her family, the court sentenced her to four years in prison. This is the second time she has been sentenced.

Ms. Li works as an architect with Offshore Oil Engineering Co. Ltd. and has headed many company projects. After she started to practise Falun Gong, she took the initiative to take on projects with heavy responsibility and tight deadlines. She often had to go on business trips, and her husband was very supportive of her job as well as her Falun Gong practice. She also had a daughter and led a blissful family life.

However, the peace and tranquility of this small family was destroyed after the Chinese Communist regime began persecuting Falun Gong.

Ms. Li was first sentenced to prison soon after the persecution began in 1999. On September 30th, 1999, she went to appeal in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and was brought back to Tanggu Detention Centre. After being detained for eight months, she was sentenced to three years with a three-year suspension.

Upon her release, her workplace forced her to watch propaganda films slandering Falun Gong, stopped paying her wages, and demanded that her family pressure her into renouncing her faith.

On February 15th, 2001, Ms. Li's employer took her to the Tanggu District Brainwashing Centre against her will. Three months later, she was again arrested and sent to prison, enforcing the previous sentence, which was suspended. She held a hunger strike in prison to protest the persecution and was force-fed by several convicts. She nearly died from suffocation. She was tortured by being made to sit on a stool and stand facing a wall for long periods of time, and listen to and watch propaganda defaming Falun Gong. She was imprisoned for two and a half years. When she was released in September 2003, she was fired from her job.

In early May 2004, Ms. Li was again arrested at her home. She resisted, and in the scuffle sustained many injuries to her arms and legs. She afterward developed a low-grade fever from the injuries. She was released after being tortured for 15 days in a detention centre.

From 2006 to 2009, her home was ransacked many times. Furthermore, her husband's employer put him under tremendous pressure, and he consequently suffered from severe depression. Ms. Li had to take her husband to a mental hospital to have his illness treated several times.

During these 12 years of persecution, Ms Li's daughter has grown from an infant to a university student. Surrounded by the regime's pressure and lies, she is now defensive, always anticipating what will harm her and her family next.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/9/2/246124.html