Yan Yuhua from Nanjing Arrested Again and Her Whereabouts Unknown

Name: Yan Yuhua
Gender: Female
Age: 43
Address: Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: November 20th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Nanjing City Women’s Prison
City: Nanjing
Province: Jiangsu
Persecution Suffered: Detention, interrogation, brutal beating, imprisonment, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, long-term standing, having cold water poured over her, starved, not allowed to bathe, denied family visits, extortion, brainwashing, forced labour, home ransacked

Ms. Yan Yuhua was arrested by police and persecuted in detention centres, labour camps, and prisons due to her refusal to give up her belief in Falun Gong. On November 20th, 2011, she was arrested and sent to the Nanjing Women's Prison. This happened less than one month after she returned home. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

Her parents and a teenage son are now on their own. In addition, her son was expelled from school and her parents’ pension was suspended. The family is ready to go to the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) in Nanjing to demand her freedom.

Arrested and imprisoned after petitioning in Beijing

In October 2006, Yan Yuhua went to Beijing alone to petition the government for the right to practise. She was arrested by plainclothes police in Tiananmen Square. The police confiscated the Falun Gong materials and banners exposing the persecution that she carried. Seven or eight plainclothes officers grabbed her and drove her to the Tiananmen Square Police Station, where she was detained and interrogated. Her photo taken against her will. Because she did not cooperate, she was beaten. She tolerated the pain and told the police the truth of Falun Gong, but they did not listen. She was detained for 12 days. The police would not let the practitioners do the exercises in the detention centre, but Ms. Yan insisted on telling the people she met the facts about Falun Gong. Finally she was sent to Nanjing Women’s Prison.

The Nanjing 610 Office and Women’s Prison pressured her to give up practising Falun Gong and to sign the guarantee statement to renounce practising Falun Gong. During this time, she was isolated in solitary confinement. Several times she was deprived of sleep or required to stand for extended periods of time. In addition, freezing water was sometimes poured over her. Moreover she was sometimes deprived of food, baths, family visits, and daily necessities.

In December 2008, after she had been detained for more than two years, her parents, who were over 70, visited her in prison. She told them that she would never give up practising Falun Gong. On hearing this, the police standing beside her shouted, “Then you can never get out. Now you have already lost your job. If you do not give up, you will lose your house and savings.” Finally, after extorting 10,000 yuan¹ from her parents, the prison let her parents bail her out.

In a forced labour camp for two years

In May 2009, Ms. Yan was arrested by police in Nantong when she was making materials exposing the persecution. Later she was sent to Nantong Detention Centre (labour camp). There she was forced to wear earphones and listen to slander about Falun Gong. Several guards took turns beating and cursing her. Every day she was taken to a classroom to be brutally brainwashed and pressured to “transform.” She was circled by several brainwashing “re-educators,” who kept slandering Falun Gong. They created an atmosphere of terror to force her to give up her faith. As a matter of fact, every Falun Gong practitioner in this detention centre was detained alone and pressured in a variety of ways to try to force them to give up their Falun Gong beliefs.

Yan Yuhua was detained in the labour camp for two and half years. During this time, the police continued to threaten her family. They even went to her son’s school and attempted to seize him in order to force her to give up Falun Gong. Fortunately, the teachers and other kind people prevented this from happening.

In Nanjing Women's Prison once again

On November 20th, 2011, less than a month after Yan Yuhua had returned home, several police officers broke into her house and rummaged around. When she asked why, the lead officer lied, saying that they saw her distributing materials exposing the persecution of Falun Gong again. But she actually hadn't been anywhere during that time. The police stole some of her personal property, including a laptop, a printer, a copier, files with leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong and CDs, and so on. The police claimed that these items were “evidence.”

Ms. Yan Yuhua was once again incarcerated in Nanjing Women's Prison. In order to increase the intensity of the brainwashing, the prison put her in the so-called "critical group" in custody district two. This “critical group” was a temporary arrangement devoted to brainwashing and persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. In that group, Ms. Yan was deprived of sleep and water to drink, but her tormentors did not achieve their goal of “transforming” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] her. She was later transferred out of the group, although she was still in custody district two.

In December, her family went to the prison to see her, but they were told that Yan Yuhua was no longer there. Her family asked where she was, but the guards, with fear in their eyes, said they did not know. The family later found Han Yanmei, a police officer in custody district two in Nanjing Women’s Prison, and asked her, but she just threatened them. So Yan Yuhua’s current whereabouts are unknown.

Information related to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners at Nanjing:

Nanjing Women's Prison: +86-25-52353911, +86-25-52890543
E-mail: [email protected]; Webmaster’s E-mail: [email protected]

Nanjing Women's Prison Custody District Two: +86 -25-52353952, +86 -25-52353942 , +86 -25-52352204

Han Yanmei, police officer

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/2012/1/5/250554.html