(Minghui.org) It has been two months since a Hebei woman was detained at a brainwashing center for refusing to renounce her faith, Falun Gong, within a two-day deadline.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body discipline persecuted by the communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Yang Lin, 47, was arrested on September 19, 2018 after she refused to renounce Falun Gong despite being repeatedly pressured by the local police and her supervisor at work.

She held a hunger strike in the brainwashing center to protest against the persecution and arbitrary detention.

The local authorities began to target Ms. Yang after she was stopped on the highway while driving from Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province to Beijing to visit a friend on March 4, 2018. The highway patrol checked her ID and driver's license, and then held her at the toll station before agents from the local 610 Office came to take her home.

After Ms. Yang returned to work at the power company in Shijiazhuang City the next day, her supervisor asked her whether she was traveling to Beijing the day before. After Ms. Yang told him that she was visiting a friend there, her supervisor kept asking for the name and address of her friend and said they needed to report that to the police. Ms. Yang refused to provide such information.

Twenty minutes later, a group of officers from the neighborhood committee and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee came and talked to her supervisor. After they left, Ms. Yang's supervisor told her that they had protected her from being taken away by the officials, but demanded that Ms. Yang write a guarantee statement of not to talk to people about Falun Gong anymore. He also requested to take a look at her home, and said that she was now a surveillance target by the local authorities.

After that day, local officials kept pressuring her supervisor.

When Ms. Yang went to work on August 13, she was given a two-day deadline to renounce her faith, or she would face severe punishment.

Ms. Yang wrote an open letter to her supervisor and colleagues in response, recounting how practicing Falun Gong helped her to recover from heart problems, insomnia, and rheumatism, as well as guiding her to do a good job at work. She also talked about the lack of legal basis for the persecution.

In retaliation, the authorities sent the head of the Hebei Province Brainwashing Center, Yuan Shuqian, to her workplace to talk to her for several hours on September 10. After Ms. Yang expressed her firm determination to continue practicing Falun Gong, she was arrested 9 days later and has since remained captive at the brainwashing center.

Previous report:Woman Given Deadline to Renounce Her Faith, On Hunger Strike to Protest Subsequent Arrest