(Minghui.org) Ms. Lu Fengxia was sleeping at home alone when a group of officers broke in at 12: 30 a.m. on March 9, 2017, and dragged her out of the bed.
One officer handcuffed her and the other hit her head and eyes with a bottle of water. They next ransacked her place before taking her to the Domestic Security Division for interrogation. She was sent to Jinzhou City Women’s Detention Center during the day.
Ms. Lu, a retired textile factory worker in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, wasn’t allowed to talk to people at the detention center, especially those who shared the same faith in Falun Gong with her.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
The detention center guards forced Ms. Lu to sit on the cold concrete floor for long hours each day. Some inmates attempted to persuade her to renounce her faith, but she refused to comply.
Ms. Lu was later sentenced to two years by the Taihe District Court. Her appeal was rejected by the Jinzhou City Intermediate Court.
After Ms. Lu was sent to Liaoning Province Women’s Prison on March 20, 2018, she was subjected to even worse mistreatment for upholding her faith.
All the detainees in the prison, both Falun Gong practitioners and inmates, were forced to do unpaid labor from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. To shorten their mealtime, the guards didn’t allow them to wash hands after work, before having the meal.
Those practitioners who refused to renounce their faith were forced to study brainwashing materials demonizing Falun Gong after a long day of work.
Ms. Lu refused to listen when the inmates read the propaganda articles to her. The inmates reported her to the prison guards, who then forced her to stand for two hours after work before she was allowed to have dinner and wash.
She was also forced to listen to the propaganda while standing. Meanwhile, the guards also ordered a few inmates to stand next to her and then blamed Ms. Lu for involving the inmates, who then became hostile to her.
In addition to the physical abuse, the prison restricted Ms. Lu from buying daily necessities, including toilet paper, and also denied her family visits.
Even when the prison allowed the Falun Gong practitioners’ families to visit them, they couldn’t reveal the abuse they were suffering in the prison.
Ms. Lu was released on March 8, 2019.
Another practitioner in Jinzhou City, Ms. Pan Wenjie, who was also arrested at home in the middle of the night on the same day, was sentenced to a five-year prison term. She is still serving time at the time of writing.
