Husband and Mother-in-law Traumatized and Pass Away, Ailing Woman Faces Prosecution for Her Faith

(Minghui.org) Three days after a 72-year-old Tangshan City, Hebei Province resident was refused admission by a detention center due to her poor health, the police arrested her again and forced the detention center to accept her. Ms. Liu Lili is now facing prosecution for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Liu’s latest experience of persecution follows a group arrest of local Falun Gong practitioners on July 13, 2019, in which over 30 officers broke into Ms. Liu’s home and ransacked her residence. Although the police relented and didn’t arrest Ms. Liu, after her bedridden mother-in-law piteously begged them, the officers frequently came back to harass Ms. Liu and her family, sometimes taking their photos.

Traumatized by the police, Ms. Liu’s mother-in-law, in her 90s, and Ms. Liu's husband, who had been struggling with sequelae from a stroke and blindness for over two decades, each soon passed away.

Ms. Liu, who enjoyed good health since she took up Falun Gong in 1996, enabling her to care for her bedridden husband and mother-in-law, saw her own health quickly decline as a result of the repeated harassment. 

The police searched Ms. Liu’s home again in August 2020 and brought her to the local police station for interrogation. She denied any wrongdoing in practicing Falun Gong. After the Tangshan City No. 1 Detention Center refused her admission upon finding out she had multiple ailments, the police forced her son to pay a 10,000-yuan bail bond and released her. 

For the next few months, the police harassed and intimidated Ms. Liu a few more times. Shortly after she was taken to the procuratorate to answer some questions in February 2021, the police made another attempt to detain her on March 17. After the Tangshan City No. 1 Detention Center again refused to take her due to her serious medical condition, the police managed to force the guards to accept her on March 20. Ms. Liu is now facing prosecution after her arrest was approved. 

Prior to the latest series of harassment that started in 2019, ten officers broke into Ms. Liu’s home on March 31, 2016. They handcuffed her upon entering and then ransacked her place. Her two computers, several printers, office supplies and 4,000 yuan in cash were confiscated. Only after her bedridden mother-in-law crawled out from her bedroom and joined the desperate protest with Ms. Liu’s incapacitated husband, did the police finally leave without arresting Ms. Liu.