Partially Paralyzed from Torture, 72-year-old Woman Harassed for Her Faith

(Minghui.org) Since March 2021, Ms. Wu Guifang, 72, of Zhoukou City, Henan Province, has been harassed many times and arrested by the neighborhood committee for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. The harassment caused Ms. Wu’s heart disease to relapse and she was hospitalized for half a month; her youngest son who had just been discharged from the hospital was rushed to the hospital again and admitted to the ICU after hearing that Ms. Wu was harassed.

This is not the first time that Ms. Wu has been targeted by the Chinese communist regime for her faith. She had previously been arrested nine times and tortured. The torture left her paralyzed for more than half a year; her arm was permanently paralyzed.

Tortured Until Paralyzed

Ms. Wu’s husband died young, and she brought up their three sons by herself. The hardship caused her to suffer from heart disease, stomach disease and many other illnesses. In 1996, she took up Falun Gong and recovered from her illnesses in less than a month.

Since the Chinese Communist Party started persecuting Falun Gong in July 1999, Ms. Wu has been persecuted for refusing to renounce her faith.

Once, Ms. Wu was tied up and tortured after being arrested for her faith. Officers Li Yuzheng, Huang Jinqi, and Wang Guosheng of Chuanhui District Domestic Security Office, were among the officers torturing her. Usually the police would release the rope and wait for half an hour to tie it up again, to avoid making the practitioners’ arms to become disabled. On the day of Ms. Wu’s arrest, however, the police kept her tied up overnight. While she knelt on the ground and groaned in pain, officer Huang Jinqi slapped her in the face with a leather shoe, until the shoe broke.

In the morning, after officer Wang Guosheng came back, he walked over to Ms. Wu, grabbed the ropes, lifted her up and then threw her to the ground. He repeated this several times until Ms. Wu fainted from the pain. The torture caused Ms. Wu’s arm to become permanently disabled.

Repeated Harassment

Starting in 2020, as part of the “Zero-Out” campaign (a concerted effort aimed to force every Falun Gong practitioner on the government’s blacklist to renounce Falun Gong), Ms. Wu was harassed by the authorities in Zhoukou City again.

Wang Zhenying, the head of the neighborhood committee, took a printed guarantee statement to Ms. Wu’s home in March 2021. Wang ordered Ms. Wu’s son to copy the statement onto a piece of paper, or he threatened to block Ms. Wu’s grandchildren from attending school, joining the army, or finding a job. Ms. Wu and her son refused to comply.

A week later, Wang and five other staffers from the neighborhood committee harassed Ms. Wu again and insisted that she sign the guarantee statement. When Ms. Wu refused, they threatened to submit her case to the police.

In the following month, Ms. Wu was harassed four more times and ordered to sign the guarantee statements, to which she refused.

On April 14, several staffers from the neighborhood committee and police officers went to Ms. Wu’s home again. They told her that the police station has appointed a new officer to be in charge of her neighborhood and they had come by to get to know her. 

The police asked for information about all of Ms. Wu’s family members, even her grandchildren and the schools they were attending. Ms. Wu asked two police officers for their names and was only told of their last names—Liang and Pan. She later learned that they were Liang Jinhui and Pan Shuai.

A dozen officers went to Ms. Wu’s home again on April 23. Ms. Wu was printing Falun Gong informational materials at home and refused to let them in. After 20 minutes, the officers still insisted that they wouldn’t leave if Ms. Wu didn’t let them in.

Having heard the commotion, Ms. Wu’s granddaughter opened the door to take a look and the officers rushed in. When they saw that Ms. Wu was printing the materials, one officer started video recording while another shouted for someone to call the Domestic Security Office.

The officers from the Domestic Security Office arrived in five minutes and spent two hours ransacking the home. Her laptop, printer, Falun Gong books, DVDs, and other personal items, including a Chinese New Year decoration painting on her front door, were taken away.

Later, the officers took Ms. Wu to an alley where a crowd began to gather.

Just when the officers were about to take Ms. Wu to their car, her second son shouted loudly.

“Don’t go! Look at this, everyone. My mom walked out of the house herself. Let’s agree to this: after my mom leaves, if she falls sick, you will bring her to the doctor. You need to return the same mom to me. Don’t tell me that my mom is sick and force me to sign a document before you allowed me to see her, like what you did in the past. If my mom is sick, you have to be responsible for it and treat her.”

After hearing this, all the officers, except those from the Domestic Security Office, ran off. One officer assured Ms. Wu’s son that it’s different this time.

“I don’t care if it’s last time or this time. You must return the same mom to me. You have to bring her back. I won’t go pick her up,” her son responded.

At 8 p.m., the police took Ms. Wu back home.

After Ms. Wu returned home, the staff from the neighborhood committee continued to harass her every 20 days.

Ms. Wu was preparing lunch at home on June 30. When she looked up, she saw a group of people standing in front of her. Startled, she suffered a heart attack. Her face was pale and her hands were shaking. The group of people left upon seeing this.

At that time, Ms. Wu’s youngest son had just returned home after being hospitalized for two weeks. He asked Ms. Wu what happened upon seeing that she looked unwell. When he heard what had transpired, he became angry and his condition worsened and had to be sent to the hospital for emergency treatment.

A group of police officers went to Ms. Wu’s home again on July 30 and threatened her that they would arrest her at any time.

Related report:Ms. Wu Guifang, Mr. Zhang Shiying, and Other Practitioners Arrested in Zhoukou City, Henan Province