78-year-old Woman Forced to Live Away from Home, Pension Suspended

(Minghui.org) Since September 2021, officials of Political and Legal Affairs Committee in Guangshun Town, Chongqing, began to harass Ms. Gao Xingfang almost daily and ordered the 78-year-old woman to renounce her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

The harassment was part of the nationwide “Zero-out” campaign that was launched in 2020 and aimed to force all Falun Gong practitioners on the government’s blacklist to give up the practice.

Unable to bear the harassment, Ms. Gao was forced to live away from home. The authorities called her family and tried to pressure them into reporting her whereabouts. As they refused to comply, the local social security bureau has suspended Ms. Gao’s pension since February 2022.

Since the onset of the persecution, Ms. Gao has been repeatedly arrested and given three two-year labor camp terms for upholding her faith, which she credits for curing her migraines, chronic kidney inflammation and lumbar disc herniation within two months after she took it up in March 1997.

Below are details of her previous persecution:

Ms. Gao was first arrested in July 2001 for talking to people about Falun Gong in the nearby Lu County, Sichuan Province. The police handcuffed her to a railing and caused the bone in her wrist to be exposed. She was held at the Fujie Police Station for a month. The police kept her handcuffed, rendering her unable to take off her clothes or take showers.

Ms. Gao was arrested the second time in Chongqing in April 2002. The police handcuffed her and paraded on the streets to humiliate her. She was held at the Jiangbei District Lockup for four months and later given two years at the Maojiashan Women’s Forced Labor Camp.

The labor camp guards forced Ms. Gao to do long hours of intensive unpaid labor. They ordered her to watch propaganda videos smearing Falun Gong and its founder and to write statements to renounce Falun Gong, threatening to deprive her of sleep. Because she refused to comply, the guards locked her up in a dark room for extended periods.

Over ten officers of local 610 Office, an extralegal agency created specifically to persecute Falun Gong, broke into Ms. Gao’s home in August 2006. As she resisted the arrest, three officers dragged her into the police car, with her still barefoot in her pajamas. Her daughter ran out, trying to stop the police, only to be beaten and injured.

Ms. Gao was kept at the Rongchang County Detention Center overnight and taken to the Shengli Police Station for interrogation on the next day. Officer Luo Jin beat her so hard that her face was severely swollen and she could barely open her eyes. All of her teeth became loose and four of her front teeth were knocked out.

That afternoon, without any due process, the police confined her two years of forced labor. The guards also deprived her of sleep. She slept on concrete floor and sometimes was forced to stand under scorching sun for hours.

Ms. Gao’s fourth arrest was in 2010 for distributing DVDs with information about Falun Gong. Deng Guangqi of the Yongchuan District 610 Office and three other officers handcuffed her to the car. One officer surnamed Huang stepped on her hand and beat her. A bone in her wrist broke. She was later given another two years in the Jiangbei Women’s Forced Labor Camp. But because of high blood pressure, she was rejected admission and exempted from serving time.

She was arrested two more times, in March and August 2013, and detained for 15 days each time, at the Rongchang Detention Center and Rongchang County Police Department, respectively. The police took her to the Qianzhugou Brainwashing Center and kept her there for another 20 days following the August detention. She was deprived of sleep and forced to watch propaganda videos and sing propaganda songs, as well as being ordered to write statements to renounce Falun Gong.