(Minghui.org) Ten months after Ms. Liu Chunjing was transferred to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s prison to serve time for her faith in Falun Gong, her family still hasn’t been allowed to visit her or call her once.
A friend called two prison guards to inquire about her situation. The first guard refused to provide any information. The second one appeared to be nervous upon receiving the call and kept asking how the friend got his number. Instead of providing information about Ms. Liu, he kept asking for the friend’s personal information.
Ms. Liu, a 60-year-old Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province resident, was arrested on July 3, 2019, after being reported for distributing information about Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
She was held at the Jiamusi City Detention Center and sentenced to a four-year prison term by the Xiangyang District Court in mid-January 2021. She appealed with the Jiamusi City Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold her original verdict. After she was taken to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison in August 2021, all of her communication with her family has been cut off, leaving them very worried about her.
Ms. Liu struggled with many ailments since her childhood, including problems with her liver, spleen, and heart. She was also plagued with migraines and gynecological diseases. She took up Falun Gong in October 1998, at the age of 36, and has enjoyed good health since.
Living by Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, Ms. Liu became more broadminded. When a neighbor encroached on her land by three feet, she was able to let it go with a smile.
Four months after the onset of the persecution in July 1999, her husband divorced her, fearing being implicated. He kept the house, forcing Ms. Liu to move out with their 11-year-old son but still pay the remaining mortgage.
In later 2003, her ex-husband suffered a stroke and asked to remarry her so she could take care of him. Ms. Liu agreed. She said if she didn’t practice Falun Gong, she wouldn’t have been able to do so.
Ms. Liu was arrested at home at 7 a.m. on August 10, 2005 and her place was ransacked. After less than a month at Huanan County Detention Center, she was given two years at the Xigemu Forced Labor Camp.
The guards held her in solitary confinement for two weeks, as she refused to write thought reports. She was handcuffed to the bed from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. and forced to sit on a small stool without moving.
Her incarceration dealt her teenaged son a heavy blow. He lived away from home for nearly two years. During that time, her ailing husband relied on her mother and sister’s care and survived the two years without Ms. Liu.
Ms. Liu was arrested again for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong on August 20, 2008, only a year after she was released. She was beaten and interrogated at the police station. The Huanan County Court held a hearing of her case at the Huanan Detention Center six months later. The whole session lasted five minutes. The judge sentenced her to a four-year prison term months later.
Torture reenactment: Sitting on a small stool
Ms. Liu was again forced to sit on a small stool every day from 5 a.m. to 8 p.m. at Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison, until she was released on August 20, 2012.
With no one to take care of her husband, he moved in to a senior center and died there.
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