Accountant Sentenced to 3.5 Years for Distributing Informational Materials about Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) A Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, resident was sentenced to prison in early 2022 for practicing Falun Gong. Her appeal has been rejected by the higher court.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Xue Aimei, a 52-year-old accountant, was reported by a fellow passenger for giving him a booklet about Falun Gong while riding a bus on June 11, 2020. The police arrested her at home in the evening and confiscated her debit card, credit card, driver’s license, and ID. They also forced her to tell them the password of her debit card.

Ms. Xue’s arrest dealt a heavy blow to her bedridden father in his 80s. He passed away soon after, leaving her mother, also in her 80s, struggling to care for herself.

The Nanshan District Procuratorate indicted Ms. Xue and moved her case to the Nanshan District Court on September 1, 2020. She stood trial at the Nanshan District Court on December 3, 2020, and the judge sentenced her to 3.5 years with a 5,000-yuan fine in early 2022. She appealed to the Shenzhen City Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold her original verdict on April 12, 2022.

While Ms. Xue was still awaiting the verdict, the guards at Nanshan District Detention Center handcuffed and shackled her on March 19, 2021, without any reason. They didn’t remove the cuffs and shackles until four days later when her hands and feet had become swollen and bruised.

Prime of Life Spent Behind Bars

Ms. Xue was a Master’s student studying economics at the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in the U.S. when the persecution of Falun Gong started in July 1999. While visiting her family in China in 2000, she was arrested for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong and given two years of forced labor on September 29, 2000.

Only one year after she was released, she was arrested again in 2003 and given another three years of forced labor. She was sentenced to four years by the Futian District Court in March 2009 and endured brutal torture at the Guangdong Province Women’s Prison. She spent the best time of her life behind bars and never finished her degree in the U.S.

First Two-year Forced Labor

In order to raise awareness about the persecution, Ms. Xue copied several hundred flyers about Falun Gong and distributed them in a residential area in Shenzhen in July 2000. The security reported her to the police, resulting in her arrest.

While being held at the Futian Detention Center, the inmates didn’t allow her to do the Falun Gong exercises and often whipped her with a wet towel, causing bruises to her body.

She held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. But the guards and inmates pried open her mouth with a metal tool and caused her teeth to become loose. Another practitioner who also held a hunger strike had two of her teeth knocked out during force-feeding.

Ms. Xue was later transferred to another cell. As she refused to wear the inmate’s uniform, the guards ordered the inmate to strip off her clothes in front of both male and female guards and forced the uniform on her.

She was taken to the Sanshui Forced Labor Camp in December 2000, after the police handed down a two-year term to her. She was released in October 2002, and she suffered declining health at the time due to the torture in custody. Encouraged by other practitioners, she resumed practicing Falun Gong upon her release and soon recovered.

Second Three-year Labor Camp Term

Ms. Xue was arrested again in October 2003 and held at the Nanshan No.1 Detention Center. The police confiscated her two computers, two printers, a DVD burner, some electronic readers, and some Falun Gong books and materials, as well as 14,000 yuan in cash. One officer named Fu Zhansheng stuffed her mouth with a rag and hit her in the chest at the detention center.

She held a hunger strike for over 40 days at the detention center and was force-fed. A female guard was sympathetic to her and told her that she did not want to see her suffering and hoped she would be released early.

When the 610 Office agent took her to the Sanshui Forced Labor Camp to serve a three-year term, they didn’t tell the guards that she was on a hunger strike.

The labor camp guards locked her in a dark room specially designed to hold Falun Gong practitioners. All the windows were covered with a thick cloth. Five guards and two drug offender inmates took turns trying to brainwash her. The walls were covered with posters slandering Falun Gong and she was forced to sleep in the middle of the room on a plank on the floor.

She continued the hunger strike to protest the ill-treatment. Since the labor camp authorities were not aware of her previous hunger strike in the detention center, they did not force-feed her right away and waited a week before taking her to their clinic. During the force-feeding there, the doctor inserted the feeding tube the wrong way and blood gushed out of her nose. Realizing that she was near death, they took her to the Sanshui City Hospital.

During her hospitalization, the guards ordered her mother, a resident of Yantai City, Shandong Province, to travel to Sanshui to care for her and pay for her medical cost. Not wanting to see her elderly mother suffer, Ms. Xue agreed to eat and was taken back to the labor camp. Her mother also went with her.

Witnessing the abuses of Ms. Xue, her mother suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized herself. She returned to Shandong after she was discharged.

As Ms. Xue continued the hunger strike, the guards ordered her mother to come to the prison again in June 2003. The heat stress and fatigue from traveling caused her mother to faint while talking to her.

Later on, the guards stopped brainwashing Ms. Xue or trying to force her to do the unpaid labor. She was kept in her cell and monitored by two inmates.

When her term ended in November 2006, she was taken to the Xili Brainwashing Center and held for three months. She finally returned home in February 2007.

Four-year Prison Sentence

Ms. Xue was arrested again during the Beijing Olympics in August 2008. After two days at the Xiangmihu Police Station, she was taken to the Futian District Detention Center.

The Futian District Court sentenced her to four years in 2009. She was taken to the Guangdong Province Women’s Prison in September 2009.

The guards arranged three felons to monitor Ms. Xue around the clock. In order to gain term reductions, the felons often tortured her in an attempt to force her to renounce Falun Gong, including beatings, verbally abusing her, forcing her to stand for long hours, and depriving her of sleep.

Related report:

After Nearly 10 Years of Incarceration, Guangdong Woman Arrested Again for Her Faith