74-year-old Woman Detained for Talking to People about Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) A 74-year-old Fushun City, Liaoning Province resident was arrested on February 1, 2023, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong at a public plaza. Ms. Zhu Yafen’s home was ransacked in the evening and she has been placed in criminal detention.

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

Ms. Zhu took up Falun Gong in December 1995. Her severe rheumatism and insomnia soon disappeared. In the past two decades, she has been repeatedly targeted for upholding her faith.

Ms. Zhu was first arrested in August 1999 while doing Falun Gong exercises in a public plaza with several other practitioners. The officers of Qianjin Police Station took her to the Fushun City Detention Center, where she was beaten for doing the Falun Gong exercises. After 17 days, she was transferred to a brainwashing center and held there for two weeks. She was forced to work without pay for long hours, mainly making rain shoes. The authorities extorted 2,000 yuan from her before releasing her.

The authorities also recorded the footage of Ms. Zhu being handcuffed and played it on TV to smear Falun Gong. Her mother was dealt a blow upon seeing it on the news. She suffered a stroke and passed away after being bedridden for eight years.

Ms. Zhu was arrested again shortly after attending a practitioner’s gathering and held at the brainwashing center for another two weeks.

Her next arrest was on October 2, 2000, for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was given three years at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp after two weeks at the Fushun City Detention Center. She had a stroke after eight months of torture at the labor camp and was released.

While traveling to Beijing in September 2008, Ms. Zhu was stopped at the train station in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. She was taken back to Fushun and interrogated for a day. Her home was also ransacked.

She was arrested one more time on August 24, 2019, and sentenced to one year with a 4,000-yuan fine by the Dongzhou District Court on August 30, 2020. The authorities suspended her pension in October 2020.

Perpetrators’ contact information:

Liu Tierui (刘铁锐), head of Qianjin Police Station: [phone]Luo Rongguang (雒荣广), head of Fushun City Police Department: [phone]Tian Ye (田野), secretary of Fushun City Political and Legal Affairs Committee: [phone]

(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)