(Minghui.org) A 56-year-old Donggang City, Liaoning Province resident was sentenced to two years for practicing Falun Gong and her appeal was recently rejected. Prior to her latest sentencing, Ms. Liu Mei has served 2 years in a labor camp and 13 years in prison.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Liu was arrested on November 7, 2021. The police changed her administrative detention to criminal detention on November 24. Despite the fact that she failed the physical examination, police officer Yu Benqiang forced the local detention center to admit her. Her arrest was approved by the Zhen’an District Procuratorate on December 7.
Ms. Liu’s husband, Mr. Zhu Changming, frequented the police station and demanded the dismissal of her case. In retaliation, the police arrested him on December 9, 2021, and detained him for 15 days.
Due to her poor health, Ms. Liu was released on December 17, 2021, and put on house arrest. She was deceived by officer Yu into going to the procuratorate in October 2022, thinking to finish her case dismissal paperwork there, only to learn that Yu had fabricated an account against her and that the prosecutor had indicted her. The prosecutor was in fact moving her case to the Zhen’an District Court on that day.
On the same day after the case arrived at the court, the judge ordered to take Ms. Liu back into custody. However, she was not admitted, as she failed her physical examination.
Ms. Liu appeared in court on December 13 and was sentenced to two years with a 3,000 yuan fine on December 29, 2022.
Ms. Liu appealed with the Dandong City Intermediate Court. Without holding a hearing, judge Li Xin ruled to uphold her original verdict on February 20, 2023. She planned to keep appealing to the provincial high court.
Due to her poor health, Ms. Liu is currently serving time outside of prison.
Ms. Liu used to work for a packaging company. In an accident at work, her right hand was severely injured and she was unable to bend her hand or hold anything anymore. Her hand atrophied and turned dark. She often had tremendous pain on rainy days.
She attended many qigong classes, but none helped her recover from her hand injury. In June 1995, she was introduced to Falun Gong. She was drawn to the profound teachings and took up the practice with her husband.
A month later, flesh grew on her hand and it no longer hurt on rainy days. Her hand became warm and regained its normal healthy color.
For doing the Falun Gong exercises, Ms. Liu was arrested with seven other practitioners in October 1999. The police stepped on her legs and stripped her to her underwear. They whipped her back and buttocks with leather belts and a bamboo stick. After a while, one officer signaled for a break, or “she would become numb and not feel the pain anymore.”
Ms. Liu fainted from the savage beating. Her lower body was severely swollen and bruised. The inmates in the detention center cell were all terrified and cried upon seeing her.
Ms. Liu was taken to the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in November 1999 to serve a two-year term. Because she refused to renounce Falun Gong, she was forced to stand or squat for over ten hours every day. An inmate beat her with a mop in December 1999 because she did the Falun Gong exercises. Her head had many swellings and she couldn’t comb her hair for many days.
Over twenty officers broke into Ms. Liu’s home while she was having dinner with her husband and mother on April 9, 2002. Ms. Liu was taken to the Dandong City Detention Center three days later.
Ms. Liu, her husband, and her brother were arrested again on July 9, 2002, in a group arrest of over 30 practitioners. The police held them for a public parade to humiliate them, followed by a public struggle session (with them verbally attacked) outside the Dandong Police Department. Over 10,000 people attended the session when the authorities announced the sentencing of both Ms. Liu and her husband to 13 years.
Ms. Liu was taken to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison on November 4, 2002. She developed high blood pressure, a heart condition, and many other severe medical conditions due to the torture in custody. Her mother and mother-in-law repeatedly went to prison to demand her release. A guard said to them, “If she refuses to yield to the government, she will never be able to leave the jail. If she dies, you can come here to claim her body.”
Ms. Liu was released in April 2015.
Li Xin (李欣), presiding judge: +86-415-6277042Wu Wei (吴威), president of Dandong City Intermediate Court: +86-415-6277018Wang Junguo (王君国), director of Donggang City Domestic Security Office: +86-415-7178813
(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)
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