(Minghui.org)
Name: Li NianchunChinese Name: 李年春Gender: FemaleAge: 81City: YueyangProvince: HunanOccupation: Retired foreign trade company employeeDate of Death: September 27, 2021Date of Most Recent Arrest: November 7, 2012Most Recent Place of Detention: A local brainwashing center
It’s recently been confirmed by Minghui.org that a resident of Qianlianghu Town, Yueyang City, Hunan Province passed away on September 27, 2021, after enduring two decades of persecution for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. She was 81.
Ms. Li Nianchun was a manager at the Junshan District Foreign Trade Company. In the 1970s, when she was in her 30s, she developed multiple ailments, including uterine fibroids, hypertension, vertigo, rheumatoid arthritis, and bone hyperplasia. By 1994, at the age of 54, she was already bedridden. Two years later, she was introduced to Falun Gong. In less than two weeks, she fully recovered and was back on her feet again.
After the communist regime ordered the persecution in 1999, Ms. Li was repeatedly arrested and harassed for upholding her faith. She was sentenced to seven years in prison and had her pension suspended for eight years. Even after her pension was reinstated, she was deprived of the annual cost-of-living adjustment. Her family were also extorted by the police, resulting in financial loss totaling nearly half a million yuan. The authorities also forbade her from living with her children in the urban area of Yueyang and forced her to live on her own in her hometown in Qianlianghu Town, in the western suburb of Yueyang, where she continued to face frequent harassment and home raids by the authorities. The years of persecution finally claimed her life on September 27, 2021.
Earliest Arrests
Ms. Li went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in October 1999. She was arrested in Beijing and taken back to Hunan. While being held in the Huarong Detention Center, she refused to write statements to renounce Falun Gong and held a hunger strike in protest. The police didn’t release her until she was on the verge of death. Officers Yu Zhihe (who already took the 400 yuan cash she had in Beijing) and Zhao Wenhua of the Junshan District Domestic Security Division, extorted 7,000 yuan from her.
Ms. Li joined twenty other practitioners in doing the Falun Gong exercises outside of a local factory on March 2, 2000. They were arrested and detained at the Yueyang City Women’s Education Center for over 40 days. After that, officers Yu and Zhao took her to the Linxiang City Detention Center. When she refused to turn in her Falun Gong books, the guards whipped her with bamboo sticks. Fearing that she might be beaten to death, some inmates watching the beating wept. After the beating, the guards handcuffed Ms. Li. The cuffs were so tight that they cut into her flesh and the tendons on her hands were exposed. Her hands became so swollen later on that she couldn’t make a fist.
After ten days at the detention center, Ms. Li was taken back to the Women’s Education Center. The practitioners there all started a hunger strike in protest, and the police began to release them when several practitioners began to experience life-threatening conditions. The police extorted money from Ms. Li’s husband again when releasing her.
Officers Yu and Zhao arrested Ms. Li another time on May 17, 2000, when she and her husband went to visit a relative. She was held at the Yueyang County Detention Center for over a month and released after she held a hunger strike for four days.
Seven-year Prison Sentence
Several officers from the Junshan District Domestic Security Division, including Yu, Zhao, Li Qiliang, Deng Hongqiu, and Jiang Renwu, broke into Ms. Li’s home on October 10, 2000. They dragged her downstairs from the third floor and carried her into a police car. Her neighbors who witnessed the arrest all condemned the police for persecuting good people.
Ms. Li, then 59, was taken to the Huarong Detention Center in the evening. Agents from the Yueyang City 610 Office, the Junshan District 610 Office and Junshan District Domestic Security Division took turns interrogating her for three days. They beat her with a 3-inch wide wood stick to prevent her from falling asleep. She remained firm in practicing Falun Gong.
One day in March 2001, several judges from the Junshan District Court, along with officer Yu, took Ms. Li to a dark room off of an alley for a hearing. The judges initially sentenced her to 13 years, but then reduced it to 7 years after extorting an unknown sum from her family.
Ms. Li was taken to the Hunan Province Women’s Prison at the end of September 2001. She was held in the Strict Management Division for over two months before being transferred to a regular division. The guards ordered her to watch videos smearing Falun Gong. She refused to comply and was placed in solitary confinement and handcuffed. She held a hunger strike for eight days and was then taken back to her cell. In addition to the physical torture, Ms. Li was also forced to work without pay and her work quotas were two or three times higher than the regular inmates.
Three More Arrests
Ms. Li and several other practitioners went to the Junshan District Court to attend the hearing of another practitioner, Ms. Zhao Qunlan, on August 4, 2009. The judge didn’t allow them to enter the court, but ordered the police to arrest them. Officer Xiang Yuehua threatened to beat Ms. Li to death with a bamboo stick. The police pushed her into a police car and took her to the Hubin Lockup for a brief detention.
Ms. Li was arrested again on August 26, 2011, by officers from various 610 Offices, the Domestic Security Division, Justice Bureau, the local police station and residential committee. Her Falun Gong books, informational materials, a desktop computer, two DVD players, and over 4,000 yuan in cash were confiscated.
Ms. Li urged the officials not to persecute Falun Gong. Yuan Chunhua, the director of Cengshan District Justice Bureau, and another man slapped her in the face and punched her. Then they took her to a hotel for detention. She went on a hunger strike and was in critical condition two days later. The police took her to the Guangji Hospital for resuscitation and the doctor found that most of her organs were failing. The officials all left, leaving only Yan Dingji, the security director of the Chaoyang Residential Committee, to decide whether to release her. She was picked up by her husband three days later.
Under orders of Peng Changhua, the deputy secretary of the Junshan District Political and Legal Affairs Committee and director of the 610 Office, officers from the Junshan District Domestic Security Division, the local police, and director Yuan of the Cengshan Justice Bureau arrested eight local practitioners on November 2, 2012 and took them to a brainwashing center. When Ms. Li went to visit one of the arrested practitioners on November 7 at their home, she was arrested by the police staked outside that practitioner’s home and also taken to the brainwashing center. Yuan slapped her in the face when she refused to watch videos smearing Falun Gong. She held a hunger strike to protest and was released on November 11, 2012.
Non-stop Harassment
For the next several years, Ms. Li continued to face constant harassment and home raids for upholding her faith.
More than ten officials, including Yuan of the Justice Bureau and Yan of the local residential committee, broke into Ms. Li’s home on July 18, 2013 and confiscated her Falun Gong books, informational materials, two portraits of the founder of Falun Gong, and 400 yuan in cash.
Officials from the local police station, the Justice Bureau, and Residential Committee, ransacked Ms. Li’s home again on December 19, 2014.
Li Xudong, the director of the Qianlianghu Town Justice Bureau, Lei Lijun, the security director of the Yayuan Residential Committee, and Yan of the Chaoyang Residential Committee, as well as another ten police officers, harassed Ms. Li and raided her home on July 21, 2015.
The same officers, along with Li’s assistant Yuan Yong and Yang Wenhao, the security director of the Baihua Neighborhood Committee, returned on September 12, 2016 to raid Ms. Li’s home again.
Jiang Tao, an instructor from the Qianlianghu Town Police Station, and Yan arrived at Ms. Li’s home again on August 21, 2017. They ransacked her home and took photos of her against her will.
Officers from the Qianlianghu Town Police Station broke into Ms. Li’s home on October 17, 2017 and confiscated her Falun Gong books and a large amount of informational materials about Falun Gong. Later that day she sought the return of the materials from Fang Yulu, the chief of the Qianlianghu Town Police Station, and Peng, the deputy secretary of the Junshan District Political and Legal Affairs Committee and director of the 610 Office, but to no avail.
Four days later on October 21, 2017, a contingent led by Yan of the Chaoyang Residential committee, officer Jiang and two others from the Qianlianghu Town Police Station, descended on Ms. Li’s home and attempted to collect her blood sample. She refused to comply.
More than ten officers from the Qianlianghu Town Police Station and residential committee raided Ms. Li’s home again on the evening of May 12, 2018.
Shortly after Ms. Li returned home from a trip to Yueyang on May 27, 2019, more than ten officers broke into her home and ransacked her place. Several thousand yuan in cash and Falun Gong informational materials were taken away. She didn’t recognize any of the officers. When she went to the Qianlianghu Town Police Station the next day to demand the return of the confiscated items, she found out that the officers who raided her home had followed her from Yueyang.
Related Report:
Ms. Li Nianchun, a Retired Manager, Persecuted in Yueyang City, Hunan Province
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