(Minghui.org) A 76-year-old woman in Xintai City, Shandong Province, is being brutally beaten and tortures while serving a five-year term at the Shandong Province Women’s Prison for practicing Falun Gong.
Ms. Yin Peiqin, also known as Yin Peikun, was frequently beaten, verbally abused, and denied restroom use by the inmates for refusing to renounce Falun Gong. Because she is illiterate and couldn’t write, the guards had an inmate write a statement to renounce Falun Gong and ordered her to copy it by hand. It’s not clear whether she complied.
On April 21, 2023, six inmates dragged Ms. Yin to the corner of the restroom, where the surveillance camera couldn’t see, and beat her. Inmate Liu Yuanyuan hit her inner thigh with her knees. Her thigh was bruised and she couldn’t walk for a day. Another inmate, Chen Yan, threw Ms. Yin’s hand against the wall, which was injured and swelled up right away. Although the guards provided medical treatment to Ms. Yin, they forced her to state that it was her mistake that led to the incident.
Harassment and Prison Sentence
Not long after the 2020 New Year, staffers from the Xintai City Procuratorate came to Ms. Yin’s home and told her that they were working on her case. They ordered her to sign her case file. She refused to comply and tried to urge the staffers not to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. The staffer gave her a copy of “Notice of Legal Rights and Obligations” and left without providing any specific information about her case.
Feng Dayong, the head of the Xintai City Domestic Security Division, led two officers to Ms. Yin’s home on March 31, 2020, saying that her case had been accepted by the Feicheng City Court and she should wait for the summons from the court.
On the morning of August 27, 2020, Wang Yujun and two other officers of the Xintai City Domestic Security Division scaled the fence to Ms. Yin’s home and forcibly took her to a place associated with the Xintai City Police Department for a physical examination. One person drew a large tube of blood from her. They also performed ultrasound, electrocardiogram, and whole body CT scan on her.
Three officers went to Ms. Yin’s home again on October 22, 2020. They promised that they were only looking around and wouldn’t take anything. (Prior to the “visit,” the police had ransacked Ms. Yin’s home multiple times in the past few years and all her Falun Gong related items had been confiscated.) When the police were leaving, Ms. Yin noticed that the door to her back yard wasn’t locked, so she went over to lock it. An officer followed her and checked her back yard before they left.
The police later confiscated all of Ms. Yin’s savings and told her that they were sending her to a place similar to a living center. She only realized that she had been sentenced to five years when she was taken to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison at an unknown date.
Past Persecution During Two Labor Camp Terms
Ms. Yin suffered a stroke and became partially incapacitated when her son was two. After she took up Falun Gong in February 1999, she soon regained her health and took on the household chores again.
Months later, in July 1999, the Chinese communist regime launched the persecution of Falun Gong. Because Ms. Yin has remained firm in her faith, she was repeatedly targeted and served two two-year labor camp terms.
Ms. Yin was arrested in January 2005, by director Su of the Xintai City Domestic Security Division. Her Falun Gong books, audio recorder and Falun Gong lecture tapes were confiscated. She was held in the Beishi Lockup for two weeks and extorted 300 yuan. She was given two years at the Shandong Province First Women’s Forced Labor Camp in March 2005.
Because Ms. Yin tried to stop the labor camp guards from smearing Falun Gong, they grabbed her hair, pulled her head backward, and squeezed her jaw. Handfuls of her hair was pulled out and her teeth were also damaged.
If the guards saw her doing the Falun Gong exercises, they would tape her head, mouth, hands and arms. They also forced her to stand straight for hours and taped her legs when she moved. Sometimes she was forced to stand for days, leaving her legs and feet severely swollen. At one time, the guards hung her up by the wrists overnight and then handcuffed her to the heating pipe.
As Ms. Yin refused to wear the inmates’ uniform, the guards ordered the inmates to strip her top clothes and left her naked for a long time. They then videotaped her and accused her of developing a mental condition from practicing Falun Gong.
Only two days after the 2006 Chinese New Year, Ms. Yin was taken to solitary confinement – a small dark room. She spent half of the year in the dark room, where she was either forced to stand or sit on a small stool motionless for long hours. The guards deprived her of sleep and didn’t allow her to use the restroom. She was often forced to relieve herself in her pants. In the heat of the summer, in the room without air conditioning, there were at least three times when she wasn’t allowed to take showers for nine consecutive days.
In addition to the physical torture, the guards also starved her by giving her only two meals every day, with each meal containing only a small steamed bun and one pickle. She was only skin and bones when she was released.
On September 1, 2007, only a few months after Ms. Yin was released, she was arrested again, had her home ransacked, and given another two-year term at the Shandong Province First Women’s Forced Labor Camp.
The Suffering of Ms. Yin’s Family
During the persecution, Ms. Yin’s family was also implicated. Her husband and son both suffered mental collapses due to her repeated arrests, detention, and harassment. When she was held in the labor camp, her son wandered around, homeless. Her husband was unable to care for himself and he relied on the 180 yuan early retirement severance and 300 yuan low-income subsidy every month to get by.
When Ms. Yin was released in early 2007 after serving the first labor camp term, her husband and son both had very long hair; their yard was full of weeds and small trees, leaving a narrow path to the front door with a broken frame; garbage was everywhere in the rooms; and most of the food was eaten by mice and bugs. Her husband said to her in tears, “I didn’t expect you to come home alive.”
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