(Minghui.org)
Name: Sun AixiaChinese Name: 孙蔼侠Gender: FemaleAge: 85City: SuzhouProvince: JiangsuOccupation: retired engineerDate of Death: July 2, 2024Date of Most Recent Arrest: November 16, 2017Most Recent Place of Detention: Nantong Women’s Prison
A Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, resident died on July 2, 2024, a few months shy of her 86th birthday. The passing of Ms. Sun Aixia, born on October 15, 1938, capped her decades of suffering in the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong.
A retired engineer, Ms. Sun suffered severe spine injuries due to a work accident and remained bedridden for nearly ten years. After she took up Falun Gong in 1997, she made a full recovery and was able to walk again. When the communist regime launched a nationwide campaign against Falun Gong in July 1999, she remained firm in her faith and was repeatedly arrested over the years, resulting in three jail terms, totaling five years and four months.
During her third prison term, Ms. Sun was tortured to the point of becoming nearly blind and suffering a deformed spine. Less than two years after her release on April 14, 2019, the local social security office suspended her pension, over 4,000 yuan per month, on January 1, 2022. She appealed to have her benefits reinstated but never received any response.
Due to her deformed spine, Ms. Sun walked with an unsteady gait. She took a fall on the afternoon of July 2, 2022. As she was home alone, she yelled for help for a long time before a neighbor passing by heard her. He contacted her daughter, who rushed home to get her to the hospital. She was found to have fractures in her femoral head and severe internal bleeding. Unfortunately, the doctors could not perform a surgery because she was also found to have suffered a mild cerebral infarction.
Ms. Sun was discharged from the hospital one week later and became completely bedridden and incapacitated. She died on July 2, 2024, at the age of 85.
Three Prison Sentences Totaling Five Years and Four Months
While she was still living in Baiyin City, Gansu Province, Ms. Sun went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on November 13, 2000 and was arrested there. Four people from her employer, the Baiyin Machinery, took her back to Gansu and deducted the 10,000-yuan travel expenses from her pension.
Ms. Sun and her husband moved with their daughter to Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province around 2001 and faced continued persecution there for upholding her faith. She was sentenced to three years in 2007 and another 10 months in 2016. In between her first two prison terms, she was arrested on April 18, 2012. While she was in detention, her husband was so terrified that he had a mental breakdown. He vanished on April 29 and never returned home. The police notified her daughter to recognize his body on December 29, 2012.
Barely six months after Ms. Sun completed her second prison term, she was arrested again around November 16, 2017 and sentenced to one and a half years in 2018. The verdict wrongly stated her profession from a retired engineer to a retired worker.
Ms. Sun was taken to the hospital affiliated with the Nantong Women’s Prison on January 10, 2018. She was found to have a systolic blood pressure reading of 180 mmHg (when a normal range is 120 or lower), yet the prison still admitted her and assigned her to cell 10 in division 2.
The cell had 16 beds but housed 17 people. Ms. Sun was made to sleep in the same bed as another inmate for about three months. Both of them had to sleep on their sides or they’d fall off the bed.
The other 16 inmates were all instructed to watch Ms. Sun around the clock. Inmate Na Pu once gave her some food and was reprimanded by head inmate Sun Mengyang (no relation to Ms. Sun) for being sympathetic towards Falun Gong practitioners. Inmate Sun said they’d rather toss the food into the trash than give it to Ms. Sun.
Ms. Sun refused to do hard labor and was forced to sit on a small stool for several hours every evening until bed time at 9:30 p.m. Four inmates watched her to prevent her from moving.
The guards took Ms. Sun to an intensified persecution team in May 2018 and had up to a dozen inmates bombard her with propaganda slandering Falun Gong. They also forced her to watch videos smearing Falun Gong. Despite all these, Ms. Sun remained steadfast in her faith.
Her daughter visited her one day in June 2018, but was forced to “transform” her own mother. The younger woman was so terrified that she cried non-stop. Ms. Sun told her daughter that she did nothing wrong in practicing Falun Gong.
In November 2018, the prison launched a new round of persecution of jailed Falun Gong practitioners. Ms. Sun was not allowed to sleep until 11 p.m. The inmates watching her could not sleep earlier either and they lashed out at her for making their life hard. Head inmate Sun ordered the inmates to torture her with various means. Once inmate Xie Suxia suddenly tossed Ms. Sun’s comforter off the bed when she noticed her eyes had slightly closed. It was deep winter and Ms. Sun felt very cold. Her vision also declined significantly and she struggled to see clearly.
Another inmate named Liu Delan cursed Ms. Sun with extremely foul language and ordered her to sign statements to renounce Falun Gong. She firmly refjected.
Instructor Wu Chuanlian often verbally abused Ms. Sun in the public announcement system. She still held firm in her faith.
Ms. Sun was released one month ahead of time, on April 14, 2019. The day before her release, the guards still ordered her to renounce Falun Gong. She again refused.
Related Reports:
80-Year-Old Woman Jailed a 3rd Time for Her Faith in Falun Gong
Ms. Sun Aixia Illegally Tried and Sentenced by Suzhou City Industrial District Court
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