Shen Yueping

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Shen Yueping, a doctor from the Mother and Child Care Center in Yuxi City, Yunnan Province, passed away at 11 pm on July 16, 2009. She was only 49 years old. Ms. Shen had been sentenced to a five-year prison term and suffered maltreatment in the Second Women's Prison in Yunnan Province. In June 2009, her family received a notification of Ms. Shen's Release on Medical Parole." By that time, she was already dying.

Shen Yueping was a doctor in charge in the Mother and Child Care Center in Yuxi City. She was kind and sincere, very careful and responsible in her job. In 2000, she went to appeal for justice for Falun Gong to tell people that Falun Dafa is good and that it is wrong to persecute Falun Gong. Because of this, she was illegally sentenced to three years in a labor camp for re-education by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In December 2004, policemen He Xiaopei, Zhang Xiangyu and others from the Hongta District Police Department in Yuxi City, arrested Shen Yueping, along with Mr. and Mrs. Pu Zhiming and two other practitioners. Under the direction of the local Political and Judiciary Committee and the 610 Office, the Hongta District Court sentenced four practitioners from one to five years of re-education through labor. Ms. Shen was sentenced to a four-year term. Because she exposed the fact that her child had been detained and threatened for three days, the CCP agents extended her term for one more year. During the five years of imprisonment, because of her belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, Shen Yueping was detained for over two years in a guard chamber where she suffered inhuman torture.

In the Second Women's Prison in Yunnan, Shen Yueping was severely abused physically and mentally, but she refused to be transformed. She was detained in the guard chamber since March 2007. Practitioners held in the guard chamber had to face brainwashing from the guards every day. They were verbally abused and forced to listen to recorded speeches that slandered Falun Gong. While detained in this chamber, practitioners were not allowed to take a shower or wash their clothes. They had no freedom and were not allowed to stand, sit or even think. During their menstrual periods, practitioners were not allowed to use sanitary napkins. They were frequently beaten, pinched, or stabbed with needles, and sometimes nerve-damaging drugs were added to their food.

In the Second Women's Prison, every practitioner is monitored by two inmates assigned to monitor and abuse practitioners in an attempt to force them to renounce their belief in Falun Gong. Every inmate who monitors practitioners in the special training area where Ms. Shen was held can get a certain amount of points each month. If they can get 90 points every six months, they will gain favors including term reductions. To gain more points and reduce their terms, the inmates try every means possible to persecute practitioners. They monitor practitioners 24 hours a day. If an inmate lessens the pressure on a practitioner, she will be scolded by the guards and lose points. The prison is located in a heavily forested, mountainous area, and during the summertime there are lots of mosquito and flies. Practitioners in the guard chamber are not allowed to use mosquito nets, so they are severely bitten by insects, resulting in swollen welts that are very itchy and painful.

Beginning in October 2006, Ms. Shen Yueping's family was not allowed to communicate with her via letters, telephone or visits. In June 2009, her family received a notification of Release on Medical Parole. At that time, Ms. Shen had a punctured lung and she vomited frequently. After her release, Ms. Shen was admitted to the Third Hospital in Kunming, where she stayed until she passed away on the night of July 16.