(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Yao Guofen, a practitioner from Wuhan, Hubei Province, was detained and persecuted in a mental hospital in November 1999. In March of 2000 she was forced to become homeless. She has not been heard from since.

Ms. Yao Guofen, 68, is a retired employee of the Zhongnan Hospital (belonging to Wuhan University, also called the Second Hospital of Hubei Medical School). She lived on the main floor, door 3, building 11 in the residential area of Zhongnan Hospital. She started practicing Falun Gong in 1996. After learning Falun Gong, all of her old ailments disappeared. She once told a fellow practitioner: "I never imagined that I could obtain such a great cultivation way."

When the evil persecution began on July 20, 1999, her workplace did not allow her to practice any more and forced her to write a letter to "renounce" Falun Dafa. She protested in public by practicing the exercises in an open area near the hospital gate. Later, because her husband did not allow her to practice, she went to her daughter's home in Guangzhou. On learning of her whereabouts, her workplace sent someone to force her to return. They made her write a guarantee note saying that she would not practice Falun Gong any more. She was prohibited from leaving her home, and forbidden to talk with anyone.

Around November 9, 1999, Ms. Yao snuck out of the house while her husband was asleep and went to appeal in Beijing. Later, she was arrested and detained at a forced labor camp. She refused to reveal her name and address, but the police found out within a month and informed her workplace to take her back. She was detained at the hotel of her workplace for several days under the watch of security guards. Her refusal to write a guarantee statement and to turn in her Dafa books led her to be forcibly taken to the Psychological Department of Renmin Hospital, Wuhan University (former First Hospital of Hubei Medical School).

In the hospital she was injected with nerve-damaging drugs and forced to swallow pills. She did not cooperate and spit out the pills after the hospital staff left the room, but another patient reported her, so Yao Guofen was forced to swallow the medicine again. However, she went to the washroom to vomit out the medicine by sticking her fingers into her throat. After such torture, she was released from the hospital. It was two days before the Chinese New Year.

Her husband was very strict with her. In order to prevent her from going to Beijing again, he did not allow her to leave the house and refused to give her any money. One night she told her husband that she wanted to stay with her daughter for awhile. Her husband reported this to her workplace and to the police branch. The fear of being abducted and sent to the mental hospital again forced Yao Guofen to leave her home without any money when her husband was sleeping at night. It has been over six years since she left her home, and nobody has heard from her since. Even the death of her husband did not prompt her to come back.