Name: Ms. Chen Hongli (陈红利)
Gender: Female
Age: 40
Address: No. 5 Village, Xingcheng Township, Qianxi County, Tangshan City
Date of Most Recent Arrest: May 3, 2010
Most Recent Place of Detention: Hebei Provincial Women's Prison (河北省女子监狱)
City: Shijiazhuang
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: forced labor, brainwashing, illegal sentencing, extortion, beatings, torture, home ransacked, detention
Name: Ms. Wu Zhifang (吴志芳)
Gender: Female
Age: 40
Address: No. 5 Village, Xingcheng Township, Qianxi County, Tangshan City
Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 6, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Hebei Provincial Women's Prison (河北省女子劳教所)
City: Shijiazhuang
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: forced labor, illegal sentencing, detention
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Chen Hongli was arrested on May 3, 2010 and is currently held at Hebei Provincial Women's Prison. Ms. Wu Zhifang, arrested on July 6, 2011, is held at Hebei Provincial Women's Forced Labor Camp.
During the persecution of Falun Gong, Ms. Chen has been detained six times including the most recent arrest on May 3, 2010. She was sentenced to four years of imprisonment and sent to Hebei Provincial Women's Prison on January 17, 2011.
At the prison, she was forced to undergo brainwashing sessions for three months. She was also forced to stand still from morning until night and sometimes for more than 10 hours a day. After three months of brainwashing, she was transferred to the No.10 Ward. She has been held in the prison for more than a year.
A Good Wife and a Loving Mother
When Ms. Chen was young, she worked as a laborer. At work, she would meet the man who would be her husband. At the time, the man's wife had just passed away, leaving him and his five-year-old son alone. Ms. Chen showed concern towards the father and son. Soon, they formed a new family. After she had a daughter of her own, Ms. Chen still continued to treat the boy as her own child.
Ms. Chen started practicing Falun Dafa in 1997. Since then, she has set higher standards for herself and always did her best to be a good person. When her husband's former father-in-law was ill, she brought him to her home and took very good care of him. All of her neighbors were deeply moved by her kindness and mentioned that they had never met anyone as caring as Ms. Chen.
After her arrest, Ms. Chen was put on trial on August 23, 2010 by Qianxi Court officials. When Ms. Chen's family and the villagers learned of the trial, they all went to the court to try to support her. However, officers from the Qianxi Domestic Security Division tried to stop them from entering the court by forcing them to show their IDs. Ms. Chen's daughter, a high school student, wasn't allowed to go inside because she didn't have an ID. One woman went back home to get her identification card after she wasn't allowed to go inside the court. She wanted to find out what the charges could be against such a good person. Before Ms. Chen began practicing Falun Gong, she often played mahjong with this woman. After some time the two women stopped speaking to each other because of their conflicts. After Ms. Chen became a practitioner, she went to the woman's home with a smile and formally apologized to her. Ms. Chen said it was all her fault for the conflicts between them, but she only came to know it after she learned Falun Gong. Since then, the woman saw the positive changes in Ms. Chen. She sighed with emotion, “Falun Gong is really wonderful. It can change someone so miraculously!” One of Ms. Chen's relatives also witnessed the beauty of Falun Gong from Ms. Chen's words and deeds. She said, “If Chen Hongli didn't learned Falun Gong, her family might be a very different picture. Maybe it would no longer exist.”
Detained Six Times
Ms. Chen was first arrested in December 1999 when she went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. At the police station, a young female officer slapped her really hard on the face. Officials from the Xingcheng Township, Qianxi County went to Beijing to escort her back to the county and detained her at the county detention center for more than 40 days. At the detention center, the guards tortured her in various ways that included being handcuffed or cuffed behind her back. The guards also threatened her family. She was only released after her family paid 3,000 yuan for the so-called “good-behavior bond.”
In 2000, Ms. Chen and her mother were taken to a detention center by the Qianxi Domestic Security Division. There, she went on a hunger strike to protest her illegal detention. As a result, she was forced-fed, cuffed behind her back for a long period of time and wasn't allowed to use the restroom. Officials from the Qianxi Domestic Security Division also extorted 6,000 yuan from her family.
On November 18, 2000, Kai Yi, Deputy Head of the Qianxi County Police Department; Zhu Zhengang and four other officers from the Domestic Security Division forced their way inside Ms. Chen's home. They handcuffed her before ransacking her home. Ms. Chen was then taken to the county detention center. The police claimed that people from Beijing sent her truth-clarification materials. They tried to extract a confession from her by torturing her for several consecutive days. Guard Li Guoan hit her leg with a thick stick while saying, “Since you are a woman...if you were a man…” Guard Zhao Xin cuffed her to an electric pole for several hours until she was almost frozen.
About two months later, Ms. Chen was transferred to Kaiping Forced Labor Camp. When she failed the health exam, the forced labor camp officials refused to take her in. Therefore, the police from Qianxi Police Department took her back to Qianxi Detention Center. After a period of time, she was sent to Kaiping Forced Labor Camp again. At the forced labor camp, she was forced to undergo brainwashing sessions.
In March 2010, the Chinese National Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conferences were in session. As a result, illegal check points were set up at all roads connecting Qinxi County with the outside world. They checked everyone's identification card and searched their personal belongings. Ms. Chen was arrested on March 9 at one of the check points by officers from Luojiadun Police Station. She was then held at Qianxi Detention Center for half a month.
On May 3, 2010, Ms. Chen had just returned home and saw many people in front of her home. Then all of a sudden, a dozen or more officers broke into her home and ransacked it before forcibly taking her away with them.
The court notified Ms. Chen's husband on August 12 that she had been formerly charged and that Han Guozhu, the presiding judge of the First Criminal Division of Xianxi Court would be the main judge of the case. The trial was held on August 23 and Ms. Chen was sentenced to four years of imprisonment.
During her time at the detention center, Ms. Chen was beaten by the guards, and handcuffed and shackled for a week.
Officials and officers from the Qianxi Police Station, the Procuratorrate and the court held a public sentencing rally in January 2011. A dozen people were escorted to the rally, including thieves, murderers, and rapists. They deliberately included Ms. Chen among them in an attempt to deceive the public and demonize practitioners. Ms. Chen shouted, "Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!" She was taken to Hebei Provincial Women's Prison on January 17, 2011.
The Persecution Ms. Wu Zhifang Suffered
Ms. Wu Zhifang went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong towards the end of 2000. She was sent back by the National Security Team of Qianxi County, but was not detained because she was still breastfeeding at the time.
Personnel from the National Security Team, officers from the Chenguang Police Station and officials from the fifth village in Qianxi county broke into Ms. Wu's home in the fifth village of Xingcheng town at around 9:00 a.m. on July 6. After forcing their way inside, they quickly showed a piece of paper and claimed that it was a search warrant. At that time, only Ms. Wu's parents and young daughter were at home.
Ms. Wu's mother, 70s, asked them what they wanted. One of them replied, “Someone reported your daughter.” Then they began ransacking the house and gathered all of the Falun Gong books, including truth-clarification materials on the coffee table. Ms. Wu's mother said, “You are violating the law. I will not let you to take the books away!” She firmly held onto several books. They ignored her and continued with their ransacking. Ms. Wu's 12-year-old daughter was so frightened that she constantly cried.
When Ms. Wu returned home and saw the mess, she asked, “Why are you treating a woman who is over seventy years old like this?” She tried to save all the items they found, but they took them back. Three people then forcibly dragged her to the police car outside.
Ms. Wu was taken to the Qianxi County Detention Center and held for 15 days. A portrait of Falun Gong's founder, several Dafa books and other personal belongings were confiscated. After this incident, Ms. Wu's father suffered a stroke and he has still not fully recovered. Several days after Ms. Wu's arrest, he could not say one word, but only cried.
Ms. Wu was sentenced to one year of forced labor. When her family members went to visit her at Kaiping Forced Labor Camp, she had already been secretly transferred to Hebei Provincial Forced Labor Camp.
