(Minghui.org) On May 3, two Falun Gong practitioners from Shanghai, Ms. Bai Gendi and Ms. Yao Yuhua, were illegally sentenced to six and a half years and six years of prison respectively by the Xuhui District Court in Shanghai.
Both Ms. Bai Gendi and Ms. Yao Yuhua are in their 60s and have previously been arrested many times. Ms. Bai has been arrested six times and been imprisoned and persecuted for the past ten years. The most recent arrest was on September 10, 2012, when officers from Xuhui Police Department arrested the two ladies on the street, saying they were carrying out security measures for the 18 th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The Xuhui District Court began the trial on May 3 at 2:30 p.m. They switched from courtroom No. 6 to No. 7 at the last minute, and security inside as well as outside the court was extremely tight. Plainclothes officers were on constant patrol outside the court building. In the courtroom, police carried out stringent checks and interrogation measures. Although the court claimed this was to be an open trial, the small venue could only accommodate the lawyers and two relatives of each practitioner. No one else was allowed to attend.
It was reported that on that day, five to six court sessions were held concurrently at Xuhui District Court. Everyone else could enter the courtrooms before the session commenced, except for room No. 7, where the lawyers were prohibited from going into the room earlier. They had to wait for the presiding judge, Zhu Xiwei, to personally come downstairs to escort them into the court room.
It was also reported that during the trial, Ms. Bai Gendi and Ms. Yao Yuhua kept shouting “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” Under this circumstance, one of the lawyers requested that the trial be adjourned. But judge Zhu Xiwei turned down the request and insisted on continuing with the proceedings. The verdict was swift, as both Ms. Bai and Ms. Yao were given heavy prison sentences.
Ms. Bai was born in 1951 and lives on Leshan street in Xuhui District, Shanghai. She was formerly a manager at Shanghai Petroleum. She was initially detained on July 24, 1999 by Xuhui District Police because she went to Wanti Stadium to practice the Falun Gong exercises. Subsequently, she was sentenced to two years of forced labor. On February 5, 2002, just slightly over three months after her release, Ms. Bai was sentenced to a three-year prison term. On June 16, 2005, Ms. Bai and Ms. Yao were arrested by police at the train station. The officers lied to onlookers, saying that the ladies were arrested for stealing. They were brought back to Xuhui Police Department and held in custody for a month.
On May 23, 2006, just before the 6 th summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Ms. Bai was arrested again and sentenced to four and a half years of imprisonment. She was incarcerated at Songjiang Women's Prison in Shanghai and released on November 22, 2010. Her most recent arrest occurred just a year and 10 months later.
Ms. Bai Gendi was the first practitioner in Shanghai to be sent to forced labor after Falun Gong was suppressed by the CCP in 1999. She joined other practitioners who went to appeal for Falun Gong in Beijing, which made her a target for persecution.
At Qingsong Women's Labor camp in Shanghai, Ms. Bai was often subjected to solitary confinement. She was hung up by the handcuffs until she fainted and was forced to perform intensive labor for up to 19 hours every day. Due to lack of sleep, she often dozed off while standing up. In the summer, she was made to manufacture small lights using heating equipment in temperatures above 40 o C (about 104 o F). Afterward, she was not allowed to take a bath or change her clothes for nine days. Her clothes were repeatedly soaked in sweat, then dried and soaked in sweat again until they hardened.
She was not allowed family visits nor able to receive mail during her incarceration. Her family could not send her anything. She was told by guards that nobody wanted to see her.
In an effort to wear down her will and force her to give up her belief, Ms. Bai was only given two meals a day. She was thus reduced to skin and bones by the intensive labor and constant hunger.
In 2005, Ms. Bai went on a hunger strike for 12 days to protest the ill treatment. On the fifth day, she was dragged to Tilanqiao Prison Hospital, where the staff tied her hands and legs to the bed for seven days and nights. Her lower body was naked and her urine, as well as excrement, flowed straight from a hole in the bed into a bucket underneath.
Strangely, unlike other practitioners, she was not subjected to forced-feeding. On the ninth day of her hunger strike, the doctors carried out blood tests on this dying woman and even asked detailed questions about her previous health conditions, as well as her family's medical history. On the 12 th day, her heartbeat and breathing became faint. Deep in her subconsciousness, she realized that she had not fulfilled her mission as a Falun Gong practitioner and could not die like that. She stopped the hunger strike and started to eat. The doctors rushed over and flew into a rage when they learned that she had been given food. She later came to understand that the doctors were more than likely intending to harvest her organs.
During her four and a half year imprisonment at Songjiang Women's Prison, Ms. Bai was not allowed to take a bath, brush her teeth, wash her clothes or use the toilet. She was beaten, tortured and denied drinking water. To protest the inhumane treatment, she once abstained from drinking water for as long as seven months. To resist the persecution, Ms. Bai often shouted: “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” For every such incident, prison guards and convicts would beat her and use strips of cloth to gag her or stuff her mouth with short sticks, then wrap her head with packaging tape. This was followed by continuous torture. She could not close her mouth completely and consequently drooled on herself all day.
She was also subjected to “strait jacket” torture repeatedly, with each session lasting three to seven days. During the winter, she was drenched with cold water and forced to sleep with a wet blanket. Despite the unimaginable torture she was put through, Ms. Bai continued to treat the guards and convicts who carried out the torture with compassion.
The guards once imprisoned her in a narrow, enclosed cell, and ordered prisoners to monitor her. Due to the lack of oxygen, she became breathless and pulled out a lot of her hair in distress. The convicts were also ordered to sexually assault Ms. Bai.
Related article: “Shanghai Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Bai Gendi Persecuted” http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2012/10/3/135701.html
Ms. Yao Yuhua was born in 1954 and lives on the same street as Ms. Bai Gendi. After the persecution started, she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and was arrested ,detained and tortured to the point that her ribs and pelvis were fractured. After Ms. Yao was returned home, she was monitored by police day and night. Two men from the security team moved into her small, dilapidated house and stayed with her family for six months. Police came to harass her many times, and her workplace took part in the persecution as well, causing her to lose a number of jobs. Ms. Yao and Ms. Bai were taken into custody and detained on two occasions together.
