(Minghui.org) Ms. Gang Fengqing almost didn’t make it home after serving three years in prison for refusing to renounce Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the Chinese communist regime.
The Qiqihar City resident was scheduled for release in June of this year. When her family arrived at the prison that day, they were surprised to see agents from the local 610 Office, an extralegal agency under the Communist Party tasked with eradicating Falun Gong.
Those agents had planned to take Ms. Gang straight to a local brainwashing center after her release. Her family strongly resisted the demand and was eventually able to bring her back home.
A healthy woman before her imprisonment, Ms. Gang weighed only 70 pounds and had a full head of gray hair when she was released.
Ms. Gang discovered that her family had deposited 4,000 yuan to her prison account, but the guards withheld the money and never told her about it. To date, the prison authorities still have not returned the funds owed to her.
Latest Arrest and Prison Sentence
Ms. Gang was last arrested at home in June 2013. While held at Qiqihar Detention Center, she went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention. The guards pried open her mouth to force-feed her, damaging multiple teeth. They also cuffed her hands and feet together, bending her body in a painful position all day long.
She was transferred to Harbin Women’s Prison soon after she was sentenced to three years.
Guards once forced Ms. Gang to sit on a “small stool” for more than 40 days. Her buttocks festered and oozed pus and blood.
Another time, the guards tied her up to a bed for 10 days. She developed high blood pressure, dizziness, and swelling afterwards.
To protest the illegal imprisonment, Ms. Gang went on a hunger strike that lasted 25 months. The guards force-fed her in response. She was reduced to just skin and bones by the time she was released.
Forced Labor
Prior to her imprisonment, Ms. Gang was once given forced labor for refusing to renounce Falun Gong.
Ms. Gang was arrested in June 2001 while entertaining two guests at home. Officer Wang Shi confiscated her Falun Gong books, a cassette player, and 300 yuan in cash.
One week later, a visibly drunken Wang Shi led two policemen to interrogate her. The officer on duty stopped the trio from taking her out for interrogation. She was terrified by the experience, but her complaint to police chief Wang Ming went nowhere.
Wang even ordered Ms. Wang’s husband to pay 100 yuan for transportation when she was transferred to Qiqihar Labor Camp one month later.
Ms. Wang was not released until 2002, but she was arrested again only months later. She was held at a brainwashing center for 20 days and forced to pay 200 yuan in “heating costs.”
Brutal Beatings
Ms. Wang’s forced labor ordeal was preceded by her earliest arrest on June 27, 2000. She was on a train to Beijing when she was seized together with several other Falun Gong practitioners who also planned to petition the central government for their right to practice Falun Gong.
The police twisted Ms. Wang’s hands behind her back and cuffed them to a heating pipe such that she could neither squat nor stand. They also slapped her face and hit her with a wooden board.
At one point, an officer even covered her head with two plastic bags. The officers laughed as she struggled to breathe.
The beatings continued into the night, when the officers got drunk and struck her even more savagely.
She was fined 3,000 yuan and released a month later. Even afterwards, police continued to harass her at her home. Her once-healthy father was traumatized and passed away in just a few months.
