(Minghui.org) Ms. Yu Cuihua was arrested on January 28, 2016, for distributing informational brochures about Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa). She was illegally sentenced to five-and-a-half years of imprisonment on December 22, 2016.

Ms. Yu has been held in a forced labor camp twice, imprisoned once, and tortured during detention since Chinese Communist Party head Jiang Zemin launched the persecution in 1999.

Grief-stricken Husband Passes Away

When Ms. Yu was arrested, her husband went to the Xinjian District Domestic Security Division to request her release, but to no avail. His health deteriorated after several months of running to different government agencies and worrying about his wife. He was hospitalized in May 2016 and diagnosed with late-term gastric cancer.

Ms. Yu’s husband passed away in July 2016. Her family did not tell her until recently because they worried that she would not be able to bear the sudden loss of her husband.

Past Persecutions

Ms. Yu, 67, is retired from the Jiangling Automobile Group in Nanchang City. After she started to practice Falun Gong in October 1996, all of her illnesses disappeared.

She went to Beijing in October 1999 to appeal to the central government for the right to practice Falun Gong and was arrested by the police in November. She was then taken to Jiangling Automobile Group's Beijing branch before being sent back to Nanchang and was held in the Hongdu Detention Center for 45 days.

She was transferred to a forced labor camp on January 20, 2000. Four guards handcuffed her to an open window in the freezing cold for more than ten hours. They also hit her in the face and head and deprived her of sleep.

Torture Drawing: Handcuffed to window

She then went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. The guards tied her to a bed and hit her head while the doctor inserted a long tube into her stomach to force-feed her. Her body began to convulse, her face turned purple, and she almost died. She recovered after receiving emergency treatment.

During the summer, the guards subjected her to arduous physical tasks for long periods of time in the hot sun. She was also not allowed to shower or bathe, causing her body to develop scabies. Her body was so itchy and painful that she could not fall asleep.

Ms. Yu was eventually released, but on November 30 2001, officers from Jiangling Police Department and the Qingyunpu District Criminal Police Division forced their way inside her home and arrested her.

She was taken to an interrogation room, her hands were handcuffed behind her, and hung up against the wall with chains. Extra weight was added to her back to intensify the torture. The police also grabbed her hands and slammed them against the wall so that the handcuffs would cut into her flesh.

She was tortured this way for more than ten hours. Her hands and feet became numb, and she was forced to urinate and defecate in her clothes. The police also threatened her, saying beating her to death was the same to them as killing a fly.

She was transferred to a brainwashing center located at the Jiangxi Police Academy in mid December 2001. The police extorted 3,000 yuan from her family.

Ms. Yu was arrested for the third time on her way to distribute Falun Gong informational materials in Gaoan City, Jiangxi Province on April 17, 2004. She was sentenced to three years of imprisonment and sent to a forced labor camp on May 26, 2004. She was locked in a small cell and forced into doing labor for 13 hours each day.

Ms. Yu was arrested for the fourth time several years later on May 17, 2008, by officers from Jingshan Police Station, for distributing informational materials at a supermarket in Qingyunpu District.

The Qingyunpu Court sentenced her to a four-year prison term. The evidence used to sentence her were banners that had “Falun Dafa is good” written on them.

While imprisoned, the guards and criminal inmates forced her to recite the prison rules and watch programs that slandered Falun Gong. She was also forced to do slave labor for 14 hours every day.

Her hands were injured from being shackled, and she could not straighten her fingers. Her eyesight also deteriorated.

Her right hand was severely injured one time, and she could not fall asleep due to the pain. She was still forced to work until she finished her quota. After her term expired, she was kept there and had to work for 11 additional days before she was released.