(Minghui.org) Three officers descended on Ms. Lai Xiuchun's home on March 8, 2018, to rip off the poetic couplets she'd pasted to her fence gate. The Miyun District, Beijing, resident managed to escape, but her husband was taken into custody and detained for several hours.
The couplets contained messages about Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, which is a mind-body cultivation system based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999.
The police returned the next day in search of Ms. Lai, so she was unable to return home for a few weeks.
Ms. Lai called the police hotline on March 18, 2018, to complain about the police scaling her fence to break into her home on March 8 and 9.
Two hours after her call, police officers came to her home again. While she hadn't returned home, the police took her husband to the police station again and detained him for more than half a day.
The police finally arrested Ms. Lai on April 27 after scaling her fence and breaking in. Her husband was arrested for the third time but was soon released. He later suffered two strokes because of all the harassment and pressure over the past month.
The police held Ms. Lai in Miyun Detention Center and ransacked her home two more times. The Falun Gong materials confiscated from her home were later used by the police to press charges against her.
Four months later, the Miyun District Court in Beijing tried Ms. Lai on September 17 on the charge of “undermining law enforcement,” a standard pretext to criminalize Falun Gong.
Ms. Lai's lawyer defended her innocence and argued that there is no legal basis for the persecution. He demanded her acquittal. The judge adjourned the hearing and said he would announce the verdict at a later date.
It was reported that the authorities added unknown drugs to Ms. Lai's food because she was doing the Falun Gong exercises in the detention center.
Ms. Lai, 58, started to practice Falun Gong in 1998, and many of her ailments, such as kidney inflammation and arthritis, went away. She has been repeatedly arrested for holding firm to her faith and sent to forced labor camps twice in the past 19 years.
