(Minghui.org) An Inner Mongolia woman has been forced to go into hiding since March 2019 to avoid being imprisoned for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Miao Chunlian was arrested in June 2017. She was released on August 8, 2017, on bail due to hypertension. She was indicted by the Ximeng Procuratorate in September 2018 and appeared in court on October 24, 2018, and February 21, 2019.
Ms. Miao received a notice from the court on March 29, 2019, to appear in court in four days to hear for her final verdict. Since then, she has been on the run and is currently wanted by the police.
Ms. Miao recounted the persecution she has endured.
Illegally Detained in Ximeng Detention Center
I started practicing Falun Gong in September of 1998. Before that, I suffered from heart disease, gynecological issues, an inflamed gallbladder, and rheumatoid arthritis. A few days after I picked up the practice, all of these conditions disappeared.
Ever since April 25, 1999, I have been harassed and followed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) police. Their officers ransacked my home and confiscated my Falun Gong books in May 1999. I was arrested and taken to the detention center for seven days, where a few elderly practitioners were also being detained.
After we were released, I told them that, since we could not appeal to Beijing, we could write to our local police chief. We wrote him letters about how Falun Gong teaches people to be kind and that Falun Gong renders only benefits and no harm to society.
Tortured in Hohhot Women's Forced Labor Camp
In October 1999, I was once again arrested and taken to the detention center. My home was also ransacked again. I was sent to a forced labor camp for three years. They transferred me to Hohhot Women's Forced Labor Camp a few months later, along with two other practitioners.
The labor camp guards forced us to watch slanderous programs attacking Falun Gong for entire days.
We had no freedom. Each practitioner was closely followed by one inmate assigned by their team captain. We were not allowed to talk to other practitioners or go to the restroom as needed. We had to do sweatshop labor for extended hours, leaving only four to five hours for sleep every day.
Those practitioners who resisted the camp's brainwashing or refused to renounce our faith were brutally tortured. They were beaten, shocked with electric batons, handcuffed to the door, and deprived of sleep and food.
Ongoing Persecution
The police kept harassing me even after I was released. I told them the facts about Falun Gong every time they came and urged them not to participate in the persecution for their own good.
My husband and I were awarded a construction project in a city more than 60 miles away from our home in 2008. The police even followed us there. They tried to withhold the contractor's payments to us. But they finally gave back the money after my husband, who is not a practitioner, reasoned with them.
In 2013 I was arrested again for distributing information about Falun Gong. This time, I was detained in the local detention center for two weeks. The police confiscated all of my Falun Gong books and a photo of Master Li.
My Most Recent Arrest
In June 2017, the police ransacked my home again when I was not there. I decided to go back home to talk to them.
Three officers showed just as I returned. They whisked me into a police car. One of them held me down on the floor like a criminal and took my cellphone.
They took me to the basement of a building, where several policemen berated me and demanded to know where I’d gotten my computer, printer, and informational materials. I clarified the facts about Falun Gong to them instead of answering their questions.
They tied me to a chair and verbally abused me to keep me awake. After midnight, they untied me and let me sleep on a grass mat on the floor.
The next day, several of the officers said they would let me go. They deceived me into signing a statement.
Then they took me to the hospital for a physical. Only then did I realize that they had no intention of releasing me.
In the hospital, I was found to have a gallbladder polyp and hypertension. Despite my medical conditions, the police forced the detention center to accept me.
On my third day in the detention center, one of the female guards beat me, handcuffed me, slapped my face, and kicked me. I went on a hunger strike to protest and was brutally force-fed in the hospital.
My blood pressure shot up to over 200/80. The hospital gave me an injection to lower the blood pressure but to no avail.
To avoid possible legal liability, the detention center told my family to take me home. I was released on bail on August 8, 2017, after my family was forced to pay 5,000 yuan to the police under the table.
Other practitioners and I mailed information about Falun Gong to the police department, the procuratorate, and the court over the course of the following year. The police later returned the 5,000 yuan they’d extorted from my family.
