(Minghui.org) A 70-year-old woman in Yushu City, Jilin Province has had her pension suspended after serving four years for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999.
Following a new persecution policy that Falun Gong practitioners aren’t allowed to receive pensions while imprisoned, Ms. Wang Xuchun's local social security bureau is withholding her pension to pay back the fund she had received during her prison term.
Ms. Wang, who relies solely on her pension to survive, has been visiting the social security bureau and various government agencies to request for her rights to the pension, but to no avail.
Ms. Wang, a former worker of Supply and Marketing Cooperative in Yuming Township, was sleeping at home on December 29, 2015, when the local police cut off her electricity and arrested her.
She was interrogated and sent to the hospital for a physical examination. She was later sent to the local detention center although her blood pressure was more than 200 mmHg. To resist the persecution, Ms. Wang went on a hunger strike and was force-fed. Twenty days later, she was secretly sentenced to four years in prison. Her family only learned of her sentence nearly two weeks later.
It was minus 30 degrees Celsius on January 19, 2016, when Ms. Wang, who was wearing only a single layer of clothes, was taken out of the detention center in the morning and sent to the Jilin Women's Prison. With only a sweater and pants, Ms. Wang was freezing and had to be wheeled into the No. 8 ward before she was later sent to the prison hospital. She was sent back to the ward the next day after she had recovered.
When Ms. Wang was locked in the No. 8 ward, she was forced to sit on a small stool for more than 15 hours a day. The torture caused her buttocks to fester in the summer. As she refused to renounce Falun Gong, she was made to stand for 15 hours for 27 days. Once, it was already bedtime but the inmates refused to let her sleep and forced her to continue standing. The punishment only stopped after she fainted.
The long hours of standing, coupled with being forced to stand in a fixed position, caused Ms. Wang's legs and feet to become extremely swollen—her shoes no longer fit. Apart from being punished by standing, Ms. Wang was also not allowed to wash herself or brush her teeth for a month.
Due to being forced to sit on a small stool for a long time, Ms. Wang developed a lump in her abdominal area. The lump measured 36 by 42 mm during a physical exam in April 2016, and continued to grow. Ms. Wang was in severe pain when sitting on the small stool. Despite this, the inmates said that she faked her illness and swore at her for not sitting in the proper position.
Ms. Wang was in much pain and had to lean against the bed on December 21, 2017. However, inmate Cheng Xiujin said that her posture was not correct. Cheng grabbed Ms. Wang’s collar and threw her against the ground. Ms. Wang's head had a fist-sized bump as a result.
When Ms. Wang was taken to the hospital, the doctor gave her anti-hypertensive drugs, which she refused to take. Inmate Cheng then told Ms. Wang to write a guarantee statement that she would bear the consequences for not taking the medicine, as well as asking others to write a proof of evidence that Cheng didn't hit anyone.
Ms. Wang started having symptoms of concussions such as headaches, nausea, vomiting after the incident. When she went to the prison hospital for an exam, the doctor told her she needed to use an outside hospital. However, as Ms. Wang's prison account had no money, she was not allowed to get a checkup in a different hospital. In addition, she was given only bedding, bedsheets, pillow, and towels, and all other items such as toiletries and dinnerware were confiscated as she couldn’t pay for it.
Ms. Wang's condition continued to worsen as the lump grew. She was transferred to the No. 10 ward, where the prison hospital was located in May 2018. Due to the lump pressing against her intestines, Ms. Wang could hardly eat and thus rarely went to the bathroom. Despite that her legs kept shaking when she stood up, an inmate forced her to sit on the small stool and clean the floor.
Ms. Wang was eventually taken to the First Hospital of Jilin University for treatments in December 2018 after she became very weak. She was first handcuffed to the bed upon reaching the hospital on December 14. Six days later, she underwent surgery to have a benign sarcoma the size of a regular bowl removed.
When Ms. Wang later woke up in pain, she started to throw up. As she was tied to the bed, she could only tilt her head to the side and throw up. The vomit tickled down her mouth, face, neck, and to her back. A diaper was put underneath when a nurse discovered this. However, no one came to change the diaper, causing sores to develop on Ms. Wang's back. She only recovered from the sores after more than a month.
Ms. Wang was released in July 2019 after serving her term.
Related reports:Ms. Wang Xuchun Arrested and Abused in Police Custody (Photo)Ms. Wang Xuchun from Yushu City Describes Her Experience of Being Arrested and PersecutedMs. Wang Xuchun and Ms. Zhu Feng on Hunger Strike in Yushu Detention Center, Jilin Province112 New Cases of Falun Gong Practitioners Sentenced for Their Faith Emerge in First Two Months of 2016