(Minghui.org) Wuhan is known as the city where the CCP virus pandemic started. It is also one of the cities in China where Falun Gong practitioners suffered the most severe persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) government.
According to available information collected by Minghui.org, in the past 21 years of persecution of Falun Gong:
159 practitioners in Wuhan were persecuted to death;244 were sentenced to prison terms;544 were given force labor terms;2,382 were held in over 60 brainwashing centers;thousands more were locked up in detention centers and mental hospitals;tens of thousands suffered harassment, home ransacking, extortion, among other forms of persecution.
In the year of 2019 alone,
4 practitioners passed away because of the persecution;18 were sentenced to up to 10 years in prison and 12 of them were 65 or older;90 were arrested and 57 harassed, with 20 of them having their homes ransacked.
In this article, we provide a snapshot of the persecution against elderly practitioners in Wuhan in 2019.
Death Cases
Mr. Kang Youyuan, 70, used to suffer from gastric cancer and other illnesses and underwent three surgeries without much efficacy. After he started practicing Falun Gong on May 2, 1997, his illnesses were cured and he was able to enjoy good health.
He was arrested six times, twice detained in a brainwashing center, and twice held at forced labor camps for keeping up his practice and telling people about his wondrous experiences and tremendous benefits from practicing Falun Gong. The last time he was arrested, he was tried on August 5, 2014, and later sentenced to three years in prison. He started serving his term in Hongshan Prison on October 28, 2014. He was later transferred to Hankou Prison and suffered inhuman treatment.
Due to the severe damage to his health in prison, he passed away on January 22, 2019.
Sentencing
Ms. Wu Bilin, 70, a former official of Wuhan City Material Management Bureau, was arrested 20 times for practicing Falun Gong. She was sentenced to five years in prison in April 2019 and is currently serving time in Hankou Prison.
The prison authorities denied her family visitation and would not provide any information regarding her condition in the prison. As she suffered life-threatening torture during previous detentions and used to have a systolic blood pressure as high as 200 mmHg, her family is extremely worried about her health.
Mr. Wu Yuanchou, 82, a resident of Qingshan District, was put under house arrest and had his home ransacked and his Falun Gong books confiscated multiple times in 2017 and 2018. He was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 3,000 yuan on November 26, 2019.
Ms. Li Hezhen, 72, a resident of Hanyang District, went to Beijing for speaking out for Falun Gong and was held in the local detention center four times and a brainwashing center for over a year. She was arrested again on June 4, 2018. Her home was ransacked and her family was not notified of her whereabouts. She was later secretly sentenced to four years in prison and detained at the Wuhan Women's Prison.
Arrests and Harassment
Ms. Fan Qinxia, 83, a resident at Guanshan Street neighborhood, was sentenced to one year in prison for distributing Falun Gong materials in February 2018. Soon after her release in April 2019, the police forced her to wear a monitoring device and threatened to send her to jail again if she did not comply.
Ms. Wei Xianrong, in her 80s, a resident of Jiang'an District and a former senior engineer of the Central and Southern China Municipal Engineering Design and Research Institute, was taken into police custody on March 20, 2019. Her home was ransacked. The authorities approved her arrest on April 24, 2019.
Other arrest cases include:Ms. Zhou Youzhen, arrested on January 4, 2019;Mr. Zhou Cui'e, 80, arrested on February 25, 2019;Ms. Ouyang Ruyun, 73, arrested on March 20, 2019;Ms. Tang Changjun, 71, arrested on April 12, 2019;Ms. Wang Shaoqing, 74, arrested on April 12, 2019.
