(Minghui.org) A Donggang City, Liaoning Province resident served one year in prison for filing a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the Chinese Communist Party who ordered the persecution of her faith in Falun Gong in 1999.
The police harassed Ms. Sun Guiqing four times between March and September 2017 after she was released from prison in late 2016. They searched and videotaped her place each time. Her daughter was so traumatized by her imprisonment and subsequent harassment that the younger woman suffered a mental breakdown and still hasn’t recovered.
Below are the details of the persecution Ms. Sun has suffered.
Arrested for Filing the Criminal Complaint
Ms. Sun began to practice Falun Gong in 2004. She credits the mind-body practice for curing her many ailments, including conditions in her stomach, kidney and nervous system. Witnessing the quick improvement in her, her family became very supportive of her practice of Falun Gong, despite the ongoing persecution by the communist regime.
In May 2015, Ms. Sun joined the tidal wave of filing lawsuits against Jiang in China for his role in the persecution. The local post office reported her to the police, who arrested her on November 11, 2015. The officers scaled her fence and ransacked her place without a search warrant. Her computer, printer, Falun Gong books and other personal belongings were confiscated.
Forced Labor in the Detention Center
Ms. Sun was detained at Tangchi Detention Center and forced to do intensive unpaid labor, including making toilet seat covers and other paper products.
The guards didn’t allow her to sleep if she couldn’t finish the quota for the day. The fingers on her right hand became deformed as a result of the heavy workload.
Because she refused to give up Falun Gong, the guards ordered her to recite prison rules and sometimes forced her to stand for at least three hours in the evening.
A guard named Li Xiaolan once said to her that they would send her home if she wrote a renunciation statement. Ms. Sun rejected her and said, “I’m trying to be a good person by following Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. I didn’t do anything wrong. Why would I renounce it?”
One Year Sentence
After the police submitted Ms. Sun’s case to the procuratorate, the prosecutor returned her case several times, citing insufficient evidence. The police and the detention center director refused to release her and continued to hold her in custody.
As a result of abuse in the detention center, Ms. Sun developed severe anemia, had difficult breathing and was emaciated. Her hair also turned gray.
Pressured by the police, the prosecutor indicted her and forwarded her case to the court, which sentenced her to one year for “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” a standard pretext used to criminalize Falun Gong practitioners.
Ms. Sun filed an appeal against the verdict, but the detention center guards held it and waited until the appeal window had expired before mailing it out.
Ms. Sun was released on November 10, 2016. The police harassed her several times in 2017.
