(Minghui.org) A native of Qu County, Sichuan Province, has been held incommunicado for nearly a year and a half since her arrest on April 24, 2020, for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Hu Yurong’s family has asked about her repeatedly at the Baocheng Police Station and Qu County Domestic Security Office but to no avail. Devastated, her father passed away. Her elderly mother is now struggling to live on her own.
Prior to her latest arrest, Ms. Hu has been repeatedly detained, for a total of nearly 15 years, for upholding her faith.
When the persecution began, the principal of Lhasa Middle School in Tibet where Ms. Hu worked attempted to force her to renounce Falun Gong. She refused to comply and was given six months of forced labor in October 1999.
Shortly after she was released, she went to Beijing in September 2000 with her 18-month-old son in tow to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong. She was arrested on Tiananmen Square and held on the Beijing No.2 Detention Center for two months. The guards beat her and inserted bamboo sticks under her fingernails. She was covered with bruises and her clothes were stained with blood.
The Lhasa Court sentenced her to five years in January 2001. She was forced to do intensive unpaid labor, tortured, and verbally abused while serving time in Beijiao Prison in Lhasa.
One year after she was released in December 2006, Ms. Hu was fired by her school and sent back to her hometown in Sichuan.
She was arrested by the police in Qu County in July 2007 and held in the Qu County Lockup for 15 days.
Dozens of police officers broke into her home and attempted to arrest her on October 1, 2007. After she escaped, they searched her parents’ home. Her parents and her brother were taken to the Baochengxiang Police Station and interrogated. Over 100 villagers were summoned to take turns monitoring her parents’ home for seven days. The police also searched her parents’ home several times, confiscating their cellphones and forbidding them from contacting anyone.
Ms. Hu was arrested two weeks later when she returned home. The Sichuan police took her back to Tibet. Her hands and feet were cuffed during the 48-hour trip and she wasn’t given anything to eat.
Ms. Hu returned to Sichuan on January 10, 2008, to spend the Chinese New Year with her family. On February 10, 2008, three days after the Chinese New Year, the police arrested her and put her in Nanmusi Women’s Forced Labor Camp in Sichuan for two and a half years.
The guards instigated the inmates to beat her, deprive her of sleep, and deny her restroom use. The guards also held her in solitary confinement, tied up her hands and feet, and hung her up by her wrists. She was starved for six days. On another occasion, the guards forced her to wear shorts in the winter and kneel for 24 hours.
Only a few months after Ms. Hu was released, she was arrested yet again on November 26, 2010, while she was out looking for a job. The police beat her and dragged her into an unmarked police car.
She was tortured in the Qu County Detention Center and then taken to the Dazhou Psychiatric Hospital, where she was injected with unknown drugs and force-fed.
The Qu County Court sentenced Ms. Hu to seven years in prison on August 23, 2011, based on fabricated accounts from village officials accusing her of distributing Falun Gong informational materials. She was taken to the Jianyang Women’s Prison on December 8.
After Nearly 15 Years of Incarceration for Her Faith, Former Teacher Arrested Again
Ms. Hu Yurong, Previously Persecuted in a Forced Labor Camp, Illegally Sentenced to Seven Years