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Hunan Woman Detained Incommunicado for Nearly Three Months and Counting

Feb. 18, 2021 |   By a Minghui correspondent in Hunan Province, China

(Minghui.org) A native of Liuyang City, Hunan Province, has been detained incommunicado for nearly three months for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

In late November 2020, the police in Liuyang told local Falun Gong practitioners while harassing them that Ms. Zou Kelan has been arrested in Xiangtan, another city in Hunan about 80 miles away. The police didn’t elaborate on why Ms. Zou was arrested but threatened the practitioners not to go out to talk to people about Falun Gong.

As of now, Ms. Zou’s family hasn’t received any information about her. It’s also not clear why she went to Xiangtan.

Since the communist regime started to persecute Falun Gong, Ms. Zou, a retired bank employee, has been arrested multiple times and put under criminal detention on three occasions, for 17 days, 50 days, and 6 months, respectively.

While she was detained, her husband couldn’t bear the pressure from the persecution and divorced her. After she was released, she was forced into displacement, as she no longer had a home. Her parents also refused to take her in and blamed her for bringing shame to them. She moved around and had been living in Changsha, the capital city of Hunan Province, for the past ten years.

Due to the persecution, her workplace also suspended her salary and forced her to accept a buyout offer in the early years of the persecution. She had just managed to get her retirement processed three years ago when she reached the retirement age of 55.

Her parents have also started to be more receptive of her practice of Falun Gong. With the improved relationship with her parents, she had hoped to spend more time with them. Her latest arrest, however, dashed her hopes. Her father, a retired government official who is in his 80s, has struggled with declining health since Ms. Zou's latest arrest due to his age and pressure from the persecution. Ms. Zou has been providing care to her parents, but her latest arrest only brought more distress to the family.