Jiangxi Woman Given Three Years for Traveling with Falun Gong Books

(Minghui.org) While traveling from her son’s home in Xining City, Qinghai Province to attend her father’s funeral in her hometown in Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province, Ms. Li Fanglan was arrested at the Xining Train Station on March 2, 2021, after security found Falun Gong books in her bag during screening.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

After five days of detention on charges of “disrupting social order,” Ms. Li, 65, was transferred to the Jinxian County Detention Center in her hometown. The local police also ransacked her home.

Because Ms. Li refused to renounce Falun Gong, she was indicted by the Xihu District Procuratorate for “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” a standard pretext used to criminalize Falun Gong practitioners in China. The Xihu District Court sentenced her to three years with a 20,000-yuan fine in early January 2022. She was taken to the Jiangxi Province Women’s Prison on February 9.

Past Persecution

Ms. Li used to suffer from frequent, intense headaches, which significantly affected her quality of life. Her symptoms soon disappeared after she took up Falun Gong in 1997.

On July 22, 1999, two days after the official start of the persecution, her local township government summoned all local Falun Gong practitioners to the government building to watch propaganda videos smearing Falun Gong.

Wu Shuiheng, the township secretary, defamed Falun Gong and the practitioners, declaring that they weren’t allowed to practice Falun Gong anymore.

Upon seeing Ms. Li wearing a Falun emblem, Wu forced her to kneel down and hold her arms up. He then asked her whether she would practice Falun Gong in the future. When she said yes, he was infuriated and tied her to a tree, leaving her exposed to mosquito and other insect bites. It was extremely itchy and yet she couldn’t scratch herself. Only when her family went to the police station to seek her release at midnight, did the police go to the town government and untie her from the tree. They, however, refused to release her.

On the next day, the police ordered Ms. Li and several other practitioners to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. As they refused to comply, the police cut their hair, took their photos and took them to the Jinxian County Detention Center.

Ms. Li went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in January 2000 and was arrested at the Nanchang Train Station. Wang Binggen, the chief of Lidu Police Station, ransacked her home and held her at the Jinxian County Detention Center.

Jiang Jiewen, a local official, took Ms. Li to the police station on April 23, 2000, and asked her whether she still practiced Falun Gong. She insisted that she wouldn’t give it up. Jiang and other officials then took her to a psychiatric hospital. Several doctors held her in the bed, pressing down on her head, feet, and arms. Another one pried open her mouth with a chopstick and force-fed her unknown drugs. She struggled with all her might and almost suffocated.

The doctors tied Ms. Li in the bed and kept injecting her and force-feeding unknown drugs over the next few weeks. She would fall asleep after the shots in the morning and wake up to see it was already dark outside.

As a result of the toxic injections, her mind was constantly in a confused state. She suffered splitting headaches and felt numbness in her tongue, which caused her trouble talking. Her eyes were dull. Her limbs were weak. Her hair began to fall out.

After Ms. Li was released on May 25, 2000, she remained bedridden for months. She often felt her neck and chest were being pulled outward and her body was falling apart. Through doing Falun Gong exercises, she gradually recovered, but she still suffered occasional splitting headaches and her mind wasn’t as sharp as before.

Ms. Li went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong again in October 2000. She was arrested at the local train station and taken to the detention center.

The local police arrested her one more time on January 26, 2001, when she was visiting her parents. She was given three years of forced labor. She spent the first year at Nanchang City Forced Labor Camp and the remaining two years at Jiangxi Province Women’s Forced Labor Camp. The guards at both places tortured her, held her in solitary confinement, and forced her to stand for long hours when she refused to renounce Falun Gong.

Her next arrest was on July 22, 2012. Her Falun Gong books and 200 yuan in cash were confiscated. She was given 1.5 years at the Jiangxi Province Women’s Forced Labor Camp.

Related report:

Four Practitioners from Jinxian County, Jiangxi Province, Arrested, One Sent to Labor Camp