(Minghui.org)
Name: Jia GuiqinChinese Name: 贾桂芹Gender: FemaleAge: 74City: ChaoyangProvince: LiaoningOccupation: meat shop ownerDate of Death: October 28, 2023Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 24, 2010Most Recent Place of Detention: Liaoning Province Women’s Prison
Ms. Jia Guiqin
Ms. Jia Guiqin was no longer the same woman that her family knew of when she walked out of the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison on April 24, 2023. After serving 13 years for her faith in Falun Gong, the once healthy woman in Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province was hunchbacked and could no longer recognize her husband. A prison guard was heard saying, “It’s a miracle that this old lady survived all these years in prison.”
Ms. Jia, however, did not remember much of what she went through. She seldom talked after she returned home. When she did open her mouth, it was her scattered memories of her ordeal. Her family heard her say, “I was not allowed to sleep because I refused to renounce Falun Gong...three or four people followed me and didn’t allow me to talk...I didn’t want to take any pills but was forced to. I fell into a coma after taking the pills and was rushed to the hospital...”
Ms. Jia had trouble falling asleep and also complained about headaches. She died six months later on October 28, 2023, at the age of 74.
Arrested Together with Husband in 2010
A group of officers from the Qianjin Police Station broke into Ms. Jia’s home on April 24, 2010, and arrested her and her husband, Mr. Li Hua, for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice also known as Falun Dafa that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. The couple’s computer, Falun Gong books, and more than 70,000 yuan of cash were confiscated.
While the couple was held in the Wujiawa Detention Center, their family went to the police station and its supervising agency, the Chaoyang District Police Department, as well as the Shuangta District Procuratorate and the Shuangta District Court, to seek their release and case dismissal. The authorities intimidated them instead. On July 12, 2010, three officers from the Guangming Police Station seized the couple’s daughter-in-law on the street and interrogated her for several hours as to who were the few relatives who went with her to seek her parents-in-law’s release.
Sentenced to 13 Years for Her Faith
Judge Bai Lan of the Shuangta District Court obstructed the family’s efforts to hire a lawyer for Ms. Jia and Mr. Li, who ended up with no legal representation.
The couple stood trial on July 14, 2010. Bai’s assistant judges Zhang Xiaohua and Wang Cuiling, as well as clerk Zhang Xiaofan and prosecutor Liu Fei, were also present. Liu accused the couple of “using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement,” a standard pretext used to frame and imprison Falun Gong practitioners. He also bragged that all the local practitioners sentenced since 2002 were a result of his indictment against them.
Ms. Jia was later sentenced to 13 years and her husband 3 years with 5 years probation. The Chaoyang City Intermediate Court rejected Ms. Jia’s appeal and even called her family to threaten them after the ruling, “Even if you hire a lawyer to file a motion to challenge our ruling, the lawyer would not be allowed to meet with her. Our decision is final.”
Admitted to Prison After Police Cheat the System
Ms. Jia developed high blood pressure following her arrest and by law was not fit for continued detention. To get her admitted to prison, the police laced her water with hypertension medicine without her knowledge, before deceiving her into drinking it. She thus passed the required physical examination and was admitted to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison on September 13, 2010. Her family later learned about the police cheating episode from an insider.
Repeatedly Tortured for Calling Out “Falun Dafa is Good!”
Ms. Jia called out “Falun Dafa is good” every day in her early years of prison admission and was beaten daily. Under the directives of the prison guards, the inmates often tied her up on a bench and beat her savagely. They also stuffed her mouth with dirty rags or soiled toilet paper to prevent her from talking. The main perpetrators involved in her torture included inmates Xu Hua, Zhang Xiaoying, Liu Hongxin, and Wei Shijun.
While some prison guards pretended to be nice to her and ordered inmates behind her back to beat her, a few other guards directly tortured her. Team captain Guo Xu once beat her savagely in his office. She was also twice placed in solitary confinement for calling out “Falun Dafa is good.”
The first time was on July 5, 2013, by captain Guo and section chief Qu Xiaoqing. The solitary confinement cell was cold and damp with no sunlight. Ms. Jia was made to sleep on the cold cement floor with no comforter. She went on a hunger strike in protest and was sent to a hospital one week later. It was unclear whether she received treatments or was force-fed in the hospital. She was soon taken back to the solitary confinement cell, where she was held for a total of 32 days.
Ms. Jia’s second solitary confinement detention took place on August 14, 2013. She again went on a hunger strike and was taken to a hospital for force-feeding. She was given seven bottles of injections every day, with her hands cuffed to the bed frame. She was not allowed to wash herself or use the restroom (the prison guards had inmates use a basin to catch her waste). After an unknown amount of time at the hospital, she was taken back to the solitary confinement cell, where she was held there until September 4, 2013. An inmate who happened to see her reported seeing her head bleeding (the cause of the bleeding wasn’t clear).
Besides beatings and solitary confinement detention, Ms. Jia was also subjected to other forms of abuse, including being forced to stand for long periods, deprived of sleep, kicked, dragged around by hair, stripped of jackets, and had cold water poured all over her body.
During a health checkup in late 2019, Ms. Jia was found to have a big lump on her head and was hospitalized for a period of time. It was unclear whether the lump was the result of beatings or a medical condition. After she was taken back to prison, she was forced to take unknown drugs, which caused her to become dizzy and later develop a mental disorder.
Despite the relentless torture, Ms. Jia never wavered in her faith in her 13 years of imprisonment. She walked out of the prison alive on April 24, 2023, only to die six months later. Her family was heartbroken that a life transformed by Falun Gong was destroyed by the Chinese Communist Party.
Health Restored
Ms. Jia was frail and sickly since she was a child. She suffered from severe rheumatoid, heart disease, eye disease, rhinitis, and other illnesses. As she grew older, her symptoms only got worse and no medical treatments helped. Her joints became deformed and the pain was unbearable. Later, she could hardly take care of herself. Her husband struggled to care for her, do all household chores, and tend to their family business, a meat shop.
Ms. Jia’s fate changed when someone introduced her to Falun Gong. Within a month of practicing, all her illnesses miraculously disappeared and she no longer needed the eyeglasses she had worn for decades. She was also able to run the meat shop again.
Ms. Jia became a kinder and more considerate person too as she strove to live by Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
A Well-regarded Business Owner
Ms. Jia’s meat shop was well known among locals because she offered high-quality meat at reasonable prices. Even her competitors referred their customers to her when the latter desired high-quality meat that their own shops did not offer.
After noticing an elderly customer had mobility issues, Ms. Jia offered to deliver meat to his house for free. She did so for many years, and the elderly man commented that he knew that Falun Gong was good by just looking at how Ms. Jia behaved.
A Beloved In-law
Ms. Jia invited her bedridden mother-in-law to live with her after her father-in-law passed away. She took care of the older woman for many years until her passing.
Ms. Jia’s mother-in-law was so moved by her filial piety that she wrote in her will to leave her only house to Ms. Jia’s son. Ms. Jia, however, offered to have her husband’s sister share the house. Her sister-in-law’s husband marveled that only Falun Gong could make Ms. Jia so generous in sharing the inheritance.
In China, the fraught relationship between mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law is a perpetual theme. Ms. Jia, however, got along well with her daughter-in-law. She treated the younger woman as if she were her daughter, earning the latter’s respect and affection.
After Ms. Jia and her husband were arrested on April 24, 2010, their daughter-in-law returned home to find their shared residence a big mess with more than 70,000 yuan cash missing, which was budgeted to purchase meat for the shop. The younger couple’s then ten-month-old son cried for his grandparents and fell ill as a result.
Despite these difficulties, Ms. Jia’s daughter-in-law said that she had learned from her mother-in-law to be strong and that she would persevere.
A Generous Neighbor
Ms. Jia’s apartment building did not have a property management office. For many years, each family chipped in to hire people to clean the building’s drinking water source, a well. After she took up Falun Gong, she and her husband volunteered to cover the entire well-cleaning expenses. Her neighbors were moved by her generosity.
Related reports:
Elderly Shop Owner Tortured in Liaoning Women's Prison
Illegal Trial Ends Hastily after Ms. Jia Guiqin Exposes Facts of Persecution
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