(Minghui.org) Two sisters in Qianguo County, Jilin Province, were arrested in 2019 for their shared faith in Falun Gong and later sentenced to 3 and 3.5 years respectively. One of them faced non-stop police harassment after she was released from prison.
Ms. Liu Ying, a 52-year-old former doctor, and her sister, Ms. Liu Yan (who had just taken up Falun Gong in 2018), were arrested on September 10, 2019, by officers at Qianguo County Police Department, Yucai Police Station, and Daliba Township Police Station.
Ms. Liu Yan was cooking lunch when the police showed up. Ms. Liu Ying was arrested at the health center she worked at around 11 a.m. None of the arresting officers produced their IDs or arrest warrants. When Ms. Liu Ying called a colleague for help, one officer snatched her phone and shouted, “Who are you calling?”
According to their verdicts, the police raided their shared residence and confiscated the following items, including:
A desktop, three flash drives (including one belonged to Ms. Liu Ying’s son), two media players, four cellphones, 14 Falun Gong books, 32 copies of Minghui Weekly, a photo of Falun Gong’s founder, over 60 Falun Gong flyers, 200 yuan paper bills printed with information about Falun Gong, an engraving machine, 132 bracelet engraved with the words “Falun Dafa is good,” 61 gourd keychains, 102 non-engraved bracelets, 73 long bracelets, 106 strings of non-engraved gourds, and 29 bags of beads.
The sisters were first taken to the Qianguo County Police Department, before being transferred to the Shanyou Detention Center in the evening. They appeared in the Qianguo County Court in December 2019. Ms. Liu Ying was sentenced to 3.5 years and Ms. Liu Yan to 3 years. Both of them were also fined 10,000 yuan each. They were admitted to the Jilin Province Women’s Prison on January 3, 2020. Ms. Liu Ying was fired by her workplace not long after her sentence.
The sisters’ prison sentences left the three people living with them, including their father, in his 80s, and two teenage boys, who both had upcoming college entrance exams, in a dire situation.
One of the boys is Ms. Liu Ying’s son (she divorced years ago and was given custody of her son), and the other is her nephew, the son of her brother, Mr. Liu Haibo. Mr. Liu was beaten to death in 2002, at the age of 34, for tapping into the state cable television network to broadcast videos that debunked the propaganda defaming Falun Gong.
Ms. Liu Ying was held in the eighth division in the prison. The then-division director Qian Wei ordered inmates Li Cuiyu, Jin Jinshi, and Zhang Hongmei to torture her because she refused to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong. The inmates forced her to sit on a small stool less than 20 cm (about 7.9 inches) tall for at least 15 hours a day. The inmates inserted a piece of paper between her legs and beat her when the paper slipped out. While sitting, she was also subjected to verbal abuse or forced to watch propaganda videos smearing Falun Gong.
If the practitioners needed to use the restroom, they had to ask for the inmate’s permission first. They usually got no more than four restroom breaks each day. They were only given a tiny piece of cornbread and some pickles for each meal and weren’t allowed to brush their teeth, wash their hands, or change their underwear.
Continued Harassment After Ms. Liu Ying’s Prison Release
After Ms. Liu Ying was released in September 2022, she faced continued harassment by officers of the Qianguo County Police Department, Amur Police Station, and the Mongolian Aili Community.
Since December 2023, after officer Ma Dong of the Amur Police Station took over the task of monitoring Ms. Liu, he frequently harassed her, either asking for her personal information or demanding to take a photo with her. The harassment left her father, now 90, deeply terrified.
After Ms. Liu moved to another location and changed her job, Ma called her again on August 9, 2024. When she refused to answer the call, he kept calling her in the next few days. He also went to her previous apartment and had her former landlord call her. Ma even called her relative on August 13 and demanded to know her new address.
Around 12 a.m. on September 1, 2024, Ma showed up at the supermarket Ms. Liu Ying was working at and questioned her as to why she didn’t answer his call. Without her consent, he attempted to take a photo with her and threatened to come to her home to find her in a few days. Another officer who went with Ma videotaped the entire conversation. Before Ma left, he said that he received many calls from Falun Gong practitioners outside of China, urging him not to participate in the persecution; he threatened to take revenge if they kept calling him.
Ma called Ms. Liu again on November 6. When she refused to answer his call, he came to her workplace one more time. As she wasn’t there when he came, he ordered her supervisor to call her and said he would come again the next day.
Ms. Liu told Ma that such frequent harassment didn’t only interrupt her daily life, but also endangered her employment. Ma shouted at her, “Are you threatening me? Why don’t you answer my call or tell me your address in the first place? Who has been harassing you? You think I want to do that? I’m just doing my job to finish the required quarterly check-ins.”
Around 5:30 p.m. the next day, Ma and a young officer, both in their police uniform, returned to Ms. Liu’s workplace. Ma snatched her phone and checked her contacts. He wrote down her other phone number after finding it in her phone.
Ms. Liu said she understood they were just following the order from above, but they still had ways to get around it and protect the practitioners. Ma became angry about the phone calls he was getting from overseas practitioners and threatened to escalate her case to the higher-ups.
Financial Persecution
In April 2020, the Qianguo County Court garnished 10,000 yuan from Ms. Liu Ying’s bank account to pay her court fine, without providing a receipt to anyone. Not knowing about the court’s action, her family went to the Changchun City Intermediate Court in July 2022 to pay the 10,000 yuan fine again.
After Ms. Liu was released in September 2022, she went to both courts and demanded the return of the duplicate payment. The intermediate court refused to receive her, while the trial court ordered her to provide a transaction record. Ms. Liu got the record and gave it to Yu Chengkui, who was in charge of the case. Yet Yu only provided a receipt based on information from the receipt and he insisted that it was impossible for them to return the money. He directed Ms. Liu to the appeals court and refused to communicate with the appeals court himself. He also dared Ms. Liu to file a complaint against them however she wanted. Neither court has returned the money so far.
Related Reports:
Exposing the Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners Jailed at Jilin Province Women’s Prison
Songyuan City, Jilin Province: 13 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested in One Day
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