Shandong Woman Still Serving a 19-Year Term for Speaking Up for Her Persecuted Faith, Denied Family Visits Since September 2022

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Feb. 21, 2025 | By a Minghui correspondent in Shandong Province, China

(Minghui.org) A woman in Weihai City, Shandong Province, was sentenced to 19 years in June 2003 for tapping into the local TV signal to broadcast information debunking the propaganda spread by the Chinese Communist Party to smear her faith, Falun Gong.

Ms. Lyu Guiling, 64, was twice released on parole after she ended up in critical condition but was taken back into custody shortly afterwards each time. She is still serving time in Shandong Province Women’s Prison but is expected to be released on October 19, 2026.

Ms. Lyu Guiling

Ms. Lyu worked with three other practitioners, Mr. Huang Min, Mr. Zhang Yuejin and Mr. Jiang Luguang, to broadcast information about Falun Gong in Rongcheng City, Rushan City, and Wendeng City in 2002. All four practitioners were arrested on January 23, 2003, and taken to the Weifang Detention Center. Ms. Lyu held a hunger strike and was force-fed. She vomited blood and fainted on the ten days later. The guards took her to the hospital for emergency care. She remained very weak afterward.

The police took Ms. Lyu to the Rongcheng City Brainwashing Center on February 8, 2003. They deprived her of sleep for over two weeks. When she started to nod off, they stabbed her palms and soles with toothpicks. They also forced her to keep walking or standing in front of an open window so that the cold wind could blow on her. Because she refused to watch propaganda videos defaming Falun Gong, Xing Jianping, the head of Rongcheng City 610 Office, kicked her, restrained her ankles, and cuffed her hands behind her back to a chair. She was unable to move her legs for days and her hands were still numb six months later.

The Huancui District Court in Weihai sentenced all four practitioners on June 20, 2003: Ms. Lyu, then 42, was sentenced to 19 years; Mr. Huang, then 59; Mr. Zhang, then 36; and Mr. Jiang, then 27, were each given 20 years.

At the Weihai Detention Center, Ms. Lyu held a hunger strike to protest the persecution and fell into critical condition. While she was still waiting for the results of her appeal, she was released on medical parole after five months on a hunger strike.

Ms. Lyu after being released

On September 21, 2003, only two months after her release, the police and court personnel took Ms. Lyu back into custody, claiming that the appeals court had ruled to uphold her original verdict. She was taken to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison in the capital city of Jinan the next day. The prison initially refused to admit her, as she was still very weak from the previous hunger strike, but the police and court personnel insisted.

Ms. Lyu started another hunger strike to protest. She became even weaker and was taken to the Jinan Police Hospital in December 2003. By then, she had been on hunger strikes for a total of nine months since her initial arrest. Her weight had dropped from 65 kg (143 lbs) before her arrest to 31 kg (68 lbs). Not wanting her to die in the prison, the guards released her on January 15, 2004.

Ms. Lyu went into hiding to avoid being taken back to prison, but she was arrested in November 2008 when she returned home to visit her family. The Weihai City 610 Office took her back to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison. Because she shouted “Falun Dafa is good,” she was taken straight to solitary confinement upon her prison admission.

When Ms. Lyu was transferred to a regular cell, she was very weak and unable to do the forced labor. The guards beat her, kicked her, and dragged her by her hair to force-feed her unknown medicine.

Because Ms. Lyu remained firm in Falun Gong, she was subjected to all kinds of torture. In the winter, the guards removed her warm jacket and only gave her thin clothes. She was only given a thin sheet on the bed and not allowed to keep the thick blanket her family sent her. When she held a hunger strike to protest the persecution, the guards took her to the hospital for force-feeding.

The guards also forced Ms. Lyu to take high blood pressure pills (it’s not clear whether she had the condition), but she spit the pills out when the guards weren’t watching. She developed an intestinal obstruction in 2015 and was treated in the hospital.

After September 2022, Ms. Lyu’s family wsdn’t allowed to visit her or talk to her on the phone. According to an insider, Ms. Lyu’s hair had turned completely gray, all her teeth had fallen out, and she also had severe heart and lung conditions. She had severe pain in her legs in 2023 and was unable to walk for a month.

Prior to her arrest and heavy sentencing in 2003, Ms. Lyu was arrested in 2000 and again a 2002. She went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong on February 22, 2000, and was arrested. At the Weihai City’s Liaison Office in Beijing, the police beat her with a thick club and shocked her with electric batons. She was covered in bruises. Two days later, she was escorted back to Weihai and detained for 15 days. She was fined 15,00 yuan and the 1,400 yuan she had on her person was also confiscated.

Ms. Lyu was arrested again at home on the evening of April 28, 2002. Two officers beat her, pulled her hair, and interrogated her overnight. After she was taken to the detention center next day, she went on a hunger strike and was force-fed. The guards kept her restrained in a metal chair and left her outdoors. She was freezing and starving. She became emaciated and vomited blood. On the verge of death, she was released. The police threatened to arrest her again when she recovered. To avoid the persecution, she lived away from home.

While she was displaced, she met the other three male practitioners and decided to tap into the local TV signal to raise awareness about the persecution, only to be arrested again and given a heavy prison term.