(Minghui.org) Having practiced Falun Gong for nearly 21 years, Ms. He Qiqiong was twice imprisoned for a total of seven years because she refused to renounce her faith. Falun Gong is a meditation and spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. He, 64, is a retired worker of Kunming Iron & Steel Holding Co., Ltd., based in Anning City, which is under the jurisdiction of Kunming City (the capital of Yunnan Province). After she was sentenced to four years in June 2005, her company suspended her pension from July 2005 to April 2008.
When her pension was later reinstated, she was denied cost-of-living raises for four years. Her employer again suspended her pension in September 2017 when she finished serving her second prison term for refusing to renounce her faith.
The following are Ms. He’s accounts of her ordeals during the persecution.
Home Ransacked and Family Harassed
Soon after the persecution started in July 1999, officers from Luobai Police Department frequently came to harass and threaten me. They attempted to intimidate me into giving up my faith in Falun Gong. My family was watched when we were home and followed when we went out. Our phone was tapped, and my husband and daughter were terrorized.
First Arrest and Prison Sentence
Eight officers from Luobai Police Department broke into my home on October 23, 2004 after a coworker of mine reported me for practicing Falun Gong. They confiscated my Falun Gong books and took me and my husband to the police department. I refused to be fingerprinted or photographed since practicing Falun Gong was my constitutional right. Afterward, I was taken to Kunming City Detention Center, where I was interrogated 20 times. I was tried by Qunming Intermediate Court in April 2005 and sentenced to four years. My appeal was turned down.
Tortured in Prison
After my appeal was turned down, I was taken to Yunnan 2nd Women’s Prison in June 2005. As soon as I was brought there, I was strip-searched. Because I refused to give up my faith, I was forced to sit still on a small bench from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day. I was given a bottle of water and allowed to use the toilet three times each day. The place was filled with mosquitoes, and I wasn’t given any protection.
A week later, I was put in solitary confinement for refusing to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. I had to sit still on a wooden bed all day. If I moved, the guards would shock me with electric batons. I was given little food each meal and cold water to wash my face only. I wasn’t allowed to shower, change clothes, or use hot water, even in the winter. I was forced to take off my clothes and wear the large, dirty clothes given to me.
I was also forced to hold a stereo that played audio slandering Falun Gong at the maximum volume from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m.
After 48 days in solitary confinement, I was put back in a regular ward and had to perform intensive labor from morning to midnight every day. If we failed to reach the monthly production quota, we were not allowed to leave the wards.
I was released in April 2008 after three and a half years. After I got home, agents from the 610 Office called me every day to threaten and harass me.
Second Arrest, Abuses and Prison Sentence
In September 2014, I told an elderly woman I met at the market about the health benefits of Falun Gong. A police officer overheard the conversation and called in more officers to arrest me.
They took me to Langjiazhuang Police Station, where I was body-searched. One officer later put two CDs in the pile of items dumped out of my bag in an attempt to forge evidence against me.
A dozen officers interrogated me while some beat and stripped me naked. They next put me in Kunming Detention Center despite my hypertension. Again I was forced to perform slave labor to make decorative lights.
I had to work long hours each day, and my fingers were all blistered. I wasn’t paid or offered necessary protection at work. There was little food, mostly boiled cabbage and potatoes. The guards took away the 700 yuan in cash I had and wouldn’t allow my family to visit or transfer money to me. I couldn’t purchase daily necessities for three months.
I was later sentenced to three years in prison. My former employer suspended my pension after I was released in September 2017. To this day, they still haven't reinstated my pension.
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