(Minghui.org) A 67-year-old woman in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province was recently imprisoned to serve a 4.5-year term for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Xia Yilin was arrested on June 22, 2020, after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong near a train station. She was held at the Taiyuan City No. 3 Detention Center and denied family visits.
The local court secretly sentenced Ms. Xia to 4.5 years. Her family didn’t receive any update about her case until after she was taken to the Yuci Women’s Prison. Because she refused to renounce Falun Gong, her family was not allowed to visit her, but could only call her or write to her.
Two Previous Prison Terms
Ms. Xia developed stomach problems at age 7. Her mother was a western medicine doctor and her father a traditional Chinese medicine doctor. Her aunt was a gastroenterologist in Shanghai Medical School. Yet none of them were able to cure her symptoms, which became so severe in her adulthood that she had to take time off work every few days. She became incapacitated, and her symptoms developed into stomach cancer.
After she began to practice Falun Gong in March 1998, however, her stomach problems, which had plagued her for 38 years, were gone completely. Having experienced the miracles of Falun Gong, she never wavered in her faith after the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999. She was targeted for her faith as a result.
Ms. Xia was first arrested on October 24, 2000 for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. She was beaten in the local detention center for doing Falun Gong meditation. The guards once handcuffed her for seven days.
Ms. Xia was sentenced to three years in September 2001. Her family wasn’t informed of the trial and her self-defense was frequently interrupted by the judge.
After being taken to the Shanxi Province Women’s Prison, she was monitored by the inmates around the clock. She wasn’t allowed to talk to others or bend her legs while sleeping. When she went to the restroom, the inmates stood by her and checked whether the tissues she carried with her had words written on them.
Ms. Xia was arrested again on September 17, 2015, for filing a criminal complaint on August 10, 2015 against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the communist regime, for ordering the persecution.
The police broke into her home at 7 a.m. that day and brought Ms. Xia, her husband, daughter, and three-year old grandson to the police station. After interrogating her, the police returned to her home and confiscated her two computers, two printers and a broken DVD burner. They also searched her daughter’s home, without providing a list of confiscated items.
While Ms. Xia’s husband and daughter were released on the next day, she was held at the Taiyuan City No.1 Detention Center on charges of “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” the standard pretext used by the authorities to frame Falun Gong practitioners.
Ms. Xia was later indicted by the Yingze District Procuratorate and sentenced to four years with a 10,000-yuan fine by the Yingze District Court.
Since the onset of the persecution in 1999, the authorities in Taiyuan have closely followed the persecution policy. For two decades between July 1999 and July 2019, at least 725 local practitioners were arrested; 49 were persecuted to death; 5 became disabled; 4 suffered mental breakdown; at least 80 were given labor camp terms; and 143 were sentenced the prison, with the longest term of 11 years and the oldest practitioner being 81.
Related reports:
Taiyuan Woman Arrested Again for Suing Chinese Dictator
Practitioners Incarcerated in Shanxi Province Women's Prison, Families Prevented from Visiting
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