(Minghui.org) When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong in July 1999, not everyone believed the slanderous propaganda about the spiritual discipline based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.
Ms. Yang Jun, a farmer who lived in the suburbs of Beijing, decided that she had to take a look at Falun Gong’s teachings for herself to decide whether or not to believe the CCP's lies. It turned out to be her opportunity to start practicing it.
Wanting to defend Falun Gong and clarify the public’s misunderstandings about it, Ms. Yang took a copy of Zhuan Falun, the main text of Falun Gong, to her village officials for them to look at. She was reported and arrested. After that, the police frequently came to harass her and demand that she give up her faith.
On December 25, 2006, Ms. Yang was arrested at work. She was first held in a brainwashing center before being given a labor camp term. When her family visited her at the labor camp on February 5, 2007, two guards had to carry her out. She told her family that the guards didn’t let her sleep and she asked her family to help expose the persecution. The guards heard her, dragged her back in, and ended the visit.
After she was released, she recounted savage beatings by the guards. She once lost consciousness and was left lying on the ground in the restroom for hours. She lost control of her bowels from the beating and relieved herself in her pants. The long-term abuse also caused her to develop diabetes.
During the Beijing Olympics in 2008, the police arrested most of the practitioners on their blacklist, including Ms. Yang. She was later sentenced to two years and subjected to constant beatings. The guards slapped her in the face, shocked her with electric batons, deprived her of sleep, starved her, and forced her to sit on a small stool without moving for long hours.
When she returned home, the police and village officials continued to harass her. She gradually stopped practicing Falun Gong and her health continued to decline from the torture in custody. In the fall of 2014, she became bedridden and passed away in September 2015. She was in her 50s.
While Ms. Yang was imprisoned, her two young daughters were deprived of their mother’s care and didn’t finish school. Her younger daughter developed lupus erythematosus. And due to a medical accident, she ended up with femoral head necrosis and became crippled.
