(Minghui.org) Ms. Ye Chunyan was constantly harassed by police after she was released in February 2020 at the end of an eight-year prison term for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

It was more devastating for her when the authorities suspended her pension six months later and demanded that she return the nearly 300,000 yuan in pension benefits she had received during her prison term. The authorities claimed that no Falun Gong practitioners serving time for their faith are entitled to pension payments, though no Chinese labor law has such a stipulation.

Her husband fell and broke his hand, and her son hasn’t worked for years. The financial persecution of Ms. Ye put her family in a dire situation.

Arrest

Ms. Ye, a 65-year-old retired pharmaceutical company worker in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, was arrested on September 4, 2013, after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong in a zoo.

Xing Hua and Ma Yinghui of the Domestic Security Office snatched her keys and ransacked her home. They confiscated her Falun Gong books, informational materials, two computers, three printers, and 5,000 yuan in cash.

At 2 a.m., Ms. Ye was taken to the Kunming City Detention Center. The 500 yuan in cash she had with her was also confiscated by the police.

Sentenced to Eight Years

In the detention center, Ms. Ye was forced to make colorful lights. The guards wouldn’t allow her to sleep if she didn’t finish the daily quota. The toiletries sold in the detention center were all counterfeit products and still sold at market price. The prices of fruits such as apples and bananas were several times higher than their market prices.

The Wuhua District Court held a hearing in March 2014 and sentenced her to eight years on March 31. She appealed with the Kunming City Intermediate Court, which upheld her original sentence on June 25.

Tortured in Prison

Ms. Ye was taken to the Yunnan Province No.2 Women’s Prison on September 23, 2014. She was held in the ninth ward, which was designated for Falun Gong practitioners.

The guards arranged felons to monitor and torture the practitioners in the ninth ward, using term reductions as rewards. The practitioners weren’t allowed to talk to anyone else, only to the inmates assigned to monitor them around the clock. The two inmates assigned to monitor Ms. Ye were drug dealers who had been sentenced to life. They forced her to recite the prison rules and write thought reports every day.

In addition to the mental torment, the guards also restricted the practitioners’ restroom use. One limitation was having to use the restroom one at a time, so as to prevent practitioners from talking to each other. Ms. Ye said the restroom restrictions were very difficult for her, as she usually wasn’t allowed to use the restroom when she needed to, and by the time she was allowed to use it, she didn’t have the need at the moment. If she needed to use the restroom outside the designated time frame, she had to report to the inmates and get their permission.

A guard named Li Guoying who was in charge of Ms. Ye was very active in trying different methods to force the practitioners to give up Falun Gong. Li once forced Ms. Ye to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong and then read it in front of other practitioners and inmates.

Ms. Ye was later transferred to the fifth ward, where she was forced to make clothes. The guards also arranged two inmates to monitor her and didn’t allow her to talk to other practitioners. She was ordered to write a thought report every month. The guards constantly talked to her and pressured her not to practice Falun Gong.

Since 2019, the prison increased the time spent on brainwashing, including forcing the practitioners to study materials glorifying the Chinese Communist Party and sing songs praising the regime. The guards often stripped the practitioners and body searched them as a way to humiliate them.

Harassment after Prison Release

When Ms. Ye’s prison term expired on February 3, 2020, she was directly taken to the Liujiaying Police Station and had her photo taken and fingerprints collected before she was allowed to go home.

The police harassed her again on May 5, 2020. Upon seeing her talk to a friend outside of her apartment building, Li Shaohui and another police officer came to ransack her home the next day. Her hand-copied Falun Gong book was taken away.

After taking Ms. Ye to the police station, the police returned to her home with two big bags but didn’t find any more things related to Falun Gong. The police forced her to write a statement, promising not to print or distribute Falun Gong materials, before releasing her. They threatened to take her to the detention center if she didn’t write the statement.

Since then, the police has often harassed her through phone calls, leaving her family under tremendous pressure.

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Li Shaohui (李绍辉), officer of the Liujiaying Police Station: +86-871-64122050
Tang Qi (唐琪), head of Kunming City Social Security Bureau: +86-871-12333

Chinese version available

Category: Accounts of Persecution