(Minghui.org) A senior manager at a private company lost her job and was sentenced to two years in prison because she practiced Falun Gong. While serving time, Ms. Wen Yufei was savagely beaten and forced to sit on a small stool for long hours without moving.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Police Violence and Prison Sentence
Ms. Wen, a 49-year-old resident in Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province, was arrested on May 1, 2020, for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. While interrogating her, Qian Wei, the head of the Domestic Security Office, kicked her in the head, face, eyes and nose with his leather boots. He also verbally abused her and threatened to harm her parents and son.
After Ms. Wen fainted from the abuse, Qian ordered two officers to drag her into another interrogation room and continued to verbally attack her after she came to. In the middle of the interrogation, the chair she was sitting in suddenly collapsed and she fell hard on the ground, injuring her back. The next evening, she was released on bail.
Ms. Wen submitted a complaint against Qian to the Ang’angxi District Procuratorate on June 29. She detailed Qian’s abuse of her and said she was shocked that a civil servant, who was obligated to serve the people, would beat her at will without worrying about violating the law.
In retaliation, Qian and his officers deceived her into going to the procuratorate to provide more details about her complaint and arrested her again on August 4. They then took her to the Fuyu County Detention Center.
Ms. Wen was tried by the Jianhua District Court on December 11, 2020 and sentenced to two years weeks later. She appealed the verdict, but the higher court ruled to uphold her original verdict.
Tortured in Prison
Ms. Wen was taken to Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison on August 12, 2021. Because she refused to renounce Falun Gong, inmates Li Bing and Wang Fengchun beat her and verbally abused her. They also forced her to sit on a small stool without moving from 4 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day. Her buttocks festered as a result, yet the inmates said she asked for the abuse herself. The guards also turned a blind eye to her suffering.
Inmate Wang beat Ms. Wen one morning in a corner not covered by surveillance cameras. Ms. Wen pressed an alarm to report the violence. Two other inmates, Xu Chun and Zhu Yimin, wrapped her with a blanket and almost suffocated her. A guard on duty later reprimanded the inmates. In retaliation, Xu slapped Ms. Wen in the face more than ten times. She and other inmates beat her again around noon.
In the evening, Wang slapped Ms. Wen in the face and hit her in the chest, just like how she had been beating her all the other nights. The guard on duty turned a blind eye to it, although everything was recorded by the surveillance camera.
The inmates also beat Ms. Wen as she washed dishes or used the restroom, often knocking her to the ground and verbally abusing her.
Ms. Wen demanded to talk to a guard one morning but was dragged back to her cell by the inmates. They kicked her and shouted at her, “You don’t have the right to meet with a guard. The guards are only in charge of inmates. If you don’t plead guilty, they won’t speak up for you. You also have to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong before you could talk to them. It’s the guards who instructed us to beat you.”
Past Persecution
Ms. Wen took up Falun Gong in 1997. After the communist regime ordered the persecution in 1999, she was arrested three times and had her home ransacked six times. Many of her personal belongings and valuables were confiscated. The police also constantly harassed her and monitored her daily life.
Ms. Wen later moved to another city after she was hired as a senior manager at a private company. Just as she and her family settled down, the police froze the company’s bank account to pressure the company to fire her. Knowing that she is a good, capable person, the company’s CEO tried everything to keep her. But Ms. Wen didn’t want to cause further trouble to him, so she resigned and left that city.
In 2012, Ms. Wen moved to her childhood home in Ang’angxi District in Qiqihar and opened a tutoring business. She charged the lowest tuition in town and sometimes taught the students for free.
With pressure from work and family, Ms. Wen gradually stopped practicing Falun Gong. In 2016, she suddenly experienced rapid weight loss, hair shedding, and pain in her abdomen, back, and legs. After seeing a doctor, she was found to have late-stage uterine cancer.
Unable to afford the expensive medical treatment, Ms. Wen resumed practicing Falun Gong and her health gradually recovered.
Related report:
Heilongjiang Woman Sentenced to Two Years for Upholding Her Faith
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