(Minghui.org) A Dongguan City, Liaoning Province resident was recently sentenced to 2 years and fined 3,000 yuan for practicing Falun Gong, a traditional mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Prior to the latest sentence, Ms. Liu Mei was incarcerated for a total of 15 years, including 2 years in a forced labor camp and 13 years in prison. She suffered from heart disease, tuberculosis and atrophy of the brain as a result of the torture, and almost died several times.
Latest Arrest and Detention
Ms. Liu was on her way to buy something on November 7, 2021 when she ran into another Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Zhang Li. They went together to the market and were arrested by officers from the Xiangyang Police Station on their way back. The police searched their bags and took them to the local police station, where the police body searched them. Ms. Liu’s cash and her house keys were confiscated. When the police asked for their names and home address, they remained silent.
Police officer Zhou Xingyu interrogated Ms. Liu and ordered her to sit in a metal chair. She refused and said that she was not a criminal. She also told Zhou that her bag contained nothing but a notebook. Zhou became furious and threatened to throw the notebook at her, but she kept quiet.
An instructor, Yu Ben, then came and told Zhou that he was there to take over the interrogation. By promising to release her in two hours if she cooperated, Yu deceived Ms. Liu into signing certain documents and admitting that the five informational cards about Falun Gong confiscated from Ms. Zhang were actually hers.
When Ms. Liu asked to go home after signing the documents, Yu claimed that they needed to do a PCR test to make sure she and Ms. Zhang were not infected with COVID-19 as several officers had close contact with them. He added that they would be released if they tested negative. Yet after the negative test results came out the next day, the police changed Ms. Liu’s administrative detention to criminal detention and held her in a lockup for 15 days.
Sentenced to Two Years
After 15 days, when the police attempted to transfer Ms. Liu to the local detention center, the guards there refused to admit her as she failed her physical examination. Yu personally went to the detention center and spent four hours persuading the detention center to accept her.
The police submitted the case against Ms. Liu to the Zhen’an District Procuratorate on November 30, 2021. The local procuratorate issued a formal arrest warrant against her on December 7.
Due to her health, Ms. Liu was released on December 17, 2021. Yu told her that she was put under house surveillance.
In 2022, Yu went to Ms. Liu’s house several times. He lied that her case has been dismissed and ordered her to sign on the bail release document. On October 11, Yu and Zhou informed Ms. Liu to go to the procuratorate to finish her case dismissal paperwork.
Ms. Liu went to the procuratorate, only to learn that Yu had fabricated an “account” from Ms. Zhang against her and that the prosecutor had indicted her. The prosecutor was in fact moving her case to the Zhen’an District Court on that day.
On the same day after the case arrived at the court, the judge ordered to take Ms. Liu back into custody. However, she was not admitted, as she failed her physical examination.
Ms. Liu appeared in court on December 13. Her lawyer entered a not-guilty plea for her and also pointed out that no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong.
During the trial, Ms. Zhang testified that the five cards that Yu claimed to be Ms. Liu’s belonged to her and that she had never given them to Ms. Liu. She also pointed out that Yu fabricated her account against Ms. Liu. She demanded the prosecutor examine the interrogation video at the police station, yet the prosecutor claimed that the police station had a power outage that day and nothing was recorded.
On December 29, 2022, Ms. Liu was sentenced to two years and fined 3,000 yuan. She has appealed with the Dandong City Intermediate Court.
Fifteen Years of Incarceration
Ms. Liu was born in the countryside. Her parents were well-known teachers among the locals. Her father was a high school language teacher and was good at arts and sports. He knew how to play a lot of musical instruments, thus Ms. Liu and her siblings all learned to play different instruments. Almost every night was spent singing and playing musical instruments. They were the envy of their relatives and neighbors.
Later, Ms. Liu’s father had a job transfer and they moved to the city. With the transfer and promotion, Ms. Liu’s father also underwent great changes. He asked for a divorce in the 1980s, shocking Ms. Liu’s mother and her siblings. The siblings became sad and resentful of their father after seeing their mother in pain.
In 1995, Ms. Liu started practicing Falun Gong and followed the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. She slowly forgave her father. Regardless if she was at home or out, she always required herself to be a good person. At work, she was nominated as a model employee every year.
After the Chinese Communist Party started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, Ms. Liu was arrested for going to Beijing to appeal. One day in a detention center, a few police officers pinned her down and whipped her with belts and bamboo skin. She fainted after some time and could feel herself floating in the air and moving forward. However, she heard someone shouting her name from far away and followed that voice. After a while, she saw a group of people surrounding her body. Some were inserting needles into her body, some were crying, and some were shouting her name. Then she felt pain in her body but did not know where she was. Then she realized that she was in the detention center. At that moment, she heard someone saying that her eyes moved and she came to life. Ms. Liu then woke up.
After waking up, Ms. Liu was in extreme pain as her bottom, lower back, and thighs were swollen and black.
Ms. Liu and her husband, also a Falun Gong practitioner, were arrested and sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment in 2002. She was taken to Liaoning Women’s Prison. At the end of 2007, she suffered from high blood pressure and heart disease as a result of the torture.
She was also vomiting blood every day due to tuberculosis. She had hormone imbalance and her stomach was so bloated that it was bigger than her chest. She had blood in her stool and urine, and suffered from atrophy of the brain. Her eyeball also atrophied and she suffered from blurred vision. Half of her face was red and swollen and the other half was atrophied. Her feet were rotting, bloody, and swollen. She felt as if there were animals running and shouting in her brain. The arteries on the left side of the neck were swollen and bleeding, and her neck felt uncomfortable, as though someone was strangling her. She was out of breath. She also had a lump in her breast and she was emaciated and unable to care for herself. She needed someone to help her when walking or using the restroom.
Ms. Liu demanded to talk to the authorities to stop the abuse. A prison leader came and talked to her several times. The leader praised Ms. Liu’s character. Afterward, the persecution against her became a little less.
In 2015, Ms. Liu was released and had to stay at a relative’s house. Though she had yet to recover from the torture herself, she and her husband took care of her mother-in-law for almost a month, when her husband’s siblings refused to do so.
Ms. Liu and her husband later took her mother-in-law to their home and care for her, despite the fact that her mother-in-law did not approve of their marriage due to Ms. Liu’s hand injury sustained as a result of workplace accident. While her mother-in-law was bedridden, Ms. Liu cooked her favorite food, massaged her, helped her to bathe, and brought snacks for her.
Related reports:
Husband Detained for Seeking Release of Wife Arrested for Their Shared Faith
Dafa Practitioner Ms. Liu Mei Critically Ill Due to Persecution in Shenyang Women's Prison
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