Hunan Woman on Hunger Strike for a Month and Counting Following Latest Arbitrary Arrest

(Minghui.org) A Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province, woman has been detained since her arrest two months ago for her faith in Falun Gong. She started a hunger strike a month ago and is being force-fed.

Ms. Yu Yingzhu, 49, worked at the Zhuzhou City Smelter Plant. She was arrested on March 29, 2023, and taken to Changsha, about 50 miles away, overnight. She was admitted to the Changsha City No.4 Detention Center the next afternoon.

The police claimed that they suspected Ms. Yu of participating in an activity organized by local Falun Gong practitioners over ten years ago. She said she didn’t know anything about the activity or the practitioners the police mentioned. She asked if the police were making things up to frame her. To protest being persecuted, she started a hunger strike a month ago and has been taken to the hospital several times for force-feeding.

Past Persecution

Since the persecution began in 1999, Ms. Yu has been repeatedly harassed for her faith and served three labor camp terms totaling nearly eight years.

First Three-year Labor Camp Term

Ms. Yu went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in December 2000 and was arrested. She was first held in a detention center and then a psychiatric hospital in nearby Liaoning Province, before being taken back to Zhuzhou. She was given two years in the Baimalong Forced Labor Camp in March 2001 and had her term extended for a year and 18 days because she didn’t renounce Falun Gong.

The labor camp guards beat Ms. Yu regularly, held her in solitary confinement, and injected her with nerve-damaging drugs. She was hung up by the wrists on two occasions, once for four days and another time for eight days. If she closed her eyes she was beaten. She fainted both times and was taken to the clinic for resuscitation.

Torture illustration: Stretching and sleep deprivation

Ms. Yu held a hunger strike to protest the persecution and was put on IV drips. She felt very sleepy and weak afterward. She also found pink discharge on her underwear. After four days, she refused the IVs.

She was released on January 14, 2004.

Second 2.5-year Labor Camp Term

Ms. Yu returned to work after she was released, but the police never stopped harassing and monitoring her. She was arrested again five months later on June 8, 2004, and taken to the Zhuzhou City No.1 Detention Center.

Using the excuse that she didn’t renounce Falun Gong, the 610 Office give her another 1.5-year term at Baimalong Forced Labor Camp. Three days after she got there, she was told that her term was actually 2.5 years and it was the clerk who’d made a typo on the labor camp notice shown to her originally.

Between January 19 and 27, 2005, Ms. Yu was held in solitary confinement and forced to stand around the clock. Whenever she closed her eyes, the inmates monitoring her would beat her. She wasn’t given any food during that time either. Her feet became extremely swollen and she was foggy-headed.

She started another hunger strike on March 14, 2006, and had her term extended again for nearly four months. She was released on March 23, 2007.

Third One-year Labor Camp Term

Ms. Yu was arrested again on April 9, 2008. The police hung her up and clamped her legs with bamboo sticks. She was taken to the Liling County Detention Center the next day and then to the Baimalong Forced Labor Camp on May 7, 2008, to serve a one-year term.