Shanxi Woman Dies 19 Months After Prison Release, Leaving Behind Adult Daughter Driven to Mental Collapse by Persecution Decades Ago

(Minghui.org)

Name: Xi XiulinChinese Name: 郗秀林Gender: FemaleAge: N/ACity: PingdingProvince: ShanxiOccupation: N/ADate of Death: June 2023Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 22, 2021Most Recent Place of Detention: Yu County Detention Center

A Pingding County, Shanxi Province resident was sentenced to a ten-month prison term in January 2021 for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. Ms. Xi Xiulin faced constant harassment from the authorities after she was released in November 2021. She lived in fear and died in June 2023. Her death capped her decades of suffering in the ongoing persecution.

Ms. Xi took up Falun Gong in January 1999 and never wavered in her faith after the persecution began six months later. She was arrested in 2003 and given one year and two months of forced labor (between July 2003 and October 2004) at the Xindian Women’s Prison in Taiyuan (capital city of Shanxi Province).

Her daughter, Ms. Liu Yanming, then 24 and a teacher at Dongsuohuang Elementary School in Pingding County, was implicated after her 2003 arrest. The police and the school administrators put tremendous pressure on the young woman because of her mother’s faith. Ms. Liu was so traumatized that she developed a mental disorder. She has been unable to work since the second half of 2004.

Ms. Xi faced more persecution episodes after she was released from the labor camp.

Three officers from Nanguan Police Station and two security guards from Nan’ao Village came to Ms. Xi’s home at around 9 a.m. on April 6, 2017. They took photos of her and her home. She urged them to stop persecuting innocent Falun Gong practitioners like her. They left without arresting her.

A security guard from Nan’ao Village, leading around seven people, showed up at Ms. Xi’s home at around 10 a.m. on January 14, 2020. They said they were visiting her ahead of the upcoming Chinese New Year (on January 25). They brought her some rice, flour, cooking oil, and milk. The security guard began to take photos of her using his cell phone and she immediately stopped him. He and the other people then left, but not before commenting that the couplets on her door contained inappropriate messages. Ms. Xi responded that the couplets contained messages about Falun Gong and were all good.

Ms. Xi was studying Falun Gong books with other local practitioners on the afternoon of August 2, 2020 when more than a dozen officers broke in and arrested them. The practitioners were interrogated at the Pingding County Police Department overnight before being taken to Yangquan Lockup at around 7 p.m. the next day. They were each given 15 days of detention.

Ms. Xi was taken to Yu County Detention Center on August 18, 2020. She was found to have dangerously low hemoglobin levels (4 grams per deciliter when the normal range is 12.3-15.3 gm/dL). She was thus released on bail.

Ms. Li appeared in the Pingding County Court on December 8, 2020. Her family and friends were not allowed to attend the hearing. Only a few police officers, prosecutors, and judges were present. The police drove her to the Yu County Detention Center right after the hearing, but she was again found to have an extremely low hemoglobin level (3 gm/dL). The detention center declined to admit her and the police released her on six months of house arrest.

The court held a virtual hearing in January 2021 and sentenced Ms. Xi to ten months. She was taken back into custody on July 22, 2021 and ordered to serve time at Yu County Detention Center.

Ms. Xi’s imprisonment triggered a mental crisis in her daughter and she was taken to a mental hospital.

Ms. Xi lived in fear after she was released in November 2021 as the police kept harassing her at home. She died in June 2023.