Liaoning Woman Tried for Her Faith in Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) Ms. Wang Caiyun, 70, from Fushun City, Liaoning Province, was recently tried for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.

A former employee of Longfeng Coal Mine, Ms. Wang was arrested on March 4, 2023, for talking to people about Falun Gong. The Dongzhou District Court heard her case in the Fushun City Detention Center on July 12, 2023, where she has been held since her arrest. The details of her trial remain to be investigated.

This is not the first time that Ms. Wang has been targeted for her faith during the past 24 years of the persecution. She has been arrested multiple times and twice given forced labor totaling five years.

Arrested with Son in 2000

Ms. Wang and her son, also a Falun Gong practitioner, went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on July 23, 2000. They were arrested, taken back to Fushun, and held for 15 days. Ms. Wang was ordered to pay a fine of over 2,000 yuan.

Give Three Years of Forced Labor in 2001

Ms. Wang and her son returned to Beijing on November 28, 2000. She was arrested on December 13 that year for distributing Falun Gong informational materials in Beijing. She was brutally tortured in the Fengtai District Detention Center in Beijing, before being moved to the Fushun City’s Liaison Office in Beijing, from where Dongzhou Police Station officers picked her up and took her back to Fushun.

The police initially intended to hold her in the Fushun City Detention Center, but there was no room for new inmates. They then held her in the Fushun Rehabilitation Center for over three weeks before giving her three years of forced labor in January 2001.

Ms. Wang served time in Wujiabao Labor Camp. The guards gathered several people to “work on” her. They forced her to read, watch, and listen to materials smearing Falun Gong. They also cursed and insulted her all the time. She still held firm to her faith, so they resorted to physical torture, forcing her to stand or squat for long periods of time and depriving her of sleep.

Ms. Wang’s son was not with her when she was arrested in Beijing. Her husband still did not hear back from their son even after she was given forced labor. The older man became so worried about his son and wife that he fell ill and had to be hospitalized and be operated on.

Two Years of Torture (2008-2010) in Masanjia Labor Camp

Ms. Wang was arrested again on November 21, 2008, while visiting her father, then in his 80s. Longfeng Police Station officers also arrested her sister, not a Falun Gong practitioner, at the elderly man’s home.

Ms. Wang was held at the Fushun City Detention Center before being taken to the Masanjia Labor Camp to serve a two-year term.

The labor camp guards put Ms. Wang in a dark storage room two days after she was admitted. They then used the “stretching torture” on her, cuffing one of her hands to the upper bunk of a bed and another hand to the lower bunk of another bed. She could not stand up straight. The guards then shocked her with electric batons.

Her wrists were bruised and she couldn’t move her arms by the time the guards let her down an hour later. They next forced to sit on a small stool for long hours because she still refused to renounce Falun Gong.

Torture reenactment: Stretching torture

Less than a month later, Ms. Wang was summoned to the strict management team (where steadfast Falun Gong practitioners were subjected to even more brutal torture) and ordered to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. When she refused, the guards held her down on a table, pulled her hair, and slapped her face. They then shocked her and beat her with electric batons. She felt extremely dizzy and could barely stand. She also shook uncontrollably. The guards held her head tightly, grabbed her hand, and “signed” and fingerprinted the statements they’d written on her behalf to renounce Falun Gong.

As soon as they took her back to her cell, she wrote a solemn statement to nullify her signature and fingerprints on those statements. The guards then kicked and punched her, injuring her legs. They yanked her hair and slapped her in the face. She had trouble walking and needed help going up and down stairs.

About two months later, Ms. Wang was ordered to recite the labor camp rules. She refused and was put in the storage room again. The guards used the stretching torture on her a second time. They then locked the door and left.

In October 2009, the labor camp intensified the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in an attempt to meet the “transformation” quota. They arranged for 12 male guards in the strict management team to specially “handle” steadfast practitioners.

On December 26, 2009, Ms. Wang was called to the strict management team and ordered to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. When she refused, three guards beat her savagely, pulled off her her winter coat and shoes, and forced her to stand by an open window.

They then resuming beating her. After that, they forced her to sit on the ground. It was very cold at the time and Ms. Wang, in thin clothes and barefooted, couldn’t stop shivering.

The next morning she was again called to the strict management team. The guards removed her winter coat, wrote words slandering Falun Gong on a poster board, and hang it around her neck. They also put earbuds in her ears and forced her to listen to messages smearing Falun Gong.

The third morning two guards removed her winter coat and shoes before putting her on the stretching torture again. To make her suffer even more, three guards pulled one bed away from the other bed as far as possible, stretching her to the extreme.

Ms. Wang screamed in pain and was soaked in sweat. The guards stopped to take a break and asked if she’d now write statements to renounce Falun Gong. She said she would not, so they separated the beds even further. She screamed in pain.

37 Days of Detention in 2011

Ms. Wang and her son were arrested on November 2, 2011, after being reported for distributing Falun Gong informational materials. She refused to go with the officers from Longfeng Police Station. They carried her to the police station and transferred her to the Fushun City Detention Center that night. Ms. Wang was released 37 days later, the deadline for the police to have her arrest approved.