(Minghui.org) A 68-year-old woman in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, finished her second three-year prison term on September 18, 2022, only to be ordered to return the pension benefits issued to her during her imprisonment.
Ms. Deng Guiying, a former worker at Dongfeng Printing Factory, refused to comply with her local social security office’s demand as China’s labor law protects her lawfully earned retirement benefits. The social security office then suspended her pension in an attempt to “claw back” the already issued benefits.
Ms. Deng was imprisoned and had her pension suspended simply because of her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Deng’s latest sentencing stemmed from her arrest on September 19, 2019. Her family was only allowed to visit her once during her detention at the Nanchang City First Detention Center. Her family spent 30,000 yuan hiring a lawyer, but the lawyer was barred from defending her during a virtual hearing by the Xihu District Court. She was sentenced to three years in early September 2020 and transferred to the Jiangxi Province Women’s Prison days later on September 17.
Ms. Deng was previously given three years in 2003 and served time at the same prison. She was subjected to various forms of abuse during both prison terms.
Forced Labor During First 3-Year Term
While serving her first prison term from 2003 to 2006, Ms. Deng was forced to do hard labor under poor working conditions and without pay. Due to the extremely heavy workload, her left thumb was severely deformed and could not bend or stretch. Her left leg was also in pain and still hurt many years after she was released from prison.
Abused During Second Three-Year Term
Ms. Deng was first kept at the newcomers’ team after she was admitted to prison on September 17, 2020. She refused to memorize the prison rules. The guards assigned her to Division Four on October 2, 2020. For two months straight, she was forced to sit on the edge of a bed from morning to 11 p.m. every day. She would be yelled at whenever she was caught dozing off.
She was next moved to Division Five, where she saw other jailed practitioners, including Ms. Li Lanying of Xingguo County, Ms. Li Meilian of Yingtan City, and Ms. Yin Dongmei (in her 80s) of Yichun City. The guards ordered the practitioners to watch videos and read materials smearing Falun Gong. Ms. Deng refused to comply and said the materials were all fabricated lies against Falun Gong. The guards then ordered a few inmates to beat her savagely in a place with no surveillance cameras.
The inmates assigned to watch Ms. Deng and other practitioners were all drug addicts or death row prisoners. The guards used term reduction or other promises to instigate them to abuse the practitioners. In the deep winter, the inmates didn’t allow the practitioners to take hot showers. Instead, each practitioner was given five minutes to take a cold shower. Some elderly practitioners were not even fast enough to remove or put on their clothes during those five minutes.
Ms. Deng was also forced to work from 5:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. when she was not subjected to brainwashing and torture sessions. She was only give five minutes for a lunch break during her workdays. The food was just plain rice with some soup. She would be reprimanded or subjected to other forms of abuse when she failed to finish her work quota.
One type of work Ms. Deng was forced to do was to glue four labels to each pair of shoes on an assembly line. She had to quickly peel the self-adhesive labels, glue them to the shoes and pressed the labels tightly against the shoes. In just a few days, all ten of her fingers were bruised and bleeding. She could only wrap her fingers with some rags and kept working. But it became harder to peel labels and she felt extreme pain.
Her quota was gluing a total of 4,000 labels onto 1,000 pairs of shoes every day. Whenever she failed to complete the task, she was ordered to hand-write her name 500 to 1,000 times. She later refused to accept the punishment and was reprimanded by the workshop foreman and inmates assigned to monitor her.
Related Reports:
Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured in Jiangxi Province Women’s Prison
At Least 32 Falun Gong Practitioners Still Jailed in Jiangxi Province Women's Prison
Two Nanchang Women Sentenced for Their Faith
After Repeated Arrests, Two Nanchang Women Are Again Detained for Their Faith
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