(Minghui.org) It was recently learned that a 60-year-old resident of Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province has been secretly sentenced to one and a half years in prison for her faith in Falun Gong.
Ms. Feng Jichun was arrested on June 2, 2024, by officers from the Xinhua Police Station in Longcheng District. They told her daughter that she’d be detained for 15 days.
When Ms. Feng’s daughter went to pick her up on the 16th day, she was told that her mother had been transferred to the Chaoyang City Detention Center. The police have not provided the family with any further updates except in mid-October 2024 when they revealed that the Longcheng District Procuratorate had submitted Ms. Feng’s case to the Longcheng District Court.
News emerged recently that Ms. Feng has been secretly sentenced. As her family hasn’t been allowed to see her since her arrest, they are not sure if she is still being held at the Chaoyang City Detention Center.
This is not the first time that Ms. Feng has been targeted for practicing Falun Gong, which she took up in early 1996 and credits for curing her myocardial ischemia (obstructed blood flow to the heart muscle) and migraines. She was previously twice given forced labor totaling five years and once sentenced to seven years in prison. She was exempted from serving the second three-year labor camp term due to poor health.
Two Years of Forced Labor (1999-2001)
Ms. Feng was arrested on October 29, 1999 and given two years of forced labor that same day. While held at the Masanjia Labor Camp, she was forced to make clothes without pay for 15 hours a day. At night, she was forced to study materials smearing Falun Gong and not allowed to go to bed until 1 a.m. She had to get up at 5:30 a.m. the next day to face the same forced labor and brainwashing routine again.
Ms. Feng was finally released on October 28, 2001. Nine days later, the police broke into her home and arrested her again on the grounds that she still held firm to her faith. They took her to the Masanjia Labor Camp, which declined to admit her. Only then did the police release her.
Three Years of Forced Labor in Inner Mongolia in 2005
Ms. Feng went to visit another Falun Gong practitioner in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia on May 18, 2005. She was arrested soon after she left that practitioner’s home. The arresting officers from the Songshan Police Station seized the 13,000 yuan in cash she had on her and took her to the Songshan Lockup.
Ms. Feng went on a hunger strike in protest and the lockup guards had doctors and nurses come in every day to give her injections. Her family was not allowed to visit her or deposit money for her to purchase necessities.
The police later gave Ms. Feng three years of forced labor and took her to the Tumuji Women’s Labor Camp in Hohhot (the capital city of Inner Mongolia). The guards there refused to admit her upon seeing how weak she was. The police, however, used connections to force the labor camp to accept her.
The labor camp ended up having to release Ms. Feng two weeks later as she was too weak and unwell. The police extorted 5,000 yuan from her family before signing off on the paperwork.
Imprisoned for Seven Years (2008-2015)
The Chaoyang City Police Department arrested Ms. Feng on February 26, 2008 after discovering, through phone tapping, that she had installed satellite dishes for others to access uncensored overseas news. They raided her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books, four MP4 players, three cell phones, one CD burner, satellite dishes and other supplies, 2,000 yuan in cash, and two recorders.
The local court sentenced Ms. Feng to seven years on June 25, 2008. As soon as she was admitted to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison, she was taken to a solitary confinement cell. The guards did not allow her to sleep for long stretches of time. They also instructed inmates Jiang Liwen and Yin Guixiang to beat and verbally abuse her.
Ms. Feng remained firm in her faith and was reassigned to a regular cell 45 days later. She was again monitored around the clock and forced to make clothes without pay for 12 hours a day.
Ms. Feng was released on February 24, 2015.
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