62-Year-Old Liaoning Woman Sentenced to 1.5 Years for Practicing Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) Ms. Li Yuchun, 62, from Haicheng City, Liaoning Province was subjected to severe abuse while serving a 1.5-year term at the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.

The prison guards instructed three inmates to take turns torturing Ms. Li around the clock. They beat her, forced her to stand for hours and force fed her whenever she held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. They also put her in solitary confinement, and barred her from brushing her teeth, washing her face, or using the restroom. After standing for hours, over the course of many days, her legs and feet are extremely swollen. Her entire body is covered in bruises as a result of the beatings.

Ms. Li’s ordeal stemmed from her arrest on July 24, 2022, after she was reported for talking to people about Falun Gong in nearby Anshan City, which oversees Haicheng City.

The arresting officers from the Bajiazi Police Station in Tiexi District, Anshan City, raided Ms. Li’s home and took her to the Anshan City Women’s Detention Center. The Lishan District Court in Anshan City heard her case on November 25, 2022 and judge Wang Tiejie ([phone], [phone]) sentenced her to one and a half years.

It is unclear when Ms. Li was transferred to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison. According to an insider, the prison guards instigated the aforementioned three inmates to torture her because she refused to write statements to renounce and denounce Falun Gong.

Past Persecution – Multiple Arrests and Two Years and Nine Months of Forced Labor

Ms. Li worked at a local seafood company. She used to suffer from many diseases, including severe back pain, stomach problems, bronchitis, and neurological migraines. All her symptoms disappeared after she took up Falun Gong in 1996.

Not long after the persecution began in July 1999, Ms. Li was arrested by the officers from Tianshui Police Station and detained for 15 days. She was arrested again in March 2002, by agents from the Nantai Police Station. They raided her home and later gave her two and a half years of forced labor. Her term was extended by three months.

The guards at the Masanjia Labor Camp took Ms. Li to a hospital to have her blood drawn. They also gave her IV injections, even though she was healthy at the time. The involuntary injections caused her to suffer systemic edema. She went on a hunger strike in protest and the labor camp guards force fed her and laced her food with unknown drugs.

When she called out “Falun Dafa is good” the guard in charge kicked her on the mouth with his leather boots. Her teeth became loose and her mouth bled profusely. The guard put her in solitary confinement.

Every October, Ms. Li and other inmates were forced to harvest corn for the labor camp to sell for a profit. She later refused to perform hard labor and was twice placed in solitary confinement, each time for more than ten days. The solitary confinement cell is unheated. She shivered in the cold and her feet became swollen.

After Ms. Li was released from the labor camp, the Tianshui Police Station and the local community workers harassed her at home frequently and threatened her husband. Due to intense fear and mental distress, he developed several medical conditions. At one point, he contemplated divorcing his wife as he almost reached a breaking point.

Personnel from the Haicheng City Domestic Security Office and the Xiguan Police Station arrested Ms. Li on October 2, 2015 and took her to the Anshan City Lockup. The director there, Sun Lina, personally beat and verbally abused Ms. Li. for about five straight days. Sun slapped Ms. Li in the face every day. Her eyes became bloodshot and her face was extremely swollen. When she went on a hunger strike in protest Sun directed a drug addict to beat her savagely.