(Minghui.org)
Name: Chen LihuaChinese Name: 陈丽华Gender: FemaleAge: 70City: DaqingProvince: HeilongjiangOccupation: retired oil workerDate of Death: October 7, 2023Date of Most Recent Arrest: October 2001Most Recent Place of Detention: Sa District Shelter
Ms. Chen Lihua
A Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province resident died on October 7, 2023, after suffering years of persecution for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Chen Lihua’s passing came three months after she turned 70. The retired employee of the Daqing Oil Field First Drilling Company credited Falun Gong for curing her illnesses (including a tumor in her abdomen) and giving her joy in life. She held firm to her faith after the persecution began and was repeatedly targeted.
Ms. Chen went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in June 2000 and was arrested. She was taken back to Daqing and held at a lockup for 15 days. After that, she was transferred to the brainwashing center established by her employer and held there for another week before being released.
Ms. Chen visited another Falun Gong practitioner in October 2001 and was arrested at the latter’s home. The police attempted to keep her at a labor camp but she was denied admission due to poor health. Ms. Chen was then taken to the Sa District Shelter and held there for three months, during which time she was abused and suffered declining health. Not long after she was released, three officers broke into her home and threatened to take her to a labor camp. She was still recovering from the abuse sustained during her last detention and was in bed at the time. Ms. Chen was so terrified by the police that she had a seizure and fell from the bed. Only then did the police leave.
Several officers from the Chengfeng Police Department showed up at Ms. Chen’s home in late October 2015 and tried to open the door with a master key. It didn’t work and they left, only to return many more times to harass her for having filed a criminal complaint earlier that year against Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese dictator, for launching the persecution of Falun Gong.
About eight plainclothes officers knocked on Ms. Chen’s door in October 2016. She did not answer and they left. Two more plainclothes officers showed up at her home in November 2018. It is unclear whether she opened the door for them.
One summer day in 2021, Ms. Chen saw from her balcony that four plainclothes officers were outside her apartment building. Soon after, she heard knocks on her door. She ignored them and they left.
The police later installed a pole outside her third-floor apartment window and mounted a surveillance camera on the pole. The constant monitoring of her struck fear in her and her family.
Ms. Chen’s health kept declining and she began to have pain in her lower back, breasts, armpits, and legs in spring 2023. Two plainclothes officers knocked on her door in July 2023. She was not in and her family told her about the harassment later. Her condition quickly worsened after that. Her legs hurt so much that she couldn’t sleep at night. She also struggled to keep food down and soon became emaciated. Ms. Chen died in a hospital on October 7, 2023.
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