(Minghui.org) Editor’s note: This is part of a series of death cases newly translated by the English version of Minghui.org. These cases have long been published on Chinese Minghui.org but have not been translated until now.
Name: Fan ChanghuaChinese Name: 樊昌华Gender: Female Age: 59City: YichangProvince: HubeiOccupation: Kindergarten teacher Date of Death: 5/0/2019Date of Most Recent Arrest: 6/6/2014Most Recent Place of Detention: Yichang City First Detention Center
A Yichang City, Hubei Province, resident died in May 2019 after serving a 15-month labor camp term and a 3-year prison term. She was 59.
Ms. Fan Changhua, a former kindergarten teacher, went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong, shortly after the persecution started in 1999. She was arrested and detained for two weeks.
Ms. Fan was arrested again in September 2003 and given a 15-month term at the Shayang Women’s Forced Labor Camp. The labor camp guards forced her to work for long hours without pay. They also deprived her of sleep, tortured her, and injected her with toxic drugs. As she refused to renounce Falun Gong, the guards instigated the inmates to beat her, until she became incontinent. The labor camp also extended her term for several months with the excuse that she refused to renounce Falun Gong.
After Ms. Fan was released, the kindergarten didn’t allow her to go back to work and only gave her 200 yuan every month, which was barely enough to make ends meet.
Ms. Fan was arrested again on January 12, 2007. She was force-fed at the Yichang City First Detention Center and almost died. The Gezhouba Court later sentenced her to three years, accusing her of printing Falun Gong informational materials at home.
While serving time at the Hubei Province Women’s Prison, Ms. Fan was beaten, force-fed, and deprived of sleep. The guards also forced her to work without pay, starved her, and sometimes forced her to stand for long hours motionless. As a result of the abuse, she developed severe diabetes. She became emaciated and very weak.
By the time Ms. Fan was released in January 2010, she was on the verge of a mental breakdown. All of her teeth were loose and she was unable to eat anything solid. Yet the police and agents from the 610 Office still came to monitor her daily life, sometimes staying outside her bedroom window to monitor her.
Ms. Fan was arrested two more times on August 19, 2011 and June 6, 2014, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong or distributing Falun Gong materials. She was detained for 14 and 5 days, respectively.
In 2017, Ms. Fan’s workplace suspended her pension. They claimed that she shouldn’t have been entitled to any retirement benefits while serving time in prison. They suspended any new payments in order to force her to pay back the funds she had received while in prison. Ms. Fan went to various agencies to seek justice, but to no avail.
Succumbing to the persecution, she passed away in late May 2019.