(Minghui.org) A 57-year-old woman in Changsha City, Hunan Province, has faced non-stop harassment by the police, community workers, and local government officials since she finished serving a four-year prison term in November 2024 for practicing Falun Gong.
The authorities evicted Ms. Zhang Lingge from her affordable housing and rejected her low-income subsidy application. They continued to harass her when she was forced to move in with her mother, Ms. Chen Lanzhen.
Ms. Zhang was most recently arrested in her mother’s home on October 27, 2020. The police broke in, handcuffed her, confiscated the two women’s cellphones, held Ms. Chen in her bedroom, and ransacked the place. A few of Ms. Zhang’s Falun Gong books were confiscated.
The police then took Ms. Zhang to her own place and raided it. They left in such a hurry that they didn’t let her change her slippers.
Ms. Zhang was held at the Changsha City Fourth Detention Center. Her mother later received a criminal detention notice, accusing Ms. Zhang of “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” the standard pretext used to charge and imprison Falun Gong practitioners.
During Ms. Zhang’s hearing at the Liuyang City Court on May 8, 2021, over 70 police officers were dispatched to patrol outside the courthouse. She was later sentenced to four years with a 15,000-yuan fine.
After Ms. Zhang was released in November 2024, she was devastated to discover that her hard-earned 15,000 yuan in savings had been forfeited by the bank to pay her court fine. Unable to pay her rent, she was evicted from the affordable housing.
Ms. Zhang applied for the low-income subsidy through the residential committee, but was ordered to write a statement to “follow the laws and be a law-abiding citizen.” She argued that she had always been a law-abiding citizen and that the communist regime was persecuting her because of her faith. Because she refused to write the statement, her application was rejected.
Meanwhile, the authorities followed Ms. Zhang wherever she went. When she moved in with her mother, there were police cars parking outside around the clock. Sometimes the police shone bright lights into the home at midnight.
Ms. Zhang, who graduated from Xiangtan University with a major in history, took up Falun Gong in 1997. For upholding her faith, she was sentenced to six years in 2002. She spent a year at a local detention center and was then transferred to the Hunan Province Women’s Prison.
Only 14 months after Ms. Zhang was released, she was arrested again on April 27, 2009, and given 1.5 years in the Baimalong Forced Labor Camp.
Ms. Zhang was sentenced to another 3.5 years in the Hunan Province Women’s Prison following her next arrest on March 29, 2014. Her low-income subsidy was suspended during that time. After she was released from Hunan Province Women’s Prison in 2017, she was arrested a few more times and held in local lockups or brainwashing centers from days to weeks.
One night Ms. Zhang removed a banner smearing Falun Gong and was arrested by a plainclothes officer who had been on the lookout. She was hung up on the tree overnight and not let down until the next day.
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