(Minghui.org) A 59-year-old woman in Changle County, Shandong Province, was sentenced to 3.5 years on April 27, following her arrest on February 4, 2022, for talking to people about Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Yu Meixia’s latest sentencing was preceded by a previous prison term of 15 months handed down against her on December 20, 2019, also for talking to people about Falun Gong.
She has filed an appeal against the latest conviction at the time of writing.
Repeatedly Targeted for Her Faith
Ms. Yu, a former teacher of the Changle County Third Vocational Secondary School, used to suffer from frequent colds and generalized weakness. Shortly after she took up Falun Gong in 1998, she became full of energy and the back pain that tormented her also disappeared.
She strove to live by Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance and became a more giving and considerate person. At home, she took good care of her bedridden parents-in-law.
After the communist regime ordered the persecution in 1999, Ms. Yu has been arrested at least five times and has seen her home ransacked three times. Her school suspended her salary twice, resulting in at least 100,000 yuan of financial loss for her. Her pension was suspended when she was released after serving her previous prison term in 2020.
Ms. Yu was first arrested at Tiananmen Square when she went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in October 2000. After five days at the Fangshan Detention Center in Beijing, she was taken back to Shandong and held at the Changle County Detention Center for a month.
When she returned to work in mid-November that year, her supervisor Jiang Guangxian announced the decision from above to suspend her salary for a year and only give her 150 yuan each month to cover the most basic living cost.
Ms. Yu was arrested again in August 2001 and taken to the Weifang Forced Labor Camp. The guards deprived her of sleep and forced her to watch videos demonizing Falun Gong for six days, in an attempt to force her to renounce Falun Gong.
For talking to people about Falun Gong, Ms. Yu was arrested one more time in the summer of 2003 and taken to the Wutu Police Station. The police kept her handcuffed overnight and took her to the Weifang City Brainwashing Center the next day.
The brainwashing center staff members again forced Ms. Yu to watch propaganda videos smearing Falun Gong. They deprived her of sleep and forced her to stand. When she dozed off, they hit her head with a fly swatter.
Fu Jinbin, the head of the brainwashing center, ordered Ms. Yu to come to his office to sweep the floor. As she was cleaning the room, he attempted to sexually harass her. She used all her might to break free from him and ran out.
While still at work in the summer of 2004, the police arrested Ms. Yu, ransacked her home and released her in the evening. They attempted to arrest her the next morning. She managed to escape and was forced to live away from home for over a month. During the time, the police constantly harassed and intimidated her family.
Only ten days after she returned home, agents from the Changle County 610 Office extorted 6,000 yuan from her husband. They claimed that they would return the money a year later, but never did.
Ms. Yu’s next arrest was on August 2, 2006, while still at work. The police interrogated her at the Wutu Police Station after ransacking her home. As she refused to answer any questions, the police copied some content from other places as her deposition. She was taken to the Changle County Detention Center that day and interrogated every day there while being handcuffed and shackled.
Zhao Shisheng, the head of Changle County Domestic Security Office, gave Ms. Yu a term at Wangcun Forced Labor Camp in September 2006, with the excuse she gave a Falun Gong good luck card to the child of a colleague.
The torture continued in the labor camp. Ms. Yu was deprived of sleep, forbidden to take showers, and forced to work at least ten hours a day without pay.
After she was released and returned to work on June 30, 2007, the local education bureau lowered her salary by six pay grades within a few months. Her academic rank was also lowered by two notches.
The police arrested Ms. Yu again in the spring of 2009 and ransacked her home. Both she and her husband were taken to the Wutu Police Station and later released.
Ms. Yu’s next arrest was on June 12, 2019, after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. She was taken to the Weifang Detention Center at around 11 p.m. The guards handcuffed and shackled her as she refused to wear the inmate’s uniform. She was also forced to do intensive labor.
Ms. Yu appeared in the Qingzhou Court on November 20, 2019. She testified in her own defense. Before leaving, the presiding judge said to her, “You should know that the courts and prisons serve the ruling class.”
Ms. Yu was sentenced to 15 months with a 5,000 yuan fine on December 20, 2019. She appealed to the Weifang City Intermediate Court in late December, which ruled to uphold her original sentence in April 2020.
When she was released on September 11, 2020, she was devastated to know that her pension had been suspended by the social security office.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Jiang Chunhua (姜春华), judgeZhang Jinhua (张金华), head of Qingzhou City CourtZhang Chunyue (张春岳), president of Qingzhou City Procuratorate: +86-13963688603Zhang Dianqing (张佃青), prosecutor of Changle County Procuratorate: +86-18506362580Guo Qinghua (郭清华), director of Political and Legal Affairs Committee: +86-13721956612Zhao Shisheng (赵世胜), deputy head of Domestic Security Office: +86-13863629388, +86-18678078912
(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)
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