(Minghui.org) An 80-year-old woman in Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province is suffering from declining health while serving time for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Li Chunzi, of Korean ethnicity, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2021 but was allowed to serve time outside of prison due to her poor health. She went out on February 11, 2023 to mail letters, but never returned home. Her family learned later that she was arrested that day and taken to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison days later to serve the prison sentence handed down in 2021. It is unclear though, whether she was ordered to serve the remaining term or the full length of the previous four-year term.
According to an insider, Ms. Li weighed less than 80 pounds and was in a wheelchair when she was admitted to prison. Her health has continued to decline since.
Arrest and Sentencing
Ms. Lin’s ordeal stemmed from a police operation on June 10, 2021, when her home was raided and her Falun Gong books and three photos of Falun Gong’s founder were confiscated.
Six officers came to harass Ms. Lin again a day later and took away the remaining photo of Falun Gong’s founder. Her 2,000 yuan in cash that was printed with information about Falun Gong was also confiscated. (Due to strict information censorship in China, many Falun Gong practitioners print information on paper currency to raise awareness about the persecution.)
While the police released Ms. Lin after holding her in custody for half a day, they soon submitted her case to the Aimin District Procuratorate. She was taken to the procuratorate in July 2021 to sign her case paperwork. She urged the prosecutors not to participate in the persecution, but they said it was an order from above and that they had no other choice but to follow it.
The police attempted to take Ms. Lin to the Mudanjiang City Detention Center, but she was denied admission due to her extremely high blood pressure. The police had to take her home.
The police returned months later and took Ms. Lin to the Aimin District Court to stand trial. The presiding judge, Jiang Bingbing, appointed a lawyer to represent her and entered a guilty plea for Ms. Lin, but she refused to accept the lawyer. The judge sentenced her to four years, at the recommendation of the prosecutor. Due to her health, she was allowed to serve time outside of prison.
Ms. Lin had been relying on the several hundred yuan of survivor benefits after the death of her husband, a former government official. When she went to pick up the payment in July 2022, she was devastated to find that the payment had been suspended.
Past Persecution
Ms. Lin used to suffer from many ailments, including a heart condition and stomach and liver conditions. One month after she learned Falun Gong in August 1997, she recovered. As Ms. Lin persisted in her faith after the onset of the persecution, she has been repeatedly arrested and incarcerated.
Following an arrest in September 2002, Ms. Lin was restrained in a chair with her wrists handcuffed behind her back. A police officer grabbed her hair and poured mustard oil into her nose. They next covered her head with a plastic bag. When she was about to lose consciousness, they removed the plastic bag and repeated the process of pouring mustard oil into her nose. Then they covered her head with the plastic bag again. She suffered a heart attack after several rounds of this torture.
In March 2003, when the weather was still freezing cold in northern China, the detention center guards took Ms. Lin, who was only wearing a thin sweater, to the yard and made her stand barefoot on the concrete ground. The inmates then poured cold water over her. The guards also forced her to wear a torture instrument because she did the Falun Gong exercises.
In August 2004, Ms. Lin was sentenced to five years in Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison, where the jailed practitioners were not allowed to talk to each other and were forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong.
Ms. Lin was released in September 2007.
Related Reports:
80-year-old Woman Jailed for Practicing Falun Gong
Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Lin Chunzi Arrested Again in Hailin City, Heilongjiang Province
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Category: Torture of Women
