Ms. Yang Guifang Persecuted in Pujiang County, Sichuan Province

Name: Yang Guifang
Gender: Female
Age: 57
Address: Wuxing Township, Pujiang County, Sichuan Province
Occupation: Farmer
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 13th, 2002
Most recent place of detention: The Detention Centre of Pujiang County, Sichuan Province
City: Chengdu
Province: Sichuan
Persecution Suffered: Detention, food deprivation, extortion, home ransacked, beatings.

Ms. Yang Guifang began the practice of Falun Gong in 1998. Falun Gong, which is also known as Falun Dafa, gave her the joy of attaining a healthy body and mind. In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a persecution against all Falun Gong practitioners in China. Ms Yang suffered incarceration and torture for her faith many times and her family had tens of thousands of yuan¹ extorted from them by the CCP.

Ms. Yang planned to go to Beijing in June 2000 with several other Falun Gong practitioners to appeal for Falun Dafa to the communist regime and the people. However their local police in Pujiang knew before they left what they were going to do in Beijing. The government officials in Wuxing Township, Pujiang County took her to the local communist regime office and imprisoned her there. She remained handcuffed for over 12 hours without food or water. The police only released her after extorting 1,200 yuan from her family.

On August 13th, 2002, when Ms. Yang distributed leaflets explaining the truth about Falun Gong, some people went to the police to report on them. The Wuxing Township Government and Police Substation then sent over 30 people to ransack her home. They took away her TV, DVD player, CD player, and all her Falun Dafa books.

The police handcuffed her, took her to Wuxing Township Police Substation, and stole all the money she carried with her. She was detained in a one-meter long aisle with both ends sealed. There was no window in the room with only a small hole for air. The police wrote the founder of Falun Gong's name on the floor and told Ms. Yang to step on it. This is the greatest disrespect and no Falun Gong practitioner would do this. As Ms. Yang refused, the police beat her shoulders with a handcuff. After a few days, the police try to coerce Ms. Yang to reveal the names of those who were still practising Falun Gong in the area, and again Ms. Yang refused. The police brought her son and daughter from school to the police substation and asked them to kneel down in front of Ms. Yang while crying and pleading for her to renounce Falun Dafa.. Later they brought her husband to do the same thing, but these base tactics did not shake Ms. Yang's righteous belief even as the torturers accused her of abandoning her children and family.

Ms. Yang was incarcerated and tortured for over twenty days at the Wuxing Police Substation. One day when the police saw Ms. Yang easily walking out towards the gate they punished her by beating her up and detained her in the County Detention Centre for many more days. The police asked for 30 yuan living expenses from her family every day Ms Yang was held there, and wouldn't let them see her. In order for her family to see her they extorted a total of 2,500 yuan and still they would not release her. Ms. Yang protested her treatment by starting a hunger strike for seven days and seven nights and the detention centre then demanded 100,000 yuan from her family to release her. Her family could not afford 100,000 yuan. Later the price was lowered to 30,000 yuan, and her family paid 20,000 yuan with cash, and signed a note for the remaining 10,000 yuan.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at target=blank>http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/3/17/219888.html