After Four Years in Prison, Anhui Woman Given Second Term for Her Faith

On July 21, 2020, Ms. Wu Weiming, a sixty-three-year-old native of Hefei, Anhui Province was illegally tried and sentenced by the Shushan District Court. Wu had been detained since September 20, 2019 for practicing Falun Gong.

Recovery and Appeal for Falun Gong

Through practicing Falun Gong, Wu recovered from cerebral vasospasm, a serious condition caused by the narrowing of blood vessels in the brain. And so, when the Chinese Communist Party initiated a nationwide crackdown of Falun Gong, Wu decided to appeal for the practice.

On November 9, 1999, Wu went to Beijing to appeal. She was subsequently arrested, sent back to Hefei, and detained for months at a detention center and brainwashing center.

After being released, she returned to Beijing to appeal at Tiananmen Square but was again arrested.

Continual Persecution

On July 11, 2000, a group of officers broke into Wu’s home and took her directly to the Anhui Women’s Forced Labor Camp. Because she did the Falun Gong exercises in the labor camp, the guards locked her in a deserted warehouse and exposed her to a swarm of mosquitoes for three days.

On the fourth day, in response to her strong protest of the persecution, the guards tied her to a bed in a spread-eagle position and left her in the warehouse for another three days.

On the seventh day, the guards took Ms. Wu to a shed near a pigpen and left her with a swarm of flies and other insects. She was not allowed to shower or brush her teeth.

Subsequently, as Wu still refused to renounce Falun Gong, she was locked in solitary confinement for 33 days.

On June 22, 2002, Wu and her son, Xu Kan, were arrested while visiting another Falun Gong practitioner, who had been under police surveillance. Upon finding a copy of Falun Gong’s teachings in Wu’s purse, an officer told her: “This may not be enough to send you to prison. But given your previous record, we can easily give you four years.”

Wu was later sentenced to a four-year term and her son to a two-year term. Her husband, Xu Foling, a non-practitioner, was also detained for a month.

During the time she was in prison, her father passed away, her mother had seriously ill, her husband had divorced her, and she had been fired from her job. Yet, when Wu was finally released from prison in 2006, the police continued to harass her and monitor her daily life.

On September 21, 2009, Wu was again arrested and sent to a brainwashing center. The police claimed that they were ordered by their supervisors to closely monitor the situation of each Falun Gong practitioner.

On October 2014, Wu was on her way back from taking her granddaughter to see a doctor when she was again arrested. She was then held at a brainwashing center for 14 days.

On September 20, 2019, Wu was arrested again by officers from the Zhanqian Police Station. On July 21, 2020, she was illegally tried in the Shushan District Court and later sentenced to one year and ten months in prison with a 2,000 yuan fine.

By a Minghui correspondent in Anhui Province, China