Spine Deformed from Torture in Detention, Jiangxi Woman Suffers Four More Years of Incarceration for Her Faith

Ms. Mei Yufeng is a Falun Gong practitioner in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. She is 74 years old and a former employee of Nanchang Watch Factory. Because she has refused to give up her faith despite the persecution being carried out by the Chinese communist regime since 1999, she has been arrested and detained multiple times. She was held in a brainwashing center for over 50 days and in a detention center three times for a total of over 80 days.

In particular, her spine became severely deformed as a result of being tortured in the detention center following her arrest in July 2002. Despite her injuries, she was given one year of forced labor. In 2015, she was sentenced to three years in prison. 

She was not able to attend her children’s weddings in 2001 and 2003 because she was imprisoned. Her husband, who worried about her and suffered mentally from the persecution, passed away in 2006. 

Detained Multiple Times, Spine Severely Deformed

Ms. Mei went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in September 1999, two months after the persecution started. She was arrested on Tiananmen Square. The police beat her in the car. Her left eye was badly bruised and swollen. 

In the Tiananmen Police Station, the police hit her on her head with sticks and cuffed her hands tightly behind her back. They threatened to burn her hair if she did not tell them her address. Later, she was taken back to Nanchang and detained in the Second Detention Center for 30 days.

Ms. Mei returned to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong with other practitioners in December 1999 and was arrested on Tiananmen Square again. She was detained in the Nanchang Second Detention Center for 30 days and subjected to constant brainwashing.

In the first half of 2000, Wang Yingen, director of the Nanchang Watch Factory, and Nanchang Normal University Police Station officers took Ms. Mei to a brainwashing center in the Qingyunpu District, Nanchang. She was there for over seven weeks. Her family was forced to pay more than 4,000 yuan for her “food expenses.”

In July 2002, Ms. Mei went to Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, to take care of her sick husband who worked there. When she was distributing Falun Gong information in Shipai Township, she was reported to the police. Shipai Township Police Station officers arrested her and detained her in Dongqiao First Detention Center in Dongguan City.

In the detention center, one day, when officials came to do an inspection, Ms. Mei shouted, “Falun Gong is good! Falun Gong is being slandered!” The director of the detention center instructed an inmate to stuff a dirty rag from the trash can in her mouth. 

They cuffed her hands and feet to the bunk bed. The metal handcuffs cut into the flesh on her wrists and ankles, causing her unbearable pain. It was the hot summer, and the bunk bed was covered with hand-made partially completed products made by the inmates. The toilet was right next to the bed. The space was extremely small. Ms. Mei could not move or turn around. The head of the detention center personally instigated the inmates to not let Ms. Mei take shower or change clothes for about three weeks. Her hands and feet remained cuffed together all the time. She could not stand, lie down, or fall asleep.

To resist the persecution, Ms. Mei went on a hunger strike. She became extremely skinny. The inmates in the same cell showed sympathy and tried to persuade her to eat. Guard Wang scolded her, “If you die, we will roll your body in a straw mat and throw it for cremation. We will not take any responsibility.”

The guards eventually undid the shackles on Ms. Mei’s hands and feet, fearing she would die there. However, her spine had been bent and she could not straighten up from being handcuffed for over three weeks. She had a hard time moving around. 

The police later gave her one year in Sanshui Forced Labor Camp in Guangdong Province. When her husband went to the labor camp to take her home, he was heartbroken to see her emaciated, grey-haired, and humpbacked.

Ms. Mei was arrested one more time, at around 8:00 a.m. on September 22, 2011, when she and three other practitioners posted Falun Gong stickers near the No. 6 Middle School in Nanchang City. She was detained in Xinjian County Detention Center. She refused to sign the statement to renounce Falun Gong and was released on October 12.

Tortured in Prison

In the morning on February 24, 2015, Ms. Mei and four other practitioners went to Jinglou Township, about 60 miles from Nanchang, to distribute Falun Gong truth-clarification materials. 

The police showed up and when the five practitioners tried to resist arrest, the police beat them and slapped them in the face.

Later, Ms. Mei and others were handcuffed and shackled, then dragged and pushed into a police car. The police held them in the Zhangshu City Detention Center for five days before transferring them to the Yichun City Detention Center, where they were detained for 10 months. 

Ms. Mei was sent to Jiangxi Provincial Women’s Prison on December 30, 2015, after she was sentenced to three years.

Ms. Mei was detained in the third brigade. The guards denied her family visits and didn’t let her purchase basic necessities such as toilet paper. The prison doctor also used “a physical exam” as an excuse to inject her with unknown drugs on many occasions. She felt dizzy and nauseated afterward. 

Guard Wu Jingmin also instigated inmates to torture Ms. Mei. They wrote slanderous words about Falun Gong and its founder on the walls and the floor, forcing her to trample on them. When she refused, the inmates dragged her to trample on them.

Later, Ms. Mei was locked in a confinement cell. Her hands and feet were tied to the back of a chair. Her chest felt tight and she had trouble breathing. She was also forced to look straight at a TV playing videos slandering Falun Gong for a long time. Three inmates took turns watching her non-stop every day. As soon as she tried to close her eyes, the inmates would shake her body and head and pull her ears. 

Once, Wu Jingmin instigated the inmates to force Ms. Mei to defame Falun Gong on stage. After Ms. Mei refused to comply, the guards tortured her even more: they did not let her talk to anyone or sit on the bed. At night when she was asleep, they would pull her blanket. They did not let her use the toilet. 

Ms. Mei was released in February 2018.

 By a Minghui correspondent in Jiangxi Province, China