Cao Guifang - 曹桂芳
Ms. Cao Guifang started cultivating Falun Dafa in 1997. She was an illiterate farmer's wife, but she was able to read Falun Dafa books within one year of beginning her cultivation practice. Once, she found 10,000 yuan, and waited there for almost a whole day to find the owner. The town government praised her merit. All of Ms. Cao's sicknesses disappeared in less than six months after she started practicing. Her friends and family witnessed the wonderfulness of Falun Dafa through the changes she experienced, and many began practicing Falun Dafa after seeing the immense changes in Ms. Cao.
After the persecution began on July 20, 1999, Ms. Cao was arrested multiple times and detained, her home was ransacked, and she was sentenced to a forced labor camp. At the labor camp, Ms. Cao was once handcuffed with her arms behind her back and hung up by her arms while four drug addicted prisoners beat her.
On July 21, 1999, at a few minutes past 4 o'clock in the afternoon, police officer Han Yong and others illegally arrested Cao Guifang and detained her at the local police station for twenty-four hours.
On February 22, 2000, Cao Guifang went to Beijing for the first time to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa. When she returned home, Fu Yikui, Zheng Xiang and several other police officers arrested her, and jailed her for one month at the Xifeng Detention Facility. Subsequently, she was put in a brainwashing class to be transformed.
On November 1, 2000, Shao Jun and three other police officers from the city police station brought Cao Guifang to the station, where they tortured and interrogated her. The police also searched her home and illegally confiscated her family property. Before leaving, they extorted 500 yuan from Cao Guifang's husband. Ms. Cao escaped by climbing over the wall at night, but she had no place to go. She became homeless for over ninety days.
In February 2001, the police brought Cao Guifang to the City Detention Facility and jailed her for 42 days. She was then transferred to a Drug-Addiction Rehab Center for another fifteen days of persecution. On April 12, 2001, Ms. Cao was secretly sentenced to eighteen months of forced labor.
At the forced labor camp, Ms. Cao was inhumanly tortured. The police forced her to carry huge rocks. In addition, they did not allow her to drink water or use the bathroom. They also forced her to stand still for long periods of time. The guards tried to force Ms. Cao to write the so-called "repentance statement" (renouncing Falun Gong) and she was forced to wear handcuffs for eight consecutive days. Ms. Cao's feet became swollen from the torture. Even after she was released, the police went to Ms. Cao's home again to try to force her to write the repentance statement.
On April 25, 2003, police officers Yang Jinbao, Fan Zhe and others arrested Ms. Cao again and brought her to the local police station. She was sent to the city police office and then secretly transferred to the Detention Center in Zhengning County. She was kept in the detention center for more than fifty days, and the authorities planned to secretly sentence her again to another three years in prison. After her husband went to the police office and demanded that she be released, Ms. Cao was finally allowed to return home.
In mid February 2005, police officers Fan Zhe and Yang Jinpo brought Ms. Cao to the local police station once again for interrogation.
During the ongoing persecution, Ms. Cao was confined at the police station five times, detained at a detention facility three times, sent to a labor camp once, and sent to a drug rehab center once. In addition, Ms. Cao's business was searched three times, her home was searched and her belongings confiscated twice, she was bodily searched once, and she was fined a total of 1,200 yuan. The relentless persecution took a toll on Ms. Cao, and she passed away on March 3, 2010.
