Name: Li Yan (李艳)
Gender: Female
Age: 40
Address: Beijing
Occupation: Teacher
Date of Most Recent Arrest: March, 2012
Most Recent Place of Detention: Beijing Women's Forced Labor Camp (北京女子劳教所) City: Beijing
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, illegal sentencing, solitary confinement, torture

(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Li Yan, originally from Shandong Province but currently living in Beijing, was arrested again in March 2012 and illegally sentenced to two and a half years of forced labor. She is being held in the Beijing Women's Forced Labor Camp.

Ms. Li was first illegally sentenced to two years of forced labor in 2005 and also incarcerated in the Beijing Women's Forced Labor Camp. Because she refused to renounce her belief, she was sent to the then Second Division, which is known as the “attack” division, set up specifically to intensely brainwash and persecute unyielding Falun Gong practitioners in an attempt to “transform” them.

Because Ms. Li refused to cooperate, she was denied her most basic human rights. She was forced to sit on a bench for over 20 hours every day and not allowed to clean herself, take a shower, or change into clean clothes. She was given very little food, not allowed to sleep, and not allowed to wear warm clothes during winter. Guard Du Jingbin not only instigated other inmates to verbally abuse and bully Ms. Li, she also choked her by grabbing her collar tightly from behind, causing Ms. Li to not be able to breathe. Du didn't stop until Ms. Li screamed for help.

Ms. Li was tortured to the point of mental collapse. She was unable to sleep during the night and was driven to bang her head against the wall. In such an irrational state, she wrote the so-called guarantee statement. Once Ms. Li realized what she had done after becoming fully aware, she declared that she would definitely continue practicing Falun Dafa and negated everything she had written and said under such circumstances. After this solemn declaration, she was transferred to the worst division in the entire camp, the Training Division. Ms. Zhang Lianying, one of the most severely persecuted Falun Gong practitioners at the time, was also held in this division. Ms. Li and Ms. Zhang were each held in a two-square-meter box where they ate, slept, and relieved themselves every day. During the winter, it was so cold that the inmates assigned to monitor Falun Gong practitioners wore sweaters over their heads, yet the practitioners were not given enough clothes and comforters to keep warm.

When Ms. Li was detained at the Second Division, which was the closest to the Training Division, she was often awakened in the middle of the night by the miserable screams of Falun Gong practitioners being persecuted, coming from the Training Division.

Before the Olympic Games in 2008, officials of the local 610 Office repeatedly harassed Ms. Li and attempted to force her landlord to kick her out. The landlord refused to comply, because she knew Ms. Li was a single mother with a six-year-old daughter. Nevertheless, without any legal procedures having been followed, Ms. Li was again sentenced to two and a half years of forced labor after she had been released for only a few months.

During her second term of forced labor, Ms. Li was again severely persecuted. She became very weak and passed out several times.

Ever since her daughter was five years old, this single mother has been repeatedly detained and put into a forced labor camp. Her daughter has had to live with her grandfather. Ms. Li's daughter gets tearful whenever she sits down to eat and she always asks, "Where did Mom go? I miss her." Ms. Li's daughter is now 10 and has again been separated from her mother.

In March 2012, three months after she had been released from her second term, Ms. Li was again arrested and sentenced to two and a half years of forced labor. We would like to call upon the international community to pay close attention to Ms. Li's case and to help rescue her.