(Minghui.org) Following her latest arrest in July 2011, Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Liu Wanqiu from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province was sentenced to a three-year prison term for distributing fliers to clarify the facts about Falun Gong, which is being persecuted by the Chinese regime.
Allowed to visit her mother only once during the past three years, Ms. Liu's daughter reports that she had lost her ability to speak clearly due to a brain injury sustained while incarcerated at Shaanxi Women's Prison and can communicate only through signs and gestures.
Prison officials were complicit in, if not directly encouraged, the inmates' assault on her mother. When Ms. Liu's daughter demanded answers for her mother's mistreatment, a division head in the prison boasted, “She was so steadfast when she first got here. Look what I've turned her into! All the stubborn ones have to go through this.”
Worried about her mother's health, Ms. Liu's daughter calls on the public to pay close attention to her case and hopes to be reunited with her mother soon. Below, she gives a personal account of her experience.
While visiting Xi'an on July 19, 2011, my mother was arrested by Yanta District Police for passing out Falun Gong fliers at a local bank. She was detained and interrogated over the next few months.
Since I didn't live in Xi'an, I was not aware of my mother's arrest until I failed to establish contact with her a week later and realized something was wrong. When I went to Xi'an, I found out that she had already been transferred to Xi'an No. 2 Detention Center. I was stopped from visiting her by police officers He Yonggang and Zhang Wei of the Gaoxin Police Department Domestic Security Division.
I received no notifications, legal documents, or information until my mother was sentenced a year later. I called Judge Peng Bo at Yanta District Court but was told, “Family members don't need to appear in court for this case. Just wait.” I later learned the details and verdict of the case through my mother's lawyer.
My mother was held at the detention center for the first year of her three-year term. I was not allowed to visit her during that time, and only her lawyer visited her once as part of the legal procedure. The lawyer told me afterward, “Your mother is doing well. She's very talkative and lively. Don't worry.”
When I found out in 2013 that my mother had been transferred to the Shaanxi Women's Prison, I went to visit her. Director Du Ying of the No. 8 Division received me and arranged for me to see my mother. That was the first time I saw her since her arrest in 2011. I was heartbroken at the sight of her—she looked haggard, thin, and had so much more gray hair. I saw that her eyes were widened in fear and extra alert, as if she expected imminent danger.
Du told my mother to sit across the table from me and assigned two inmates to monitor us. I started to ask her questions and quickly noticed something was wrong—my mother couldn't talk clearly. She gestured feebly and her speech was unintelligible. She eventually muttered, with a great deal of effort, that Du directed drug addict inmates to assault her, which resulted in brain injury and difficulty of speech.
I immediately turned to Du and asked, “What happened? How could this happen? How could this be allowed at the prison? My mother was a healthy person when she got here.” Du first replied that she had nothing to do with this and had no idea that the inmates beat my mother. She then said she had punished the perpetrators and told me not to “make a big deal out of nothing.”
Du warned me not to raise my voice in front of her and called me “stubborn and reactionary, just like your mother.” She boasted, “She was so steadfast when she first got here. Look what I've turned her into! All the stubborn ones have to go through this.”
Agitated by her shameless remark, I argued with Du. She closed all the doors and shut the windows to the visiting room before physically threatening me for being “presumptuous” and for offending her. She said I should realize that no matter where I go in China, I would run into the same situation.
Thus, my visit was cut short. Before I left, Du warned, “You have to go through me to visit your mother.” Since then, I have not been allowed to visit, and none of my letters to my mother were answered.
My mother is my only family. I've been placed under tremendous mental stress since her arrest. I know that my mother is innocent. She raised me as a single parent and is the one who loves me and cares about me the most. I feel as if I'm suffering the same pain that she is being put through. My only hope is that my mother will be released soon and that she is safe and sound.
Ms. Liu, 58, had retired from the Shigu District Petrochemical Company in Lanzhou City. She tried many qigong practices to improve her health, but found nothing effective. Within a month after she started to practice Falun Gong, her chronic illnesses were gone. Her daughter reported that she regained her appetite and had a healthy, radiant complexion.
After the persecution began in July 1999, Ms. Liu was sentenced to a forced labor camp in 2002. At the time, her daughter was sixteen years old. She was arrested again in 2004 and held for four years at the Lanzhou City Gongjiawan Brainwashing Center (officially known as a “legal education” facility). She was injected with unknown drugs and was in critical condition at one point. As a single mother, Ms. Liu's frequent arrests and detentions caused her daughter many hardships and pain.
Perpetrators involved in the persecution of Ms. Liu:
Zhou Bin (周斌), People's Bank of China Xi'an Branch: +86-13186054317 (cell)He Yonggang (何永刚), Gaoxin Police Department Domestic Security Division: +86-29-86753975 (office)Yanta District Procuratorate: +86-29-85251257 (office)Peng Bo (彭博), presiding judge at the Yanta District Court: +86-29-85211874 ext. 8521 (office)He (何), director of the Xi'an City 610 Office: +86-29-85252032 (office)Ai Jun (艾君), director of the Gaoxin Road Police Station: +86-29-88324344 (office)Xin Haibo (辛海波), director of the Shaanxi Women's Prison: +86-29-86246900 (office), +86-29-86246896 (office)Dong Yuquan (董毓全), director of the Shaanxi Province Bureau of Prisons: +86-29-87318945 (office), +86-13909260616 (cell)