(Minghui.org) A Hefei City, Anhui Province resident was given a second prison term for her faith in Falun Gong, less than a year after her latest arrest in 2019.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Wu Weiming, 63, was arrested on September 20, 2019 by officers from the Zhanqian Police Station. She appeared in Shushan District Court on July 21, 2020, and was later sentenced to one year and ten months in prison with a 2,000 yuan fine.
This is the second time that Ms. Wu has been convicted for practicing Falun Gong, which she credits with curing her cerebral vasospasm, a serious condition caused by the narrowing of blood vessels in the brain.
Four months after the Chinese communist regime ordered the persecution of Falun Gong, on November 9, 1999, Ms. Wu went to Beijing to appeal for it, only to be arrested, sent back to Hefei, and detained for months at a detention center and brainwashing center. She returned to Beijing after being released, but was arrested again on Tiananmen Square.
A group of officers broke into Ms. Wu’s home on July 11, 2000 and took her straight to the Anhui Women’s Forced Labor Camp. Because she did the Falun Gong exercises, the guards locked her in a deserted warehouse and exposed her to a scourge of mosquitoes for three days.
In response to Ms. Wu’s strong protest of the persecution, the guards tied her to a bed in a spread eagle position on the fourth day 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 wasn’t allowed to take showers or brush her teeth.
As Ms. Wu still refused to renounce Falun Gong, she was then locked in solitary confinement for 33 days.
Ms. Wu and her son Mr. Xu Kan were arrested on June 22, 2002 while visiting another Falun Gong practitioner, who had been under police surveillance. Upon finding a copy of Falun Gong’s teachings in Ms. Wu’s purse, one officer said to her, “This may not be enough to send you to prison. But given your previous record, we can easily give you four years.”
Ms. Wu was later sentenced to a four year term and her son to two years. Her husband, Mr. Xu Foling, was detained for a month.
By the time Ms. Wu was released from prison in 2006, her father had passed away, her mother had been seriously ill, her husband had divorced her, and she had been fired from her job. Yet the police continued to harass her and monitor her daily life.
Ms. Wu was arrested again on September 21, 2009 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.
Ms. Wu was arrested one more time in October 2014, on her way back from taking her granddaughter to see a doctor. She was held at the brainwashing center for 14 days.
