(Minghui.org) A woman in Heilongjiang Province was arrested and sentenced to a year in prison for talking to people about the Communist regime's persecution of Falun Gong, a meditative practice for mind and body. She is being tortured in Heilongjiang Women’s Prison.
Arrested for Speaking up for Falun Gong
Ms. Yu Guirong, 56, is retired from a wool mill. She had skin ailments from the time she was a teenager, which curtailed her social life. After she became a practitioner of Falun Gong, her skin condition disappeared and she married and had a family.
After the persecution of Falun Gong started in 1999, Ms. Yu refused to renounce her belief and continued to tell people why the persecution was wrong. On April 15, 2019, the police arrested her for handing out Falun Gong literature. They ransacked her home and confiscated her belongings. She was sent to Anda Detention Center two weeks later.
After Ms. Yu was sentenced to a year in prison, she was transferred to Heilongjiang Women’s Prison at the end of December 2019.
Unrelenting Torture
Every day Ms. Yu was in prison she was forced to sit still on a small stool for 19 hours, from 4:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m. with only short breaks for meals and to use the toilet. The stool was 15 cm (6 in) tall and 8 cm (about 3 in) wide.
After only a few days, the flesh on her buttocks started to fester and turn purple.
She had to sit with her legs touching each other and her hands on her knees. The guards beat her if she moved. When it was over, she couldn’t straighten her back and her legs were swollen. Her blood pressure skyrocketed, damaging her heart and affecting her bladder and other organs. The pain was excruciating. After just three months, she developed severe psoriasis all over her body.
Other Abuse
Because Ms. Yu refused to write statements renouncing her faith, the guards frequently instigated other inmates to physically assault her. They often got together in groups to brutally beat her. On one occasion, they made so much noise hitting her that people outside the room overheard and reported it to the prison authorities before the beatings stopped.
