(Minghui.org) When Ms. Peng Junying’s son returned home on the morning of May 18, 2021 after working an evening shift, he couldn’t open the door with his keys. Knowing that Ms. Peng must have locked it from inside, he knocked on the door and asked her to open the door.
As no one answered the door, Ms. Peng’s son called a locksmith. When the door was finally opened, he was devastated to see his mother lying on the ground in the living room. Her body was already cold. The flashlight near her was still on.
On the second day after Ms. Peng passed away, the police called her. Her son answered the call and told the police that she had left [this world] and couldn’t go to the police station to sign any document. The police asked him, “Where did she go?”
A day later, a staff member of the Gongjing District Procuratorate also called Ms. Peng and asked her to sign her case document. Her son said to them, “My mom is gone. Can you revive her? Why are you still asking her to sign those things?”
In the past 22 years, Ms. Peng, a Zigong City, Sichuan Province resident, was subjected to ongoing arrests and harassment for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. The police repeatedly forced her to sign statements to renounce Falun Gong, sometimes threatening her with her son’s job or putting her in jail so that she couldn’t take care of her bedridden centenarian father.
The harassment became more frequent since September 2019, as the police kept coming back and tried to ask her to renounce Falun Gong. The mental distress took a toll on Ms. Peng’s health. She was terrified and lived under tremendous pressure. Her emotional state was very unstable. Her son said that it was the non-stop harassment that caused his mother’s sudden death at 79.
Nonstop Harassment and Prison Sentence
Ms. Peng was having a meal at home at around 7 p.m. on September 22, 2019, when two police officers suddenly knocked on the door. The police refused to go inside and insisted on talking to her at the doorstep. One of them asked if Ms. Peng still went out (to talk to people about Falun Gong), her son said no. As they were talking, Ms. Peng noticed the other officer was secretly taking photos of them. Then the one talking to her turned around and asked whether the photo was successfully taken. After confirming the other officer had taken her photos, the two of them left immediately.
Six people, including police officers and residential committee staff members, came to Ms. Peng’s home at around 4 p.m. on April 2, 2020. They searched around, including the rooms of Ms. Peng’s son and father (the three of them were living together). Then they asked Ms. Peng whether she was still practicing Falun Gong. She said it’s not possible for her to give it up. The officers threatened her not to go out to talk to people or distribute materials about it. They also asked her to sign the record of their conversation, but she refused.
Ms. Peng was summoned to the residential committee on September 23, 2020. After she went there at 9:30 a.m., the director asked her to wait for a few more minutes. About 20 minutes later, the police chief and directors of Political and Legal Affairs Committee and the 610 Office all arrived. They asked Ms. Peng again whether she still practiced Falun Gong and ordered her to sign statements to renounce Falun Gong. Ms. Peng responded that it’s one’s freedom of religion to practice Falun Gong and she wouldn’t give it up.
The police went to her home again at around 9 a.m. on December 9, 2020 and ransacked her place. Her printer, cellphone, and many Falun Gong informational materials were confiscated. At around 11 a.m., the police were about to take Ms. Peng to the police station. She requested to prepare a quick lunch for her 102-year-old father before she went with the police. But they didn’t approve and took her away.
The police interrogated Ms. Peng at the police station until 8 p.m. They also took her picture and collected her fingerprints. Her son picked her up and signed her bail release document.
Five days later, on December 14, two officers returned and asked Ms. Peng to sign a document renouncing Falun Gong.
The police came again on December 31 and asked Ms. Peng to sign her case document. After she refused to comply, the police said to her, “Even if you don’t sign it, we will still submit your case to the procuratorate.”
On May 12, 2021, six days before Ms. Peng’s sudden death, a staff member of the Gongjing District Procuratorate called her and asked her to go there to sign her case document.
In addition to the harassment, Ms. Peng was also arrested in early July 2014 in a police sweep. She was tried by the Ziliujing District Court on December 1, 2014 and July 31, 2015, before being sentenced to one year and three months on September 23, 2015.
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