(Minghui.org) Two Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province, women in their 70s were recently hospitalized after being detained for over six months for refusing to give up their faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Liu Yonghong, 71, was retired from the Nanchang Steel Factory. She was arrested on February 8, 2021, for studying Falun Gong’s teachings with other practitioners. The police tracked her location through her cellphone.
After giving Ms. Liu a coronavirus test against her will, the police ordered her to sign a statement to renounce Falun Gong. She refused to comply. She was put in criminal detention in the Nanchang City No.1 Detention Center on February 14.
Ms. Mei Yufeng, a 75-year-old retired watch factory worker, was arrested on February 20, 2021, and also detained in the Nanchang City No.1 Detention Center.
Both practitioners developed health issues after being detained for over six months and have been taken to the police hospital.
Over the past 22 years, Ms. Mei has been arrested and detained multiple times for upholding her faith. She was held in a brainwashing center for over 50 days and in a detention center three times for a total of over 80 days. Her spine became severely deformed as a result of being tortured in the detention center following her arrest in July 2002. Despite her injuries, she was given one year of forced labor.
Ms. Mei was not able to attend the weddings of her two children in 2001 and 2003, because she was imprisoned. Her husband, who worried about her and suffered mentally from the persecution, passed away in 2006.
She was arrested again in 2015 and sentenced to three years in the Jiangxi Province Women’s Prison, where she was denied family visits and subjected to brutal torture.
Two years after she was released, the authorities suspended her pension and demanded that she return the funds she’d received during her three-year prison term. The authorities claimed that no Falun Gong practitioners serving time for their faith are entitled to any retirement benefits, although there is no Chinese labor law to that effect.
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