Tianjin Woman, 72, Sentenced to One Year for Practicing Falun Gong

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Jan. 31, 2024 | By a Minghui correspondent in Tianjin, China

(Minghui.org) A 72-year-old resident of Tianjin was sentenced to one year on December 26, 2023 for practicing Falun Gong. As Ms. Liu Shuling failed the required physical examination for prison admission, she remains on bail at the time of writing.

Ms. Liu was arrested in early October 2022 after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. The police searched her home, but didn’t take away anything. She was released on bail on the same day after her family paid 5,000 yuan in bail bond.

During her first hearing on November 6, 2023, Ms. Liu tried to clarify the facts about Falun Gong to the judges and others present. The police blamed her for having a bad attitude and said the court might hold another hearing to sort out her “crime.” It’s not clear whether the second hearing took place before her conviction on December 26.

Past Persecution

Ms. Liu lives in Lutai Town, Ninghe District, Tianjin. She took up Falun Gong in 1994. A disease that had tormented her for three years disappeared and her family was filled with joy again. When the communist regime ordered the persecution in July 1999, she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong three months later, but was arrested and held in Tiananmen Detention Center. After she was escorted back to Tianjin, she was first kept at the Ninghe District Detention Center and then transferred to a brainwashing center located inside the Lutai Town government building, where she was held for over 20 days and forced to watch anti-Falun Gong materials. She was released after being extorted 3,300 yuan.

Since then, Ms. Liu hasn’t lived one day in peace. The police often came to harass her, knocking on the door in the middle of the night. By December 2000, she had been detained six times and harassed five times. In January 2001, she was taken to the Lutai town government brainwashing center again and held there for eight days. After spending another month at the Ninghe District Detention Center, she was given 2.5 years at the Banqiao Women’s Forced Labor Camp in Tianjin.

In addition to long hours of standing, Ms. Liu was also forced to work without pay at the labor camp. Her task was to carry sacks of beans weighing over 110 pounds to a designated place and sort the beans. After that, she bagged the beans and carried them back. After over ten hours of intensive labor, she was forced to watch anti-Falun Gong propaganda at night. She developed a heart condition due to the abuse. Yet the guards only allowed her to rest for three days, before forcing her to work again. Due to her weak physical condition, she was released a year later to receive medical treatment. As the police still harassed her on a regular basis and monitored her daily life, her family was placed under huge pressure. She was forced to live away from home to hide from the police.

In 2004, Ms. Liu went to her older daughter’s place to help care for her three-year-old granddaughter. One day in March 2004, as soon as her daughter and son-in-law left for work, Wang Guiwang, the head of Lutai Town Police Station, broke in along with six other officers. They forcibly arrested Ms. Liu and left her granddaughter at home by herself. The little girl was terrified and kept crying. The police didn’t inform Ms. Liu’s daughter of her arrest until they finished raiding the place. When Ms. Liu’s daughter rushed home, the little girl had wet her pants. She suffered urinary incontinence for six months.

Ms. Liu was taken to the Ninghe District Detention Center and repeatedly interrogated by officers Zu Jun and Zhang. She was very weak, dizzy and nauseous. Even when she was bedridden, the police didn’t provide her with any medical attention. The Ninghe District Court sentenced her to four years in December 2004.

After Ms. Liu was transferred to the Tianjin Women’s Prison, the guards arranged for felons to torture her. She was forced to sit on a small stool with an uneven surface every day from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., including during lunch. The guards placed a pen between her legs. She had to keep her body straight and look ahead. Any deviation from the required posture would result in beatings and verbal abuse. She had to get the inmates’ permission if she needed to use the restroom, which could only happen at predetermined time slots.

After only a few days of sitting, her buttocks festered. The blood and pus dried on her pants. The pain was like peeling off her skin when she took off her pants. After six months of sitting, her legs became extremely swollen and she had excruciating pain in her lower back. Her blood pressure was dangerously high. She had difficulty breathing and walking. She was released on March 10, 2008.

Officers of the Lutai Town Police Station broke into Ms. Liu’s home again on September 10, 2014. As she wasn’t home, they failed to arrest her, but confiscated her portrait of Falun Gong’s founder and other Falun Gong related materials. She was forced to live away from home for two weeks. During that time, her younger daughter and son-in-law were summoned by the police and interrogated on her whereabouts.

The police showed up at Ms. Liu’s home another time in early September 2021. They claimed that she was recorded via surveillance camera while talking to people about Falun Gong in June. Ms. Liu denied that it was her. The police refused to listen. They raided her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books and the Falun Gong founder’s portrait.