After Two Labor Camp Terms and a Prison Term, Woman with 90-degree Hunchback Arrested Again for Her Faith

(Minghui.org) A Jinan City, Shandong Province resident with a 90-degree hunchback due to previous persecution was arrested again for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been targeted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Jiang Xinying

A group of officers from Qianfoshan Police Station broke into Ms. Jiang Xinying’s home in the early morning of July 22, 2021. They arrested her and confiscated two bags of personal items. She was taken to a detention center on the same day and has been held there since.

The police told Ms. Jiang’s family that she was recorded by a surveillance camera talking to people about Falun Gong. Her 90-degree hunchback enabled the police to quickly identify her.

Prior to her recent arrest, the police and residential committee staff members had harassed Ms. Jiang in the past few months and attempted to force her to give up Falun Gong, before the Chinese Communist Party’s centennial anniversary in early July 2021. She refused to comply.

Ms. Jiang, 65, used to work at Jinan Gas Appliances before she retired. She began to practice Falun Gong in 1994 and credits the practice for curing her thyroid tumors and migraine.

Because she refused to renounce Falun Gong in the face of the persecution, she was arrested several times and given two labor camp terms for a total of 3.5 years between 2004 and 2007. She missed a lot of milestones in her daughter’s life because she was in and out of detention for her faith. In particular, she was in detention when her daughter went to college and was in custody again when her daughter had a baby. 

Brutally Tortured While Serving Two Forced Labor Terms

Ms. Jiang was arrested on December 22, 2004, and given one and half years of forced labor. While serving her term, she was once forced to stand for seven days in a row without being allowed to sit down or close her eyes. Her legs became numb and her mind disoriented. She was also later forced to work for 17-18 hours a day without pay. 

During Ms. Jiang’s second forced labor term in 2007, she was again subjected to various forms of brutal torture. She also contracted lung tuberculosis, lymphatic tuberculosis and spinal tuberculosis. She had holes (the biggest one being 7cm in diameter) in her lungs, and several of her vertebral bones were dead. 

The skin on her back had turned black, and on either side of the lumbar vertebra was a tuberculosis mass, with a diameter of more than ten centimeters. Her gums were also deformed and smelled bad.

The third and the fourth vertebras had been largely eroded by mycobacterium tuberculosis, and the dead vertebra bones pressed against the cauda equiana. When she moved her legs, she would experience unbearable pain that could not be reduced by painkillers.

Doctors said she would become paralyzed without an operation. However, she was too weak to undergo surgery at the time. They had to control the spread of tuberculosis first.

She had an operation three weeks later, which lasted over nine hours. Doctors had to remove the tuberculosis focus and the dead vertebra bones and link her spine with two steel plates fixed by four screws. The whole operation left three long incisions on her waist and she suffered post-surgery pain and itched all over her body. Moreover, the surgery cost her family over 100,000 yuan, putting her family under enormous financial pressure.

Ms. Jiang was never able to straighten her back despite the surgery. Over time, her hunchback became more and more severe. 

Sentenced to 1.5 Years

In June 2015, Ms. Jiang filed a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the communist regime who ordered the persecution. In retaliation, the police arrested her in May 2016 and held her at a brainwashing center for seven days. 

Ms. Jiang was arrested again on July 3, 2016, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong in a park. The police ransacked her home and held her at the Jinan City Detention Center.

Ms. Jiang stood trial at the Lixia District Court on February 16, 2017, and was sentenced to 1.5 years by judge Sun Jing in April. After she was released in 2018, she was devastated to learn that her pension has been suspended by the authorities.

Related reports:

Shandong Woman in Precarious Condition, Denied Medical Parole

Family Worries about Woman in Detention after She Survived Forced Labor Camp 6 Years Ago