(Minghui.org) A Fuyang City, Anhui Province, woman in her 70s was sentenced to five years for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since July 1999.
Ms. Fan Wenfang, a former obstetrician at the Wenfeng Community Hospital in Fuyang City, was arrested in July 2022 and taken to the Fuyang City Women’s Detention Center. She was sentenced to five years at an unknown date and admitted to Anhui Province Women’s Prison. She has been tortured to the point of being unable to walk. The fact that she is restricted to a liquid diet (because she has no teeth) makes her life in prison even harder.
Guards Use Inmates to Torture Falun Gong Practitioners
Anhui Province Women’s Prison places all newly admitted inmates, be they Falun Gong practitioners or not, in the intensive training team in Division 12. After a month or two, they are then re-assigned to other divisions to do hard labor.
While in the intensive training team, the practitioners are forced to study propaganda materials slandering Falun Gong and ordered to write statements to renounce their faith. They are subjected to various forms of abuse if they refuse to comply.
Ms. Fan was brutally tortured for refusing to admit she was “guilty” for practicing Falun Gong, to recite the prison rules, or to sing pro-CCP songs. A group of inmates knocked her down one day and punched and kicked her. They also knelt on her, slapping her in the face and yanking her hair. When she screamed in pain, they stuffed her mouth with a dirty rag so forcefully that the corners of her mouth were torn and bled. They later grabbed her arms and dragged her around on the ground, breaking the skin on her buttocks and heels. Other newly admitted inmates were horrified to see the brutality taking place before their eyes.
The perpetrators left after beating Ms. Fan wore them out. She managed to pull herself up and reported the beatings to the guard on duty. The guard asked, “Who beat you? Who witnessed the beatings?”
It is commonplace for the guards in Anhui Province Women’s Prison to use inmates to torture Falun Gong practitioners like Ms. Fan. The guards might not have put a finger on the practitioners (for fear of being accused of breaking the law), but they hand-picked tall, strong inmates serving lengthy sentences for murder or drug dealing to carry out the torture. These inmates were given free rein to verbally abuse and/or beat whomever they wanted to. They also got to decide what kind of and how much food to give to each practitioner. They might give one practitioner only rice congee and no eggs for breakfast or restrict another practitioner’s food intake.
The guards see the use of such inmates as a win-win situation because they get rewards for “working hard” on the practitioners and the inmates get term reductions.
Ms. Fan was later transferred to Division 11, where the torture continues.
Past Persecution
Prior to her latest persecution, Ms. Fan was previously held at the local detention center multiple times and three times in a brainwashing center. She was also given three labor camp terms totaling about two years (between 2000 and 2002) and jailed twice for a total of 12 years (June 2003 to June 2010 and November 2013 to November 2018). She barely survived the torture while in custody. She lost all of her teeth during her first prison term (June 2003 to June 2010) as a result of frequent force-feeding.
Related Reports:
The Persecution Ms. Fan Wenfang Suffered before Being Carried into the Courtroom on a Stretcher
Having Been Imprisoned and Tortured for 14 Years, Former Obstetrician Arrested Again for Her Faith
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