(Minghui.org) Liaoyang City Falun Gong practitioners Mr. Liu Ying, his wife Ms. Xu Guixia, and Mr. Su Dianxian were arrested for telling people about Falun Gong on October 27, 2016. They were taken to Liaoyang Detention Center and their homes were ransacked.

Ms. Xu was brutally tortured and died 10 days later at the detention center. Her family retained a lawyer to defend her husband Mr. Liu on November 11, 2016. But the lawyer was prohibited from meeting with Mr. Liu, who was sentenced to a year and a half prison term by the Gongzhangling District Court.

Mr. Su, 79, was also given one and a half years. He had been on probation from a previous sentence. He now has to serve a total of three and a half years.

Both of them have appealed the verdicts.

Persecuted to Death

Ms. Xu was repeatedly slapped for refusing to memorize the prison rules. She was then struck with a wooden board with nails in it, and then left immobilized to an extent that she soiled her clothes. Ms. Xu went on a hunger strike in protest and was force-fed on the fourth day. After the force-feeding, she started to convulse and no one was there to help her. She was later found dead by the guards.

Ms. Xu was unrecognizable by the time she had died. Tanghe Police Department officers lied to her child on November 7, saying that Ms. Xu was seriously ill and had been released. Her child was studying in Shenyang City at the time.

On November 10, Ms. Xu’s older sister was notified of her death. Ms. Xu's family was not allowed to see the remains because they refused to sign a document with questionable content.

The detention center then tried to shirk responsibility for Ms. Xu's death. They forced a person Ms. Xu was acquainted with to claim that Ms. Xu had died from illness.