(Minghui.org) The daughter of a Nangang District, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province resident received a call from a local detention center on November 17, 2023 and was told that her mother had been sentenced to 3.5 years for practicing Falun Gong and would be admitted to prison soon. She was ordered to pay for her mother’s living expenses at the detention center, but the caller refused to reveal any information about her prison sentence, such as when and where she was sentenced.
Ms. Fan Jinqing’s daughter, who has been bedridden from a fall a month ago, told the caller that she couldn’t afford to pay anything. But she said that she would keep seeking justice for her mother and vowed to hold everyone involved in her mother’s case accountable.
Ms. Fan’s ordeal stemmed from an arrest by the Qizheng Police Station (in Nangang District) on September 22, 2020, after she was reported by two college students for talking to them at a bus station about Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline also known as Falun Dafa that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. She was detained for five days and then released.
Two years later, on the afternoon of July 13, 2022, two officers from the Haxi Police Station (also in Nangang District) came to harass Ms. Fan, but she wasn’t home. The police returned at around 6 p.m. and questioned Ms. Fan as to whether she was still practicing Falun Gong. She told the police that if she didn’t practice it, she might have long died from illness already. She urged the police not to participate in the persecution. The police then left.
While talking to people about Falun Gong at a bus station on the afternoon of July 26, 2022, Ms. Fan was overheard by a plainclothes officer and then arrested by agents of the Qingbin Police Station (also in Nangang District). The police snatched her home key and raided her place at around 9 p.m., when her 9-year-old granddaughter was home alone. In front of the little girl, they confiscated Ms. Fan’s three speakers, a media player, some informational materials about Falun Gong and her address book.
The police returned at 11 p.m. They woke up Ms. Fan’s granddaughter, who had gone to bed and claimed that they were taking her to the police station to see her grandmother. The girl went with them, but instead of allowing her to see Ms. Fan, the police took her photo and recorded a video of her. They questioned whether she also practiced Falun Gong and threatened to expel her from school if she was also a practitioner. The police interrogated her until midnight and then called her older sister to take her home.
Ms. Fan was held at the police station until 8 p.m. on July 28, 2022. During those two days, the police only provided her with a very small amount of food. They handcuffed her behind her back and attempted to take her to the local detention center. But because the police car kept having issues on the way to the detention center, they relented and released Ms. Fan on bail. They found the number of her daughter, who was working out of town, and ordered her to pay a 2,000-yuan fine for Ms. Fan.
About seven officers from the Haxi Police Station and Haxi Street Committee showed up at Ms. Fan’s home on April 19, 2023, asking her, “Are you still practicing Falun Gong? Why haven’t you moved somewhere else?”
Knowing that the police faced pressure in having a Falun Gong practitioner in their jurisdiction, Ms. Fan told them that she didn’t violate any law in practicing Falun Gong and that it’s not good for the officers themselves to take part in the persecution.
They attempted to force her to sign a statement to renounce Falun Gong. When she refused to comply, the director of the street committee beat her and injured her hand. They also smashed the glass and a clock at her home. The police next took Ms. Fan to the Haixi Police Station and ordered her to sign a statement renouncing the practice. She only wrote “Falun Dafa is good.”
Two officers of the Qingbin Police Station, director of the street committee, and Ms. Fan’s landlord came again on May 22, 2023, still trying to force her to sign a statement to renounce Falun Gong, but without success.
Four officers of the Qingbin Police Station returned on June 6 and took Ms. Fan to the Nangang District Police Department. They gave her a blank piece of paper and asked her to write her name and phone number on it. She refused to comply. An officer wrote it himself and then sent Ms. Fan home.
Ms. Fan was arrested by officers of the Nangang District Domestic Security Office a week later on June 14 and held at the Harbin City Second Detention Center since. During her detention, the detention center guards called her daughter and ordered her to persuade Ms. Fan to sign the statement to renounce Falun Gong. They claimed that her signature would exempt her from being sentenced to prison. Her daughter refused to comply.
Following Ms. Fan’s latest arrest, her now-11-year-old granddaughter lived on her own for a month and relied on neighbors to care for her, before her mother (Ms. Fan’s daughter) could finally take time off work and return to Harbin.
Ms. Fan’s daughter made many phone calls to the police to inquire about her case. The police ordered her to stop calling and said that they would provide updates to her once Ms. Fan’s court date was scheduled. But even after Ms. Fan’s daughter learned about her prison sentence from the detention center, the police haven’t contacted her regarding her mother’s case status.
Due to enormous mental pressure in worrying about Ms. Fan, her daughter fell from the third floor in early October 2023. She suffered fractures in her legs and pelvis. With no one to take care of her, she called police officer Liu, who is in charge of Ms. Fan’s case, and urged him to release her mother on bail to take care of her. Liu denied the request and stopped answering her call.
According to the detention center guard who called her daughter, Ms. Fan developed a fever not long ago. As she struggled with poor health before and relied on practicing Falun Gong to keep fit, her daughter is very worried about her, knowing that she wouldn’t be allowed to do the Falun Gong exercises while in custody.
Related report:
9-year-old Girl Witnesses Police Raid and Interrogated Following Grandmother’s Arrest
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