67-Year-Old Tianjin Woman Dies Homeless After Suffering Decades of Persecution for Her Faith

(Minghui.org)

Chinese Name: 刘树平
English Name: Liu Shuping
Gender: Female
Age: 67
City: N/A
Province: Tianjin
Occupation: N/A
Date of Death: June 14, 2023
Date of Most Recent Arrest: October 23, 2018
Most Recent Place of Detention: Huanghuadian Police Station

A 67-year-old Tianjin native died in displacement on June 14, 2023, capping decades of suffering in the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong.

Ms. Liu Shuping credited Falun Gong for restoring her health, but she was repeatedly targeted for upholding her faith after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began the persecution in July 1999.

She was given one year of forced labor in December 2000 but ended up being held in custody for six consecutive years because she refused to give up her belief. She faced constant harassment from the authorities after she was released and went into hiding in 2018 to avoid further arrests.

While she lived away from home, Ms. Liu missed her grandson’s birth and was unable to see her mother one last time before the older woman passed away.

Ms. Liu’s loved ones also suffered tremendously. Her husband, a fellow Falun Gong practitioner, was repeatedly arrested also. He once broke his leg after trying to escape police custody by jumping out of a second-floor window. An officer gloated at his injuries, “Don’t ever think about getting out of bed for the rest of your life!”

Their daughter had to quit school at age 11 (around 2001), after the police ordered the school administrators to instigate other students to bully and isolate her because of her parents’ faith in Falun Gong.

Ms. Liu’s father had sudden onset of heart disease at the end of 2002 and died days later, after the police told him that they’d keep his daughter detained for a few more years instead of releasing her as promised.

 

Taking Up Falun Gong

Ms. Liu, a resident of Wuqing District, Tianjin, used to suffer from many diseases, including hyperosteogeny of the cervical spine, a herniated disc in her lower back, severe kidney disease, and rheumatoid arthritis.

No medical treatments helped, and she became depressed and irritable. She once even lost the courage to live. All her illnesses, however, disappeared without medical intervention after Ms. Liu took up Falun Gong in 1998.

Her husband, Mr. Zhang Guangfu, was amased by his wife’s miraculous recovery and also started practicing Falun Gong. He soon became illness-free as well.

 

Five Arrests Between 1999 and Early 2000

After the persecution began, Ms. Liu and her husband went to Beijing three times between 1999 and early 2000 to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. They were arrested on their third trip and were savagely beaten in custody in Beijing, before being taken back to Tianjian.

The Huanghuadian Town Police Station and Quanzhou Road Police Station of Tianjin later arrested the couple four more times in early 2000.

In June 2000, four officers from the Quanzhou Road Police Station, including Liu Shuxiang, broke into the couple’s home. Ms. Liu refused to be taken away, so the police removed her front door in retaliation.

 

One Year of Forced Labor Turned into Six Years of Incarceration

Ms. Liu was arrested on December 27, 2000 and given one year of forced labor at Banqiao Women’s Labor Camp. She refused to renounce her faith and her term was extended by one year.

Instead of releasing her at the end of her extended term, the authorities gave Ms. Liu a second term of forced labor, this time for three years.

As she still held firm to her faith, the authorities kept extending her second term. She was not released until the end of 2006.

Ms. Liu was brutally tortured during her six years of detention. The details of her labor camp torture and her first five arrests can be found in the related report at the end of this article.

 

Repeatedly Harassed After Release from Labor Camp

Ms. Liu was arrested again in 2007 after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. Agents from the Quanzhou Road Police Station arrived in two cruisers and seized her off the street. She shouted “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good” while being driven to the police station.

The officers punched and kicked Ms. Liu during the four-hour interrogation session at the police station. She remained calm and kept urging them to stop persecuting innocent Falun Gong practitioners like her. They released her later that day.

At 10 p.m. on August 1, 2011, officer Liu Lijun and several others from the Huanghuadian Town Police Station broke into Ms. Liu’s mother’s home and shouted in the older woman’s courtyard. Two days later at 10 a.m., officers Liu Lijun and Li Shulin came again with a camera to try to take pictures. The family stopped them and they left.

On November 6, 2015, two officers from the Quanzhou Road Police Station broke into Ms. Liu’s home to question her and her husband about the criminal complaints they filed against former CCP head Jiang Zemin for ordering the persecution of Falun Gong. Their daughter, who lived with them at the time, was terrified.

At around noon on November 11, 2017, three officers from the Huanghuadian Town Police Station knocked on the door of the couple’s other residence. Mr. Zhang, who was home at the time, refused to let the police in. The police then went to harass his bedridden mother-in-law.

Ms. Liu was arrested around October 13, 2018 after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. She was released hours later after being found to have extremely high blood pressure.

The police came at her again ten days later. A group of officers from the Wuqing District Police Department and the Huanghuadian Town Police Station scaled the fence of her home and seized both her and her husband.

Ms. Liu’s systolic blood pressure was 220 mmHg (a healthy range is no more than 120) and the police called in an ambulance just in case. Her then 88-year-old bedridden mother, who was living with her at the time, was terrified.

The police didn’t even allow Mr. Zhang to put on his shoes, and took him straight to the Wuqing District Detention Centre. Another group of officers took his wife to the Wuqing District Chinese Medicine Hospital. As Ms. Liu’s blood pressure remained high, the detention centre refused to admit her. The Huanghuadian Town Police Station released her on a 5,000-yuan bail bond.

The police came by to harass Ms. Liu many more times after that. She was eventually forced to live away from home and died homeless five years later.

 

Family’s Suffering

After the police arrested Ms. Liu on December 27, 2000, her husband Mr. Zhang went into hiding but was later arrested. While in custody, he jumped out of a second-floor window. He broke his leg and was recaptured. A doctor said there was little chance for him to recover. Officer Yang Shihua gloated over his injuries, “Don’t ever think about getting out of bed for the rest of your life!” Mr. Zhang persisted in doing the Falun Gong exercises after being discharged from the hospital and was able to walk in three weeks. He fully recovered in one month.

The couple’s daughter was only 10 when her parents were first arrested in 1999. When they were arrested again in June 2000, the police even ordered the young girl’s school to instigate other kids to isolate her. She couldn’t cope and dropped out of school. Even now an adult, she has to have all the doors locked at all times or she feels unsafe even in her own home.

When the police decided to give Ms. Liu a second term of forced labor at the end of 2002, they deceived her parents into believing that she’d be released soon, only to return a few days later and tell them that she’d be detained for three more years.

Ms. Liu’s father was so devastated by the news that he developed heart disease and died shortly afterwards. At her family’s strong request, the labor camp gave Ms. Liu three days off to tend to her father’s funeral.

Her mother became bedridden in 2010 and relied on Ms. Liu to care for her over the next eight years until she was forced to go into hiding to avoid being arrested. The older woman died later, without seeing her daughter one last time.