Yang’s family has practiced Falun Gong since 1996. The father, Mr. Yang Guangwu, works at a real estate company. The older daughter, Ms. Yang Zhaofang, is a doctor of Chinese Medicine at a private clinic. The second daughter Ms. Yang Zhaoying is a local English tutor.

However, the Chinese authorities have harassed and persecuted this family again and again for their practice of Falun Gong. Ms. Yang Zhaofang has been detained at a local brainwashing center. Ms. Yang Zhaoying has been arrested three times. Her fiancé and fellow-practitioner, Mr. Xue Xinkai, was arrested by police on the morning of March 21, 2006, the day before they were to be married. He was sentenced to 7 years, and is imprisoned at Benxi City Prison.

On February 25, 2008, the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) Ministry of Public Security launched operation "F0801." On that morning at 6:00 a.m., a group of police officers commandeered a fire engine, climbed the ladder to the third floor, broke the windows, and jumped into Mr. Yang Guangwu's home. They ransacked the home and arrested Mr. Yang, his wife Ms. Feng Kelan, and their older daughter Ms. Yang Zhaofang. The second daughter, Ms. Yang Zhaoying, was arrested on the same day in Shenyang City.

Ms. Yang Zhaoying was detained at the Huludao City Detention Center. She was later taken to the Suizhong County Detention Center, and then to the Dalian City Detention Center on March 14, 2008.

Ms. Yang Zhaoying went on a hunger strike to protest her detention at the Dalian City Detention Center. She was force-fed with a tube inserted through her nose, causing damage to her esophagus and stomach, and making her unable to eat. Because of the torture, Ms. Yang Zhaoying couldn't walk and was confined to a wheelchair. The First Division of the Dalian Police Department offered to release her on bail and release her parents in exchange for a written statement slandering Falun Gong, but she refused to write it. Her relatives in Dalian tried to hire a lawyer for Ms. Yang, and she also repeatedly asked to see a lawyer, but this right was denied by the First Division of the Dalian Police Department's officer Li.

On April 28, 2008, after Ms. Yang Zhaoying was escorted back to be detained in Suizhong County, she continued her hunger strike, and was taken to the hospital. She weighed only about 90 pounds. She is currently imprisoned at the Suizhong County Hospital, and is under around-the-clock surveillance by a male prisoner.

Ms. Yang Zhaofang is currently detained at the Huludao City Detention Center. Because she held a hunger strike to protest the detention, the guards force-fed her twice a day, devastating both her mental and physical state.

On May 12 and 13, 2008, Suizhong County Court sentenced Mr. Yang Guangwu to 2 years in prison, Ms. Yang Zhaoying to 7 years and Ms. Yang Zhaofang to 4 years. They were to be sent to Jinzhou Prison. The sentence to Ms. Yang Zhaoying was done in a room of the Suizhong County Hospital while she was confined to her bed with IVs and on oxygen. During the process of the so-called trial, Ms. Yang had a heart attack, her hands and legs were shaking non-stop and doctors and nurses in the hospital had to resuscitate her. When this happened, court staff Guan Shulin and people from the procuratorate read the documents very fast and then just a few minutes later, they quickly left.

Currently, Ms. Yang Zhaoying is in critical condition: her spine is broken, she cannot walk and she has also developed heart disease. For the past two months she has passed out many times and she is only able to sleep a couple of hours every day.

Posted on February 1, 2009