Cambridge School of Visual & Performing Arts Archives

Ms. Meihong Wang is the mother of London artist Amy Yu, one of Falun Dafa Information Center's family rescue cases. To help her reunite with Amy, contact UK representatives or sign Amy's petition here: Ms. Meihong Wang is a 65 year old Falun Gong practitioner and former senior geological engineer who lives in Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province. On November 23, 2020, she was arrested for clarifying the truth about Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that has been banned and persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. After a year of detention, she was sentenced to four years of prison in early May 2021. She was admitted to Heilongjiang Women’s Prison in June 2021. In prison, it is common practice for prison guards to select ruthless inmates to torture Falun Gong practitioners in order to achieve high “transformation” rates where practitioners would renounce their faith. After her admission, Wang was held in the intensive training ward for seven months. According to an insider, an inmate called Fengchun Wang was assigned to torture Wang. She stuffed a rag into her mouth and suddenly pulled it out. As a result, Wang’s two front teeth were yanked out by the abrupt movement and her mouth bled profusely. The prison authorities did not give her medical attention, rendering her unable to eat and very weak. It is reported that she is held in isolation in the 9th ward. As additional pressure to renounce her faith, the prison did not allow her to call or meet with her family. As a result, the prison never informed Wang’s family of her injury. They also did not provide her family information regarding her cash account, and so they could not make deposits for her to buy essential items. Wang’s family would consistently call the prison to inquire about her situation, but the guards would refuse to answer the call. Worried about her health, Wang’s family recently filed a complaint against Jianmin Yi, the head of Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison Administration Bureau, demanding to allow her family to contact her and make deposits for her, hold the guards and inmates who tortured her accountable for their actions, release the surveillance video footage of Wang since her imprisonment in June 2021, and for the prison to provide evaluation and treatment to her injury. They are also demanding investigations into the abuses of the Falun Gong practitioners in the prison. Finding Faith and Transformation of Body and Heart In 1995, Wang took interest in Falun Gong after witnessing the miraculous recovery of her husband’s health after he took up the practice. At the time, she had lumps on both sides of her chest, which continued to increase in size and hardness and caused a lot of pain. Her doctor had suggested that she receive a double mastectomy. However, soon after taking up Falun Gong, the lumps disappeared and she no longer needed surgery. Wang lived by the three principles of Falun Gong–Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance– and tried to help others to the best of her abilities. One such example was when her father gifted her two sets of valuable stamp collections worth more than half a million yuan in 1999. At the time, this was enough to buy up to ten houses in the region. Wang’s husband asked one of his coworkers to appraise the stamps, but the colleague ended up “losing” the collection. Wang and her husband suspected that the coworker had, in fact, stolen the stamps, but they decided to let it go. This was because they knew that the coworker’s wife was seriously ill and treatments were expensive. Past Persecution On October 22, 2003, four years after the persecution of Falun Gong started, Wang was arrested and was sentenced to 11 years in prison five months later. At Heilongjiang Women’s Prison, she was forced to work in a room with two big machines that operated at temperatures as high as 400°F (180°C). She was also forced to sit on a small stool for long hours every day and was subjected to constant physical and verbal abuse. During the time she was imprisoned, her husband was also serving a 15 year term for practicing Falun Gong. As a result, their teenage daughter was left alone. After being admitted to Cambridge School of Visual & Performing Arts in 2010 to study fashion design, their daughter moved to the U.K. and hasn’t been able to return to China since. In 2016, the couple tried to apply for passports to travel to the UK to visit their daughter, but police told them their request would never be approved. Based on an original Minghui article.