(Minghui.org) “I thought the hardship was over and peace had returned to my family when my wife started to practice Falun Gong in fall 1998,” said Han Shangdong, non-practitioner husband of a Falun Gong practitioner from Shulan, Jilin Province.
He emphasized the benefits his family experienced from his wife's practice of Falun Gong,
“Her health improved significantly,” he said. “She stopped playing Mahjong, which she used to play all day long, and took on most of the housework.”
He continued, “She said to me, 'I used to be too selfish and always complained about everything, now I will try my best to be a good wife and mother and take care of the family.' Although we were married for many years, that was the first time I felt the warmth of a family.”
“The happiness of my family, however, didn't last long. Jiang Zemin launched a national crackdown of the practice one year later. Peace and happiness was once again taken away from my family.” he said.
Given the historic wave of legal complaints in China, which started in late May 2015 against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the Chinese communist regime, who initiated the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, Mr. Han also filed a criminal complaint with the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Supreme People's Court on October 8, 2015. He sued Jiang because of the repeated arrests and detention of his wife and other family members.
My wife was blacklisted for peacefully appealing for the right to practice Falun Gong outside the Appeals Office in Beijing, adjacent to “Zhongnanhai,” the central government compound of the Chinese communist regime in 1999. She was arrested six times and taken to brainwashing centers during the past 16 years. She was so scared and had a heart attack at one time when police tried to arrest her.
The police often came to arrest or harass her when I was out of town for work. The mental pressure from the repeated arrests, surveillance and harassment was devastating for our entire family.
A group of police officers broke into my home to arrest my wife on March 5, 2012. While my brother-in-law argued with the police at the front door, my wife escaped through the back door.
While talking, a thug who had accompanied the police hit me in the face and opened up a cut.
I said, “Why did you hit me? You have gone too far with all the persecution all these years!” I was very upset.
Several police officers surrounded me, my brother-in-law and my son. They beat us and we had injuries all over our bodies. The situation was so intense that one police officer fired the gun towards the ceiling four times. When my daughter-in-law went out to see what happened, they also beat her.
The police arrested the four of us, leaving my toddler grandson at home alone.
The police continued to beat us at the police station. We were taken to the Nanshan Detention Center later that day. The police sentenced me, my brother-in-law and my son to seven months of forced labor. My daughter-in-law was given a one-year probation, but had to attend a monthly brainwashing class, arranged by the police.
This was a big ordeal for my family. With all the men sentenced to labor camp, it wasn't easy for my daughter-in-law, who was in her 20s, to take care of her one-year-old son.
The police continued to search for my wife. Therefore, she had to go from place to place to avoid being arrested. It was a really difficult period for all of us.
During the seven months of detention at the labor camp, I came down with inflammation of the prostate gland, and all my hair turned gray. My son came down with vitiligo, which is a loss of pigment in the skin, leaving the skin in blotches.
The financial loss for our and my brother-in-law's family amounted to about 70,000 yuan and 30,000 yuan, respectively.
My wife returned home after we were all released. But, she was arrested again in 2013, when I was working out-of-town.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners over the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.