Daughter Calls for Release of Mother and Stepfather Arrested for Their Faith

(Minghui.org) Ms. Liu Xin's daughter became increasingly uneasy when her mother failed to answer her phone calls for an entire day.

Overwhelmed by fear and anxiety, she went over to her mother's house to check on her. She knocked on the door. No one answered. The anxious daughter opened the door with her spare key, only to find evidence of a violent police raid.

The rooms were in a chaotic mess. Footprints were everywhere. One of her mother's blue slippers was in the center of the foyer. The floor of the home office was covered with slips of paper. Her cellphone was left on the desk, which kept beeping for 67 unanswered calls. Cabinet drawers were open. Ms. Liu’s computer, her Falun Gong books, and photos that were normally on the desk were nowhere to be found. In the bedroom, the daughter saw the other blue slipper.

The heartbreaking disarray in the rooms told Ms. Liu's daughter the stark reality: her mother and stepfather had been illegally arrested.

While the memories of her mother's past arrests and sentencing had never left the young college graduate, she is now faced with a new nightmare. She reminded herself to be strong.

She told herself that she could no longer be the little girl who kept crying and didn't know what to do after her mother was arrested. This time, she had grown up. She was the only hope for the family. The responsibility of rescuing her parents was now on her shoulders.

She hired a lawyer. She thought that with the lawyer's help, her parents would come home soon. After all, they didn't do anything wrong for upholding their spiritual belief in Falun Gong.

But the young girl would have never imagined the cruel injustice she had to face while confronting this most unprecedented persecution in China's history.

On April 11, 2018, three days following the couple’s arrest, Ms. Liu’s daughter and the lawyer went to the police station, procuratorate, and the detention center to get more information about her parents' cases. They were met by a cold shoulder and given the run-around among different agencies. The police refused to provide a copy of the detention notice; the detention center refused to allow the lawyer to meet with his clients.

When the lawyer finally met with Ms. Liu a few days later he learned that since her arrest, Ms. Liu had been suffering from dangerously high blood pressure (her systolic pressure was over 200 mmHg).

The lawyer and Ms. Liu’s family returned to the police station three times to apply for medical parole for her. But their requests were turned down by Zhou Yangfei, deputy head of the Renhe Town Police Station. “I’m not in charge of the case,” he said, in an attempt to shirk responsibility.

To the daughter's distress, three months after Ms. Liu was arrested, her blood pressure remained at the dangerously high level of over 200 mmHg. Instead of releasing her on medical parole, the procuratorate approved their arrests and was preparing for further persecution of the couple.

With her rescue efforts were being blocked by the police, Ms. Liu’s daughter was under enormous pressure and began to experience discomfort in her heart and excessive drowsiness during the day.

Repeated Persecution for Practicing Falun Gong and Daughter's Plight

Ms. Liu Xin and her husband, Mr. Xu Zhiyin, from Baiyun District in Guangzhou City, were arrested on April 8, 2018. The police told their family that they had been recorded by a surveillance camera while distributing Falun Gong flyers. The Domestic Security Division filed a case against them and then ordered the local police to arrest the couple and ransack their home.

Mr. Xu Zhiyin and Ms. Liu Xin

“For the police, they were just doing their job in carrying out the persecution directive. But for me, the repeated arrests and persecution of my mother is a nightmare that is happening again and again.” said Ms. Liu's daughter in a letter she wrote to the police, seeking her mother's release.

Over the past 19 years, the couple have been subjected to constant arrests and sentencing for their faith in Falun Gong.

Ms. Liu Xin, in her 50s, was arrested by the police in 2000 while visiting a friend in another province. The police took away her Falun Gong books and related materials, as well as the 20,000 yuan cash she brought with her for the trip.

Torture illustration: shackled by the neck, wrists and ankles.

While she was detained in the detention center, the police put shackles on her neck, wrists and ankles. They beat her and stomped on her neck, forcing her face into the ground. She almost suffocated. Another time, while she was still shackled, the police pushed her from her bed to the ground.

When Ms. Liu exposed the persecution to an outside source, the police viciously retaliated. They brought her from the detention center to a secret interrogation site in the middle of the night. They shackled her to a chair and didn't allow her to sleep. They wiped balm oil around her eyes and blew cigarette smoke in her face. One officer shook her handcuffs, causing her enormous pain all over the body.

In another torture, they hung her up by one hand, concentrating her entire body's weight onto her cuffed wrist. “The pain was so intense that I could only bear it by biting my tongue.” Ms. Liu once recalled. “I was told by the officers that no one else had withstood the same torture.”

Seven months later, Ms. Liu was given a three-year forced labor sentence and was subjected to non-stop mental and physical tortures in the labor camp.

Shortly after she was released in October 2003, her then-husband divorced her.

“I was in kindergarten when my mom was sentenced to the labor camp. I didn't know what it meant to her or to me. That three years without her was a painful period for me. When I saw her again, I was full of fear and resentment,” recalled Ms. Liu's daughter.

“After she came back home, my father divorced her. But the short period of her staying at home filing for divorce was very precious to me. She was still the same—gentle, kind and hopeful. She was even more understanding of me. Our mother-daughter bond was re-connected.

“The court eventually granted my custody to my father. Although my mother wanted to stay longer with me, my father drove her out of the house. I could only see her on the weekends and on holidays.

“I often made phone calls to Mom. When she didn't answer the phone, I began to worry whether she was arrested again. When she answered the phone, I would cry to her: ‘Mom, please, don't be arrested again.’”

A few years after the divorce, Ms. Liu met Mr. Xu Zhiyin, who was also a Falun Gong practitioner. They married and established a family, but their happy days didn't last very long.

On May 22, 2010, the couple was arrested on their way home from grocery shopping. The police ransacked their home and confiscated their Falun Gong materials and many valuable personal belongings.

Suffering mental distress from the arrest, Ms. Liu's blood pressure reached an extremely high level. Fearing that she might die, the detention center refused to accept her and she was released by the police.

Mr. Xu remained in custody for more than a year, before the Tianhe District Court sentenced him to five years in prison in June 2011.

At Sihui Prison, Mr. Xu was subjected to constant torture, including sleep deprivation and savage beatings. He suffered from severe heart problems and inflammatory arthritis in his spine. He was on the edge of death when he was released.

Now, only four years after Mr. Xu came back home, the couple has been arrested again.

Daughter's Words to the Police

While Ms. Liu's daughter is still working to rescue her mother, she has the following words for the police:

“When the lawyer first saw my mother, she asked him to deliver three messages to me: ‘First, be a nice and honest person; Second, don't resent the police who arrested her, for they are also good people who just got lost from the lies; Third, don't miss her.’ The third one is hard for me, but I listened to Mom, and let go of my resentment toward the police.

“Now I am writing this letter to you. I believe you are all good people and you are just doing your jobs. But I hope you know that my mom's blood pressure is extremely high and I am very worried about her health. If she is sentenced, I don't know if she can survive the tortures in detention.

“This might be a simple decision for you. But to me, it means everything. I sincerely ask for your help: please release my mom. I am longing to reunite with my mom and my stepfather. We will really appreciate your kindhearted help.”

Her final words are: “I hope when you look back on your police career in the future, you can proudly tell your own child that, in this most brutal and unprecedented persecution, your dad protected good people and upheld justice for them.”

Previous reports:Guangzhou City Court Officials Sentence Five Upstanding Citizens to Illegal DetentionMr. Xu Zhiyin from Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, Secretly Sentenced to Five Years of Imprisonment

Perpetrators' contact information:
Zhou Yangfei (周扬飞), deputy head, Renhe Police Station: [phone]Officer Qiu (邱), deputy head, Baiyun District Police Department: [phone]Officer Lai (赖), deputy head, Baiyun District Police Department: [phone]Baiyun District Detention Center: [phone]Baiyun District Procuratorate: [phone], [phone], [phone]