(Minghui.org) Five residents in Xintai City, Shandong Province, were arrested and another six were harassed on October 21 and 22, 2020, for their faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Under instructions from Zhang Xinde of the local 610 Office, Feng Dayong from the local police department carried out the nationwide “zero-out” campaign, which was launched earlier this year as a coordinated effort to force every Falun Gong practitioner on the government’s blacklist to give up their belief.
The five Falun Gong practitioners who were arrested also had their homes ransacked. They are Ms. Xu Qingfeng, Ms. Tian Lili, Ms. Cui Jihua, Mr. Shi Jinqing and his wife, Ms. Dong Zhihua.
Another six practitioners were harassed at the same time. They are Mr. Yu Mingbao and his wife Ms. Zhu Fengling, Ms. Wang Yumei, Ms. Yin Peiqin, Mr. Kong Xiantong and his wife.
Summary of Arrests and Harassment
On the morning of October 21, Ms. Xu Qingfeng and Ms. Tian Lili, both 48, were arrested at their workplaces, the Quangou Town Central Elementary School and Quangou Town Second Central Elementary School, respectively.
The police took both teachers back home to ransack their houses. Ms. Xu's e-book reader was confiscated while Ms. Tian's cellphone and her daughter's computer were confiscated. Both of them were detained at the Qingyun Police Station for one day. The police forced them to sign a bail document before releasing them the next afternoon.
Afterward, Ms. Tian's younger brother went to the police department to request for his niece's computer to be returned. Officer Feng Dayong refused and told Ms. Tian's brother to provide the computer password and also sign a guarantee statement renouncing Falun Gong.
On the same day, Ms. Cui Jihua, 73, had her home ransacked and a Falun Gong book confiscated. She was then arrested, taken to Quangou Police Station, and detained for one day.
In the afternoon, Feng and about four police officers went to the home of Mr. Shi Jinqing and his wife, Ms. Dong Zhihua (both in their 70s), and attempted to confiscate their Falun Gong books. Ms. Dong protested, and Mr. Shi also demanded that the officers not take away his books. The officers relented at the time.
When Feng told the couple to go with them to the police station, Ms. Dong refused and was forcibly carried into the police vehicle. Her left hand, both arms, and ribs remained bruised a week later.
The couple was detained at Qingyun Police Station for one day without being given any blankets, causing them to freeze at night.
The police ordered Mr. Shi to sign the bail release document. Ms. Dong refused. Their son was worried about them and paid bail to get them released. When the couple returned home the next day, they saw that their Falun Gong books and a music player had been confiscated.
In addition to arresting the practitioners that day, the police also harassed 71-year-old Ms. Wang Yumei. Details of the harassment remain to be investigated.
The next day, on October 22, four police officers continued to harass the practitioners in Wennan Township. As the practitioners were working in the field, the police went around searching for them.
The police broke into the home of Mr. Kong Xiantong and his wife, both in their 70s, and ransacked their place. They left without finding anything.
Another group of police officers went to the home of Ms. Yin Peiqin, 72, under the pretext of visiting her (in the past few years, the police had ransacked her home several times and confiscated all of her Falun Gong books and materials). When they were leaving, Ms. Yin happened to see the door of her backyard was unlocked and wanted to lock it. At that moment, an officer rushed forward and opened the door to take a look at the backyard. He left after finding nothing.
Police Broke Into Married Couple's Home With A Step Ladder
Mr. Yu Mingbao and his wife Ms. Zhu Fengling were not home on October 21, when the police went to their home. The police came back for the next three consecutive days. Their neighbors who saw the police notified the couple and told them to go into hiding. Ms. Zhu refused, saying there was nothing for them to hide as they didn't do anything wrong and that they were too busy harvesting their crops.
On the third day, seeing their door was still shut, the police borrowed a step ladder and broke into the couple's home from the rooftop. When their actions were spotted by a local resident, the police waved their hands, motioning for the person not to come over.
While the police were in the couple's home, someone moved the ladder away, causing the officers to panic once they realized that the ladder was gone. The police eventually had to buy a new ladder from a faraway store to compensate the owner.
The couple later returned home to find that their doors were unlocked and their home a mess. One Falun Gong book and a music player were missing.
Their neighbors suggested that they sue the police station for the losses, but Ms. Zhu didn’t pursue this idea.
“I didn't lose anything except for a Falun Gong book and a music player. The value of the book cannot be measured with money,” she said.
Personal Account of Family’s Persecution
Below is Ms. Zhu's personal account of persecution that she and her family had suffered:
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Our family started to practice Falun Gong in January 1999, when our then-10-month-old son was always sick. When he was born, doctors told us that he would not be able to walk at all. It was a bolt out of the blue. We couldn’t bear to abandon him and quickly got him admitted for treatment. In about ten days, we spent 4,000 yuan. His condition didn't improve despite spending all our savings, and we gave up on the treatment.
Our son started crying from midnight to three in the morning. I asked my neighbor who practiced Falun Gong if the practice could cure my son's illness. I was told that it could if I believed in it wholeheartedly.
Thus, my husband and I took our child to the group practice site and started learning. Miraculously, our son stopped crying at night. If we hadn’t encountered Falun Gong at that time, I would have ended my life.
After learning Falun Gong, my son's condition gradually improved, and my husband's and my illnesses also disappeared. I used to have stomach and gynecological diseases, while my husband had rhinitis and a nail fungus--all his fingernails turned completely white and thick and separated from his skin. Others had tried to persuade him to get treatment, but we couldn’t afford it. Not long after we started practicing Falun Gong, he grew new nails.
Since practicing Falun Gong, we became better children ourselves. We took great care of my in-laws whenever they came to stay at our home, and I took care of my father when he was hospitalized.
We also had a harmonious relationship with my husband's brother and his wife. When we were dividing inheritance left by my father-in-law, my husband's brother accused their mother of favoring us. We told the brother to take anything he wanted from the home. However, in order to force his mother to give him money, he told his wife to go back to her own home, leaving their four-year-old child with his mother. We helped care for the child. Later, the villagers helped to persuade my sister-in-law to come home. Since the reunion, we have had a harmonious relationship.
I also had a good relationship with my neighbors. They trusted me very much and often left their house keys with me.
Not long after we started practicing Falun Gong, the Chinese regime launched a nationwide campaign against it. Just when I was feeling sad, my father said, “Why don't any one of you step forward to say something?”
In November 2000, my husband decided to travel to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and I went too. We borrowed 300 yuan from our neighbor and took our two-year-old son along. We were separated after arriving in Beijing. My son and I were detained at a police station while my husband was held in a detention center.
When the police interrogated me and asked for my name and address, I refused to say anything. However, I was still deceived into telling them later. My husband refused to say anything, and the police threatened to have the inmates torture him.
My son and I were taken to a vehicle. I happened to spot my husband onboard another bus. He was about to be taken to a prison to be tortured. We called for him to alight, and we were all taken to another police station.
We were detained at the police station overnight and forced to sit on the concrete floor. A police officer threatened to make me go crazy and have my son be without a mom. We were released the next day.
After I returned home, the local police and village Communist Party secretary came to ransack our house. They threatened to electrocute me to death if I continued to practice, adding that they wouldn't be punished if they beat me to death and threw me into the Yellow River.
On the fourth day, my husband was deceived into going to the village committee. Upon arrival, the village head struck him in the head and face for the whole morning. While he did so, he roared, “What good does practicing [Falun Gong] do for you? Can you get money from it? Did your Teacher buy you your clothes?”
Afterward, for a period of time, the police harassed us every day and assigned two village committee members to stay and monitor us.
The police came again in 2012 and asked if I was still practicing Falun Gong. My father-in-law was drinking and lied to them that I'd long stopped practicing. However, the police were not convinced and asked me again. I told them that I was practicing and would never forget “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance.” They left afterwards.
My husband and I have been under tremendous pressure for 16 years and discriminated against in our village. While some neighbors supported us, others believed the communist regime's lies and stayed away from us, isolating us from the rest of the village. My husband went to work at a coal mine, but he was not compensated with travel expenses as other workers were. My nephew from my maternal family was implicated in the persecution and prohibited from joining the army, causing my family to quarrel with me. My nephew was finally allowed to join the army the following year after I wrote a statement to sever our relationship.
Parties involved in the persecution in Xintai City:Feng Dayong (冯大勇), captain of Xintai City police department: +86-13853813269 (cell), +86-538-7103065 (office)Zhang Xinde (张新德), head of the local 610 Office: +86-13583876288 (cell), +86-538-7210287 (office), +86-538-7078288 (home)
(More participants’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)
