(Minghui.org) A mother and daughter in Hefei City, Anhui Province were arrested one after another in November 2020 for their faith in Falun Gong. Ms. Shen Mengting is currently held in a hotel-turned-brainwashing center, and her mother Ms. Zhou Ping’s whereabouts are unknown.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Between November 17 and 19, 2020, the police stayed outside of Ms. Zhou’s home. They cut her internet cable, the door bell wire and also asked her nephew to knock on her door, in attempts to lure her to open the door.
Ms. Zhou kept her door shut and said it’s her freedom of belief to practice Falun Gong and the officers were violating her human rights.
Ren Mianhui, the Domestic Security Office director, said to her from outside, “What human rights? Don’t talk about that with us. What we do is to deprive you of your rights. We are the rights. We will force you to change your mind and stand with the Communist Party.”
At around 5:40 p.m. on November 19, 2020, Ms. Shen was arrested on her way back home after work. Her personal vehicle was impounded.
After her daughter's arrest, Ms. Zhou went to the Domestic Security Office and 610 Office (an extralegal agency created specifically to persecute Falun Gong) every day to demand her daughter’s release.
On the morning of November 26, Ms. Zhou found her daughter’s car in her neighborhood. She also learned not long after that her daughter was taken to the brainwashing session in Vienna Hotel after her arrest.
Ms. Zhou went to the Vienna Hotel to look for her daughter at 10 a.m. on November 26, but she never returned home afterwards.
Ms. Zhou’s husband knew she must have also been arrested, but the police refused to provide any information about her.
This is the second time that both Ms. Zhou and her daughter have been arrested for their faith this year. They were previously arrested on January 7, 2020 and detained for 13 days, after the police saw them distributing Falun Gong materials through surveillance cameras.
