(Minghui.org) More than ten plainclothes police officers pounded on Ms. Wu Derong’s door at 8:30 a.m. on September 22, 2021. When her neighbors asked what was going on, the police ignored them and just kept yelling, “Open the door! Open the door!”
Ms. Wu, a 70-year-old resident of Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, asked through the door, “Who are you? Where are you from?” She heard someone say that they were from the Yongning Police Station. Then the officers continued pounding on the door. Ms. Wu told them that she wouldn’t open the door until they showed their identifications and search warrant. They responded by pounding harder and harder.
Moments later, two more officers came. They yelled while pounding the door, “We are the police, open the door, quick!”
Ms. Wu replied, “I am not going to open the door because you are the police. I dare you to show me your ID and the legal documentation to search my place. You are doing things that are only hurting yourselves. Don’t you know that the government is investigating police violation of the law over the past 30 years? I know you intend to forcibly take me away like you did four years ago because I practice Falun Gong. I will not let it happen again.”
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
When the police realized that Ms. Wu wouldn’t open the door for them, one of them began to claim that Falun Gong has been banned by the government and that it was illegal for Ms. Wu to practice Falun Gong.
Ms. Wu told them that the persecution of Falun Gong has no legal basis in China. Falun Gong wasn’t on the list of cults announced by the Ministry of Public Security and the Chinese Publication Bureau also revoked the ban on Falun Gong books and publications in 2011.
She continued, “More than ten years ago, when I was not at home, you broke my lock and took away my husband’s 5,000 yuan from a drawer. The last time when you came to harass me, on September 17, 2017, you ransacked my residence without a search warrant and confiscated anything that you thought was valuable without giving me a list of confiscated items.”
Ms. Wu recalled, “You also fabricated evidence against me. When you asked whether I put up any posters about Falun Gong, I told you that I helped a retired person put up two posters to sell his house. Then you accused me of putting up two Falun Gong flyers. You found two Falun Gong books at my home and you said there were 80. While I was serving three years in prison because of that, my house in the countryside collapsed and we couldn’t afford to fix it. I have been persecuted for over a decade. Now I’m living at my son’s home and you still won’t let me alone, as if we haven’t suffered enough.”
A policewoman in the group threatened to find a locksmith to force open the door. Ms. Wu said that if they dared to do so, she would expose them. She continued, “Think about what you police have done over the past 20-plus years. Instead of protecting the people, you spent all your efforts attempting to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith. You turn practitioners’ children against their parents. So many families have been torn apart because of that. Good receives good and evil receives retribution. Whatever bad things you did will bear consequences.”
Then the officer softened her tone and said, “Hey, can you come out to take a look at something? Is it yours?” Ms. Wu replied, “I don’t keep anything outside. I don’t care what it is. If you like it, you can take it.” Another officer threatened that if Ms. Wu didn’t open the door, they would stay outside and block her from leaving her apartment.
These people continued pounding on the door for another half hour before they finally left – but not before cutting off Ms. Wu’s power again.
The next day at 11 a.m., another five or six agents again pounded on Ms. Wu’s door. They said they were delivering something to Ms. Wu. They later changed their narrative and said that they had come to provide Ms. Wu with some health-related information. They insisted that she open the door. But Ms. Wu again refused.
After they left, a neighbor told Ms. Wu to be extra careful because he saw that the officers had handcuffs and shackles with them.
Previous Arrest and Prison Sentence
Ms. Wu started to practice Falun Gong in June 1998 and benefited both physically and mentally. After the Chinese Communist Party started the persecution the following year, she was detained at a brainwashing center for two years and eight months; given one year and three months of forced labor in 2004; and was sentenced to prison twice, in 2009 and 2018, for six and a half years in total, all for upholding her faith and talking to people about Falun Gong.
Prior to her latest harassment, Ms. Wu said the police had used similar tactics to harass her on September 17, 2017. They cut off her power and dashed into her apartment when she came out to check the breaker panel in the apartment’s common hallway. Two officers held Ms. Wu’s arms tightly, while the rest went straight to her bedroom and opened the safe in a drawer as if they knew where to find valuables. One of the officers was Li Xiongming, an officer from the Yongning Police Station who had harassed Ms. Wu before. He and the other officers were in plainclothes and none of them produced any IDs. They confiscated the several hundred yuan in Ms. Wu’s clothes, her son’s 300-yuan gift cards, and another several hundred yuan in cash she kept at home. They filled bags of valuables from her home, not even sparing the DVD player or a blackboard. They didn’t return any of the items or provide her with a confiscation list.
Ms. Wu was then put in the detention center and interrogated by Dong Dan, a prosecutor for the Naxi Procuratorate. When Ms. Wu said she helped a retired cadre post two advertisements about selling a house, Dong wrote it as “posting Falun Gong materials” and used it as prosecution evidence against her. Ms. Wu was later sentenced to three years.
After she was released on September 17, 2020, the Naxi District Social Security Bureau ordered Ms. Wu to return the 100-yuan monthly allowance for the rural elderly that she had received during her prison term. The authorities threatened her with a court summons if she refused.
Related articles:
Released after Three Years in Prison, Elderly Woman Recounts Illegal Arrest and Prosecution
Six Practitioners Unconstitutionally Prosecuted By Hejiang County Procuratorate in Sichuan Province
Sichuan Woman Sentenced to Three Years for Her Faith After Secret Trial
Woman Whose Cancer Disappeared by Practicing Falun Gong Now Persecuted for Her Practice
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