Mother-in-law of Police Chief Held in Custody and Interrogated for a Day for Talking to People about Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) An 80-year-old woman in Wuhan City, Hubei Province was arrested and held in custody for a day, after she was reported by a man in his 30s for talking to him about Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Chen Yuanzhi talked to the man while on her way to buy groceries on the morning of August 5, 2021. As she started talking, the man grabbed her hand and said, “Let’s talk about it at the police station.” He also took a picture of Ms. Chen.

As Ms. Chen resisted, two security personnel came. The three of them dragged her to the nearby Zhonghualu Police Station together.

Wang, the deputy chief of the police station, and an officer surnamed Yu took Ms. Chen to the interrogation room. One of them said to her, “We know that your son-in-law (Li Jie) is our chief, but he is out for a meeting today. What we will be doing today is to straighten you out.”

For an entire day, nearly ten officers took turns trying to pressure Ms. Chen to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong. She refused to comply.

At around 4 p.m., Wang and Yu ordered another four officers to hold Ms. Chen tight. Then they handcuffed her and forced her to fingerprint a prepared document.

When Ms. Chen protested against the persecution, Wang said to her, “You can go ahead and sue me. I’m not afraid of it.” The skin on her wrists was broken and some areas bled.

At 9 p.m., the police called Ms. Chen’s son and told him to come to the police station. They said that they were planning to take her to the local brainwashing center, but canceled it due to the pandemic. Her son was asked to sign an unknown document. Ms. Chen returned home with her son at 10:30 p.m.

Prior to Ms. Chen’s arrest, her son-in-law, the police chief Li Jie, and his wife, once asked her to sign some forms to renounce Falun Gong. She refused to sign them and they threatened to disown her.