An elderly farmer is sentenced to one and one-half years of forced labor for practicing Falun Gong.

As part of a 'pre-Olympic' crackdown, practitioners are being arrested, including those who have been persecuted in the past.

Xu Shutang from Jianli County, Hubei Province Persecuted in Brainwashing Center

On May 13, 2008, practitioner Mr. Xu Shutang was arrested by seven police officers, including Zhu Siyong, from the Bianhe Town Police Station of Jianli County, while he was on the way to work. In the afternoon, he was transferred to the notorious Tangxunhu Brainwashing Center in Wuhan City, Hubei Province for further persecution.

Mr. Xu Shutang, about 68 years old, is a farmer from Maodu Village, Bianhe Town, Jianli County, Jingzhou City, Hubei Province. He is a Falun Gong practitioner who wants to help others by sharing the Falun Gong beliefs of "Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance." He is known to be a very good person in his village

Xu Shutang was illegally arrested by the CCP and sentenced to one and a half years in Shayang Forced Labor Camp.

Previously, in September 2003, Xu Shutang was arrested by police officers from the 610 Office of Jianli County and jailed. He was then forced into a brainwashing session at a Chinese Communist Party School for about 20 days. During this time, the director of the 610 Office, Xia Zujun, and deputy director Jiang Changhong, ordered guards and about 10 inmates from Shayang Forced Labor Camp to torture him. Mr. Xu was not allowed to sleep. The guards and inmates took turns brainwashing him by defaming and and falsely accusing Falun Gong, forcing him to watch video programs defaming Falun Gong, and forcing him to write reports denouncing Falun Gong after watching the videos.

Falun Gong practitioners have been severely persecuted in Tangxunhu Brainwashing Center.  In July 2002, Falun Gong practitioner Wang Haoyun, a teacher at Central China Normal University, was tortured to death, having his neck broken. 

Recent Persecution Committed by Kunshan 610 Office and Domestic Security Agents

Since the beginning of 2008, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has issued several secret documents to intensify the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, using the upcoming Olympics as a pretext. These documents were issued to the CCP Political and Judiciary Committees in different provinces and major cities, and were also sent to offices directly responsible for persecuting Falun Gong in all these areas. Following the issuance of these documents, local governments began a new campaign to arrest practitioners. The arrested practitioners were sent to forced labor camps or sentenced to jail terms.

In Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, local 610 Office personnel and Domestic Security Police closely followed the CCP's instructions. They assigned spies to monitor and follow almost all practitioners. Since there were more practitioners than police officers, the persecutors ordered local street administration offices and residential offices to assign people to do the spying. They even hired thugs and forced neighbors to spy on practitioners. They rigorously covered their tracks, so most people do not know about these arrests. The following stories will expose a few of the recent arrests. We hope that others will expose more of such incidents.

Ms. Li Fengxian, 60, is a technical school-educated retiree from the Su-An Company. On March 16, 2008, while shopping at Nong-Gong-Shang Supermarket, Li Fengxian purchased merchandise using paper currency with hand-written Falun Gong truth-clarification messages on it. Someone in the supermarket saw the messages and reported this to the police. After local police officers arrested Ms. Li and took her to the police station, they went to search her home. They found copies of Zhuan Falun and other Falun Gong works. Her husband was not home at the time. Ms. Li was later on transferred to the Kunshan City Detention Center. Soon after that she was sentenced to one year of forced labor and subsequently sent to the Judong Women's Forced Labor Camp in Jiangsu Province.

Mr. Zhu Xingfu, 58, is a self-employed small business owner. Prior to the onset of the persecution in 1999, he did the Falun Gong exercises at the Chaoyang practice site in Kunshan City. On March 10, 2008, Mr. Zhu handed people Falun Gong materials near the Kunshan Traditional Chinese Medicine Hospital. Someone informed the police, and they arrested Mr. Zhu. Following the arrest, six police officers forced their way into Mr. Zhu's home and conducted a search. During the search, the police behaved like thugs, throwing things around and making a mess. The search failed to uncover any evidence. As a result, the police had to release Mr. Zhu after 15 days of detention.

Mr. Zhu Xingfu has practiced Falun Gong for more than ten years. In spite of the danger, Mr. Zhu went to Beijing to clarify the truth to the regime and tell them how he benefited from practicing Falun Gong. Beijing police officers arrested and repeatedly beat him.

When Mr. Zhu Xingfu and other practitioners raised a banner at Tiananmen Square to announce their disagreement with the regime sometime between July 20, 1999 and 2001, a group of police officers violently beat them before sending them to a detention center in a Beijing suburb. The police there greeted them with punches, kicks and slaps in the face. Mr. Zhu's face and mouth were bloody and bruised. His face was swollen so badly that people were shocked when they looked at him. The police continued to beat him the next day. A policeman kicked him so hard that he fell to the ground. The policeman stomped on his body and continued kicking him. Mr. Zhu could not even stand up. That did not stop the police brutality. They stripped him of his clothes and continued to beat him. The policemen used the most vicious language to insult him while shocking him with electric batons. His knees were injured so badly that he could not move his legs. He suffered injuries all over his body, both externally and internally, almost dying from the physical torture. He remained on the ground for a long time and did not have enough strength to raise himself up. For a long time afterwards, he had a hard time walking; the pain was hard to endure.

After Zhu Xingfu was sent back to Kunshan from Beijing, the local police ransacked his home. They also detained him for one month for further torture. Because he refused to give up his belief in Falun Gong, the police in Kunshan beat him repeatedly. When people from the 610 Office and others from the Domestic Security Team attempted to force him to write a guarantee statement to stop practicing Falun Gong, he refused and told them he was illiterate. The police told a fellow inmate to write a statement and forced Mr. Zhu to sign it. After he was released from the detention center, Zhu Xingfu spent several months recuperating at home. Finally he was able to stand up and do the Falun Gong exercises and read Falun Gong books. He slowly recovered from the traumatic experience. Zhu Xingfu's experience is one of the most severe examples of persecution in Kunshan, from the perspective of both physical and mental trauma.