(Clearwisdom.net) At noon on March 9, 2010, Ms. Chen Hongli and Ms. Zhang Guilan, Falun Gong practitioners from Qianxi County, Hebei Province, were arrested at a checkpoint on Luojiatun Township Highway. They have been held for 15 days in the Qianxi County Detention Center.

Ms. Chen Hongli, 39, is from Wucun Village, Xingcheng Township, Qianxi County. Ms. Zhang Guilan, in her fifties, is from Shanglingzi Village, Xingcheng Township, Qianxi County. They visited Ms. Chen's mother on March 9, and while returning home, they passed a checkpoint set up to tighten security during the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) National Congress and Political Consultative Commission sessions. The practitioners were asked to show their identification cards, and informational materials about Falun Gong were found in their bags. That afternoon, the local national security squad went to Chen Hongli's home, but no one was there.

Ms. Chen Hongli was arrested four times between 1999 and 2001, sentenced to forced labor for two years, and held in the Qianxi Detention Center and Kaiping Forced Labor Camp. She was bound with hand shackles, shocked with electric batons, and subjected to public humiliation, sleep deprivation, beatings, interrogation, and more. Zhu Zhengang, head of the local national security squad, forced her to pay over 10,000 yuan.

Ms. Zhang Guilan was harassed and persecuted on several occasions, beginning in 1999. She was held at the local detention and brainwashing centers. In May 2006, her husband was arrested while distributing materials about Falun Gong in Yuhuzhai Township, Qianxi County. He was sentenced to four years at the Jidong Prison, where he was tortured until he lost sight in his left eye. Although his blood pressure rose to dangerously high levels, his request for medical parole was rejected.

Written on March 10, 2010