(Minghui.org) Six Wuhan City, Hubei Province residents were arrested on December 26, 2018, for not renouncing their faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
The practitioners were taken to the Yujiatou Police Station and interrogated after police ransacked their homes and confiscated more than 80,000 yuan in cash from their savings.
The police next took the six Falun Gong practitioners to the hospital to have blood drawn and thorough physical examinations of their livers, kidneys, hearts, lungs, and corneas. The practitioners were not given the examination results, and they suspect that the examinations are related to the state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting schemes targeting Falun Gong practitioners.
Mr. Zheng Wen and Mr. Xu Jun were released one day following their arrests. Mr. Zhou Guoqiang, Mr. Zhang Bo, Mr. Xiong Youyi, and Mr. Li Jun are currently being held in the Qinglingxiang Detention Center and facing further prosecution after the police submitted their cases to the Wuchang District Procuratorate.
It was reported that Mr. Li developed stomach bleeding and heart problem while in the detention center.
Mr. Zhang's 78-year-old father was so devastated by his detention that he fell ill and had to be hospitalized. The elderly man passed away on April 13, 2019. He kept calling Mr. Zhang's name in his final days, yet the authorities denied his family's request to allow Mr. Zhang to see his father for one last time.
Past Persecution of Mr. Zhou Guoqiang
Mr. Zhou, 50, a native of Chibi City, Hubei Province, was first arrested on July 20, 1999 for doing Falun Gong exercises in a park. The police detained him for 15 days with the charge of “disrupting public order.”
During the short 15-day detention period, Mr. Zhou was forced to work at a quarry, work which included transporting stones and feeding the rock crushers. He was once asked to clean the crushers. He worked in a small room without any protection and was soon covered with thick stone dust all over his body.
Three months after being released, he was arrested again in November 1999 for appealing for Falun Gong in Beijing and sent to a forced labor camp for a year and a half.
Mr. Zhou was subjected to various tortures and forced to do slave labor while detained in the Chibi City Detention Center and Shayang Forced Labor Camp. Because he still refused to renounce Falun Gong at the end of his term, the authorities gave him another year at the labor camp and then transferred him back to the detention center after the extended term expired.
When he was released on November 25, 2003, his four-year-old son, who was born while he was detained, didn't recognize him.
Unable to bear the pressure from the persecution, his wife divorced him soon after he was released. His previous workplace, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, also fired him.
After losing his family and job, Mr. Zhou moved to Wuhan City in 2003 to hide from the police and avoid further persecution.
While he was working as a security guard at an apartment complex in 2013, he put out a big fire by himself in the basement garage before firefighters arrived. Many of the tenants' cars and other properties were protected. His brave act was recognized by his employer.
Persecution of Mr. Xiong Youyi
Mr. Xiong, 56, was a native of Huanggang City, Hubei Province. He credits Falun Gong for curing his Hepatitis B and helping him quit many bad habits, including drinking, smoking, and gambling.
His wife also divorced him, fearing the persecution. He worked several part-time jobs to raise their teenaged son.
In a new round of persecution, the police arrested Mr. Xiong on June 22, 2012. They ransacked his home and confiscated his Falun Gong books, computer, and 2,000 yuan in cash.
At the brainwashing center, he was deprived of food, forced to stand for eight hours during the day, and not allowed to sleep at night.
Because he refused to renounce Falun Gong, the authorities kept extending his term. He was released on August 15, 2013, after more than one year of detention.
