(Minghui.org) Since April 2020, the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) in Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province has been carrying out a new “zero-out” campaign ordered by the central PLAC office in Beijing, in attempts to force all Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith.
In the persecution of Falun Gong started by the Chinese Communist Party in July 1999, the PLAC, an extrajudicial agency overseeing state security and judiciary branches, has played a central role in making and executing persecution policies.
In the new “zero-out” campaign, launched on the 21st anniversary of the persecution Falun Gong, local community workers and police officers were mobilized to visit Falun Gong practitioners on the government’s blacklist. They collected the practitioners' information and attempted to force them to sign prepared statements to renounce Falun Gong. Some practitioners’ family members were also harassed and threatened.
In April, a female community worker went to the home of a practitioner (name unknown) and said they would remove her name from their list if she signed the renunciation statement. The practitioner responded that she strove to follow Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be a good person and it would be impossible for her to stop practicing. That community worker didn’t push further and left after asking for some basic information from her.
On April 23, a few police officers and community workers harassed Ms. Li Jingyan. The next day, the same officers harassed two other practitioners, including Ms. Zhu Xueshuang and Ms. Gu Qiaoling. All three practitioners were advanced in age.
The officers started by asking if the practitioners had any difficulties in their daily lives and also their children’s situations. The community director then asked for their children’s phone numbers, which the practitioners refused to provide. When the officers said to the practitioners that they should contact each other more often in the future, one practitioner directly responded that she noticed the officers were secretly taking pictures of her and said they were harassing her. She urged them not to come back and not to follow the communist regime’s persecution policies.
Two officers harassed Ms. Qu Lihua at home on May 18. They tore down the decorations on her door with messages about Falun Gong and confiscated a photo of Falun Gong’s founder after searching her home. Ms. Qu was forced to give her phone number to the police.
Mr. Zhan Xingchao received a call on May 25 and was asked to provide his address. He refused to answer.
A practitioner surnamed Cui was summoned to the police station in June and ordered to write a statement to renounce his faith.
Ms. Zhang Qiulan was harassed on June 4. The police threatened to contact her again soon.
On June 15, a practitioner whose name is unknown was harassed by police and residential committee staff. The police took her picture and forced her to sign a document. They identified her family members using big data tools and harassed them as well.
Ms. Sun Yanhua also received several harassing phone calls in June. On June 20, the community workers harassed her at home and ordered her to sign a prepared statement to renounce Falun Gong. After she refused, the staffers threatened to have her family members sign it for her.
A week later, Ms. Zhao Yunyan’s husband received a call from the police and asked whether she still practiced Falun Gong.
Ms. Yuan Shurong’s daughter received a phone call on July 22 from the local social security office. The staff member asked Ms. Yuan to go to their office to have her biometrics collected, including her fingerprints and facial image. Ms. Yuan didn’t comply.
Shortly after, another person who claimed to be from a health insurance company called Ms. Yuan and asked for her address to do a survey. She didn’t comply either.
Three more practitioners, including Ms. Fu Zhaocui, Ms. Han Zhenhua, and Ms. Yang Huiping, were also harassed in July.
