(Minghui.org) Three Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province residents were arrested on July 1, 2020 while putting up information about Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
The police ransacked the practitioners’ homes and confiscated their Falun Gong books and materials, as well as their personal computers. Ms. Xu Yanping and Ms. Zuo Ying have been detained at Jiamusi Detention Center since. Ms. Li Shuxian was released on bail after she was rejected admission due to high blood pressure.
The police threatened Ms. Xu’s husband, “She was arrested on July 1, which is the Chinese Communist Part’s birthday, and also an important day for the Communist Party to pass the security law in Hong Kong. Now we’ve put her on criminal detention, and we are planning to give her a prison term, three years at least.”
Fearing that Ms. Zuo’s bedridden, eighty-year-old mother-in-law couldn’t withstand the agony of her arrest, her family told her that Ms. Zuo had gone on a trip and would return after a while.
Below are more details about the persecution Ms. Xu and Ms. Zuo suffered before for their faith in Falun Gong.
Ms. Xu, 58, took up Falun Gong in 1996. She credits the practice for improving her health and elevating her mind.
For appealing for the right to practice Falun Gong at Tiananmen Square in Beijing on March 30, 2002, Ms. Xu was arrested and sent to the Miyun County Detention Center in the suburban area in Beijing.
The police forced her to stand barefoot on the concrete floor and handcuffed her. When she refused to answer questions about herself, the officers slapped her in the face and beat her hands and ankles with a stick. Her hands and feet were bruised.
After she was taken back to Jiamusi four days later, the local police brought her to the Changsheng Police Station for interrogation. She developed a serious medical condition and was released. The police extorted 13,000 yuan from her husband. Both of her thumbs remained numb for over two months from the beatings.
Ms. Xu was arrested again around 9 p.m. on April 9, 2002. Many of her Falun Gong books were confiscated. She developed a medical condition again in the detention center and was carried back home around midnight.
Ms. Xu’s next arrest and home-ransacking was on October 30, 2007. The police gave her one year of forced labor and extorted 16,000 yuan from her husband together with the detention center guards. Ms. Xu became seriously ill and was released on medical parole after 20 days of detention.
In addition to the arrests and detention, the police also frequently harassed Ms. Xu at home and her workplace. Her husband developed a heart problem after living in fear every day for years. Their son was forced to drop out of middle school in September 2002 and moved out-of-town to work. He died in an accident years later.
Ms. Zuo, 56, has also been arrested several times in the past 21 years for her faith in Falun Gong.
A group of officers broke into her home on April 11, 2001. They searched all over her place and even confiscated her 10-year-old son’s toy gun, leaving the boy in tears. Ms. Zuo and her husband, who doesn’t practice Falun Gong, were brought to the police station for interrogation. She refused to answer their questions and wrote “Falun Dafa is good” on a piece of paper. The police held her hands and pressed her fingerprints on the paper. Although Ms. Zuo was released shortly after, her husband was held in custody overnight. The police also extorted 1,000-yuan from the family.
The police ransacked Ms. Zuo’s home again on June 3, 2011. A calendar printed with information about Falun Gong and Ms. Zuo’s computer were confiscated. While she wasn’t home, the police arrested her husband and son and interrogated them for a few hours. Her son was beaten so hard by the police that a few of his ribs were broken. Ms. Zuo was forced to live away from home for months to hide from the police.
Ms. Zuo was arrested again on July 15, 2014 for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong and was detained in Jiamusi Detention Center.