After Four Months of Hiding, Chongqing Woman Located Through Surveillance and Arrested

(Minghui.org) A 59-year-old Chongqing woman was forced to leave home in December 2020 to avoid persecution for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been targeted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. The police monitored and bugged the phones of her relatives for a long time and tracked her down through intensive surveillance. 

Ms. Han Zonglan was arrested at her sister's home in Chongqing on April 13, 2021. She now has dangerously high blood pressure while being detained in Hechuan Detention Center. 

An Earlier Arrest in February 2020

When Ms. Han was placing the pamphlets about the persecution of Falun Gong on car windshields on February 8, 2020, a police officer saw her and followed her home. Shortly afterward, five police officers from Bachuan Police Station knocked on her door. 

The officers rushed in once the door was opened and started searching her home. She asked them to show their identification but they did not respond. Three policemen held her in a chair and didn’t allow her to move. The other two rummaged through the home and confiscated many personal belongings, including nearly 8,000 yuan in cash. The whole house was left in a big mess.

The police arrested Ms. Han and took her to the police department for interrogation. She told them how she got rid of all of her illnesses through the practice. They did not want to listen and scolded her. They later brought in her husband and interrogated him. He was released after being forced to sign a statement with undisclosed content.

Ms. Han refused to sign any paperwork and was locked in a room. The police brought her dinner which was extremely salty. Her mouth became dry after a few bites.

The next day, two police officers tried to take photos of her and a blood sample and fingerprints. The police scolded her when she refused to cooperate. Five police officers then took her to the hospital for a complete physical.

After the doctor found her blood pressure was at an extremely high level of 240/120 mmHg, the police took her back to the police department and put her in solitary confinement until 7:00 p.m. She was released on bail after her husband paid the bail bond of 5,000 yuan.

Forced to Go into Hiding after Repeated Harassment

Two officials from Chongqing Political and Legal Affairs Committee (an extra-judiciary agency tasked with persecuting Falun Gong), three police officers from the Tongliang District Domestic Security Division, and a community worker went to Ms. Han's home to harass her on September 17, 2020. They did not show their identification and kept taking pictures of her.

Two staff members from Dongcheng Street Residential Committee; Li Xia, the Party secretary of the Tongliang District; and two police officers barged into Ms. Han's home on October 29, 2020. Without identifying themselves, they tried to force her family to sign the statement renouncing Falun Gong they had prepared in advance. Ms. Han tore up the statement and refused to let her family sign it. She said that it was illegal for them to do that. They left, only to tell her son to come out and sign the statement in the police car, which he refused to do.

The officials did not give up and called her husband several times in the afternoon and coerced him into going to the residential committee. After he signed the statement there, they told him to put his thumbprints on it, but he refused to. 

Ms. Han's family later received many phone calls ordering her to go to the residential committee to have her photo taken, causing anxiety for the whole family.

A community worker knocked on the door of Ms. Han's home at the end of 2020. She asked her husband where Ms. Han went. He replied that she had no right to know where Ms. Han was.

Sensing that the police intended to arrest her again, Ms. Han left home on December 20, 2020, to avoid arrest.

Ms. Han received a phone call from a police officer on January 19, 2021, summoning her to the police department. The officer refused to provide a reason for her to go to the police department but threatened to arrest her if she didn’t show up. Ms. Han asked for his name and police badge number, but he hung up the phone. Ms. Han was arrested three months later on April 13, 2021, at her sister's house.