(Minghui.org) Eight Falun Gong practitioners and some of their family members in Gongan County, Hubei Province, were harassed between May and July 2021 and ordered to renounce their faith. All of the practitioners refused to comply and urged the police to stop participating in the persecution.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Zhao Chunxiang, in her 70s, was harassed in May by the police and residential committee staff members, who ordered her to give up practicing Falun Gong. She clarified the facts about Falun Gong to them and insisted that it was not possible for her to give it up. The police harassed her husband and urged him to persuade her a few times, but her husband also refused to comply.

In early June, four officers who claimed to be from the county government harassed Mr. Ma Chaobin and his wife Ms. Chen Xiuyu. The couple refused to renounce their faith in Falun Gong.

Mr. Lu Yeju, in his 60s, was having dinner with his wife outside on June 30, when a Douhudi Town Police Station officer called his cell phone and told him to go home immediately. When Mr. Lu got there, he saw three police officers waiting for him. They threatened him and told him not to go out (to promote Falun Gong).

Ms. Xu Cuie, a 66-year-old retired fertilizer plant employee, was harassed at home at around 8 p.m. on June 30. The police told her to not go out.

An hour later, several officers knocked on Ms. Dong Shijun’s door, but she wasn’t home so they left.

Still looking for Ms. Dong, they went to her mother’s on July 22 and pretended to be Ms. Dong’s coworkers at the Maternal and Child Health Hospital where she worked. Ms. Dong’s mother, in her 90s, was taking a nap when the police came. They urged her to persuade Ms. Dong to sign a statement to renounce Falun Gong or else they would harass Ms. Dong’s daughter, who works out of town.

When Ms. Dong’s mother asked the police who ordered the ban on Falun Gong, they said that it was a national policy. They acknowledged that people are free to practice Falun Gong all over the world—except in China.

The police also harassed the sons of Ms. Zhang Jiagui and Ms. Yan Guangyu and urged them to persuade their mothers to renounce their faith. Both practitioners’ sons responded that there was no way their mothers would stop practicing Falun Gong.