Retired Middle School Teacher Repeatedly Harassed for Upholding Her Faith

(Minghui.org) A 75-year-old retired teacher in Beijing has faced constant harassment since 2015 for her faith in Falun Gong. Since April 2022, her retirement pension has also been suspended due to her upholding her belief in Falun Gong.

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

Ms. Zhang Xiuhua used to teach at the Beijing City No. 1 Middle School. She took up Falun Gong in 1998. After the persecution began one year later, she stopped practicing for a few years and many of her ailments, including kidney infection and Meniere’s disease that were cured by Falun Gong, relapsed. She resumed practicing Falun Gong in 2006 and soon regained her health.

Since 2015, the authorities began to harass her on a regular basis. Before major anniversaries related to Falun Gong, her school would warn her not to go out to raise awareness. Sometimes they harassed her at home.

Six officers ransacked Ms. Zhang’s home on March 14, 2020, confiscating her Falun Gong books, computer, media player, computer memory cards and even the back cover of a calendar (to be counted as a complete copy of the calendar). She was given five days of detention, but was allowed to serve time at home. 

During another harassment on March 2, 2021, several officers even went into her bedroom to look for Falun Gong related items.

Below are the details of several recent harassment incidents.

Harassment During the Double Ninth Festival 

On October 14, 2021, the traditional festival for the elderly, also known as the Double Ninth Festival, five people from her school and the local education bureaus harassed her at home, as Ms. Zhang didn’t attend the event the school organized for the retirees. 

They asked her what she had been doing every day. Two male teachers from the education bureau, claiming to want to view the flowers she grew at home, went into her room without her permission. Upon seeing the photo of Falun Gong’s founder, one teacher said, “This wouldn’t do. You will be in trouble if the police see it. They would come to harass you every few days, and how annoying that would be!”

The teacher asked her why she practiced Falun Gong. She told them the health benefits she had enjoyed, as well as the elevation of her character after learning it. “We live by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance and we don’t fight back when being beaten or cursed at.” 

“How can you do that?” the teacher commented. 

Ms. Zhang asked the teacher’s name. He said, “I can’t tell you, or you would report my name to [the overseas media in] the U.S.”

Ms. Zhang tried to clarify the facts about Falun Gong to them. “Falun Gong teaches its students to focus on improving their character and constantly looking within to see what they can do better.”

She continued, “Do you know that Falun Gong isn’t on the cult list published by the Department of State and Public Security Bureau? And the Chinese publication bureau has also lifted the ban on Falun Gong books in 2011? So practicing Falun Gong is completely legal in China. Why don’t you allow me to do it?”

“That’s the order from above. We can’t do anything about it,” the teacher said.

Harassment during the “Zero-out” Campaign

After the communist regime ordered the “Zero-out” harassment campaign in 2020 to target every practitioner on the government’s list to renounce Falun Gong, Ms. Zhang wasn’t spared either.

The Huairou District 610 Office, an extra-legal agency created to persecute Falun Gong, constantly called her daughter and ordered her to pressure Ms. Zhang to give up Falun Gong or sign the renouncing statement on her behalf. The officials threatened her daughter that her and her husband’s jobs would be affected and her son couldn’t attend college in the future, if Ms. Zhang refused to renounce Falun Gong. 

Ms. Zhang’s daughter called her on December 6, 2020 and told her about the harassment. Under tremendous pressure, she asked Ms. Zhang to give up her faith. 

Zhong Yalin, the school’s security director, called Ms. Zhang on December 8 and asked her to come downstairs to sign the renouncing statement. She refused to comply and asked Zhong to stop harassing her daughter. “Her family has been turned upside down by you. My son-in-law threatened to divorce her. She has to worry about her own job, her son’s future and my safety. Can’t you just let her live a normal life?”

Ms. Zhang’s daughter visited her on December 11 and said the police had put Ms. Zhang on their blacklist. They were planning to arrest her if she didn’t cooperate with them. “Will you just watch us getting a divorce, losing our jobs and your grandson with no job?” 

“It has nothing to do with you. I would do anything to protect you. It’s not right for them to implicate you in the persecution,” Ms. Zhang said to her daughter.

Harassment Before the Chinese New Year

In early 2022 before the winter break, Zhong from the school security department called Ms. Zhang and said he would come to her home on the next afternoon. He then hung up the call and didn’t answer when Ms. Zhang called back. 

Zhong called Ms. Zhang on the next morning and said he had to reschedule the visit due to an important meeting. Ms. Zhang told him that there was no need for him to come, as she wouldn’t sign the required (renouncing) statement whatsoever. 

A few days before the Chinese New Year on February 1, the school officials came to harass Ms. Zhang again, but with the excuse of visiting retired teachers. 

The teacher who harassed her during the Double Ninth Festival but refused to tell his name came again. This time, the school secretary, Liu, introduced him as “teacher He.” 

Liu said to Ms. Zhang, “I’m just doing my job given by the above. You are making things very difficult for me. I hope you can help me better do my job.”

Ms. Zhang responded, “If I cooperate with you and sign the statement, I betray my Master. I had so many major diseases before, but they were all cured by practicing Falun Gong.”

Liu said, “I know it. But it’s because some people went astray that the government banned Falun Gong.”

Ms. Zhang refuted, “It wasn’t the government, but a personal decision by Jiang Zemin (the former head of the communist regime). Because there were 100 million Falun Gong practitioners, but only 70 million members of the Chinese Communist Party. Jiang was jealous of Falun Gong’s popularity so he ordered the persecution. 

“To justify his decision, he personally defamed Falun Gong to a French media outlet and also ordered his clique to stagethe Tiananmen self-immolation to demonize Falun Gong. She then pointed out several discrepancies in the CCP media footage of the incident that indicated it was a hoax.” 

One of the uninvited visitors said, “Anyone who said the self-immolation was fake is against the Chinese Communist Party.” 

Liu chimed in, “Let’s not discuss the issue. The government has made its decision on Falun Gong.” 

Ms. Zhang emphasized again that Falun Gong was never on the government’s official cult list and that publication of Falun Gong books is now allowed by the Chinese publication bureau. 

Liu attempted to accuse Ms. Zhang of violating the law by following “forbearance,” one of the three principles taught by Falun Gong, but she was unable to provide any legal backing for it.

Then the security director Zhong walked over and asked whether Ms. Zhang’s husband could sign the statement on her behalf. “He can’t represent me,” she replied. 

Seeing that they couldn’t persuade Ms. Zhang, Liu signaled the officials to leave. As the teacher surnamed He was leaving, he said to Ms. Zhang, “We will come again! We will come very often!” 

“I don’t welcome you!” Ms. Zhang said to them. 

A month later, the school called Ms. Zhang’s husband and asked him to come downstairs to sign the renouncing statement for her. He refused to comply. Not long after, someone knocked on the door. Ms. Zhang cracked opened the door and saw over ten officials standing in the hallway. She shut the door immediately. Seeing that she was indeed not welcoming them, the officials left.

Arrested and Taken to Police Station

Seven police officers broke into Ms. Zhang’s home on March 15, 2022. Liu Yantao, the deputy head of Quanhe Police Station, said to her, “You’re giving me a loud slap in the face. Two years ago, I promised to others that you would not cause any trouble to us, but now you are making the same mistake again.”

“What did you do last night?” someone asked Ms. Zhang. 

“You should turn off the camera first,” she said to the officers. 

“We must keep it on. That’s the rule,” one officer said. 

Just as Ms. Zhang was writing down the officers’ police ID numbers, they showed her a search warrant and began to search her home.

The police confiscated Ms. Zhang’s Falun Gong books and other personal belongings. They then took her to the place where she distributed the materials and ordered her to get out of the car for photos. She didn’t comply. The officers just took a picture of the location itself. 

They then brought her to the hospital for a physical examination and she was found to have extremely high blood pressure.

After taking her to the local detention center, they ordered her to remove her belt and the metal wire in her mask. Three officers ordered her to sit in a metal chair and began to interrogate her.

Ms. Zhang took it as an opportunity to clarify the facts about Falun Gong. She recounted how her health recovered and her morality elevated from practicing Falun Gong. 

“You are saying the current policy caused people’s morality to decline and society to become unstable?” one officer asked her.

“Some people would do anything for money, such as making toxic milk products and infant formula. No one who practices Falun Gong would do such a thing. It’s a pure land here.”

The officer wondered, “Why do you still practice it when the government banned it?”

Ms. Zhang said she didn’t violate any law in practicing Falun Gong. On the other hand, it’s her Constitutionally protected right to practice her faith. 

The police also asked her why she distributed the materials and where she got the materials. 

She replied that Falun Gong practitioners were using their own money and time to make the materials and they distributed it to help people to learn the facts. She felt doing this is her responsibility as a Falun Gong practitioner.

The police released Ms. Zhang in the evening due to her high blood pressure. They again took her to the place where she distributed the materials on the next day and asked her to admit her “crime” of distributing materials. She refused to do so. The police then brought her to another interrogation room. The room had a window, which allowed people in an adjoining room to see her clearly, but she couldn’t see them.

The police said they were giving her three days of criminal detention and attempted to pressure her into pleading guilty. She insisted that she didn’t violate any law. 

When the police took Ms. Zhang to the detention center, the doctor refused to accept her due to her high blood pressure and the police agreed to release her on bail, on the condition that she doesn’t leave the Huairou District she was living in.

Ms. Zhang was taken back to the police station on March 17 and the police collected her fingerprints and eye scan again, as the biometrics they collected before were invalid. After it was done, the deputy police chief said to her, “I don’t intend to change your faith, but it’s an order from above that I can’t defy.”