Shandong Woman Detained for 38 Days, Including in a Tourist Site, for Her Faith

(Minghui.org) A woman in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, was detained for 38 days for refusing to give up her faith in Falun Gong before being released on bail. During her detention, she was frequently interrogated and held at several quarantine centers, including a former German prison still open to visitors. When the visitors asked about the people detained there, the guards said they were reenactment actors.

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

Ms. Xu Li was arrested at work at 9:30 a.m. on July 11, 2022, by four officers, including Zhu, Xu Bin, Liu Bin and another one whose name wasn’t known. Her Falun Gong books, two cellphones and a computer were confiscated.

After taking Ms. Xu to the Zhanshan Police Station at 10:30 a.m., the police interrogated her. They claimed that a surveillance camera recorded her distributing Falun Gong materials. Zhu verbally abused and insulted her. Ms. Xu refused to answer any questions.

Around noon, another officer surnamed Xu came. He verbally abused Falun Gong and its founder for 20 minutes and left. Others continued to interrogate her in the afternoon.

As Ms. Xu refused to cooperate with the police, they took her to another police station for interrogation at 9:30 p.m. and she still remained silent. She was taken back to the Zhanshan Police Station and then to the Badaxia Police Station around 11:15 p.m.

The basement of Badaxia Police Station had eight rooms, to be used as a quarantine facility. Each room had a glass door and was less than 10 square meters (around 100 square feet). The authorities held up to 13 people in one room. As Qingdao is a coastal city, the air was very humid in the basement. When Ms. Xu woke up in the morning, the blanket was wet and had a moldy smell. The authorities also set up interrogation rooms there.

After four days in the basement, Ms. Xu was taken to the hospital for a physical examination around noon on July 15. The doctor took her blood sample and took nasal and throat swabs for COVID-19 tests. After that, she was taken to the Zhanshan Police Station to wait for the result, and the police collected her fingerprint, and recorded her voice and other information for ocular recognition.

At 5 p.m., Ms. Xu was taken to the German Prison, which was also used for quarantine during the pandemic. The authorities set up two female rooms and five male rooms here. The staff members took turns watching the detainees in four shifts a day and they took a break every nine days. Each shift had a supervisor, a doctor and two police officers.

As the prison was a historic site, the authorities still sell tickets to visitors for 23 yuan per person. When the visitors asked about those who were detained there, a security guard said they were actors reenacting the scene.

Ms. Xu was held at the site for 21 days and then transferred to the Chengyang Detention Center on August 5. The living condition there was very poor. She was held there for another 14 days and then taken to the Pudong Detention Center.

Ma Yue and Yang Ping of the Shinan District Procuratorate interviewed Ms. Xu at 9:30 a.m. on August 16 through a virtual meeting. A procuratorate staff member came in the afternoon and asked Ms. Xu to sign her interview record. She refused to comply. While reviewing the document, Ms. Xu saw her arrest warrant was submitted by the police to the prosecutor on August 15, who urged them to approve her arrest.

Although the police generally have 37 days to detain a suspect before the prosecutor approves the arrest, the officers involved in Ms. Xu’s persecution detained her for 38 days. Before releasing her on August 18, the police took Ms. Xu to the Zhanshan Police Station and ordered her to sign her case document and pay her bail bond. She refused to comply with any of their requirements. After hours of standoff, she was released at 11:44 p.m.

The police refused to return any of the items confiscated from Ms. Xu. They also attempted to extort 1,200 yuan from her family to cover her living cost and medical examination fee during her detention, but her family refused to pay as well.