Hebei Man Faces Prosecution for Raising Awareness about the Persecution of His Faith

(Minghui.org) When Mr. Xia Hongmin’s family went to the local lockup to pick him up after his 15-day detention expired, the authorities refused to release him and said he had been given another eleven days of detention. Lockup personnel also revealed that the police are seeking to prosecute Mr. Xia. It’s not clear whether he has been released at the time of writing.

Mr. Xia, a 66-year-old Baoding City, Hebei Province resident, was arrested on July 8, 2022, while talking to people at a community fair about Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. Mr. Xia took up Falun Gong in the late 1990s and credits the practice for curing his back pain and other ailments.

While the police released him hours later, they arrested him again the next morning at the construction site where he works and took him directly to the Laishui County Lockup. He was given 15 days of administrative detention, but his family never received any official notice. On July 13, his family was ordered to come to the police station to pick up his motorcycle that was confiscated during his arrest on July 8.

When Mr. Xia’s family went to the lockup to pick him up on July 23, the guards refused to release him. They said that the police hadn’t approved his release and directed the family to the police. 

The family later learned from the village secretary that the Hujiazhuang Village Police Station was in charge of his case. They rushed to the police station and were told that because Mr. Xia escaped from the police station after he was arrested in 2019 for talking to people about Falun Gong, he would be subject to punishment this time.

Mr. Xia’s family urged the police to release him, saying, “He was just following Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be a good person and hasn’t violated any law. He is almost 70. Please release him.”

The police took out the “Administrative Penalty Decision” document issued by the Laishui County Police Department, which extended Mr. Xia’s detention by an additional eleven days and fined him 600 yuan. His family had 15 days to pay the fine, or the fine would increase 3% every day. 

Mr. Xia’s arrest has dealt a heavy blow to his family. His wife hasn’t been able to eat or sleep well, and she has lost a significant amount of weight. Their son is also under tremendous pressure and has been having trouble concentrating at work.

Past Persecution of Mr. Xia

For the past two decades, Mr. Xia has been repeatedly targeted for upholding his faith. 

While he was held at the Laishui County Party School on April 7, 2000, Sun Guijie, the deputy county magistrate, and Zhang Haili, secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee, burned his lips with cigarettes, causing blisters all over his mouth. They then stripped Mr. Xia of his clothes and beat him with a leather belt, a wooden stick and a chair leg. 

Mr. Xia was taken to the Laishui County Lockup on December 26, 2000. The guards put a sign on his neck designating him as a criminal, and paraded him through the streets the next day to humiliate him. 

When Mr. Xia was taken back to the Party School on March 15, 2001, he was beaten by the guards for trying to stop them from beating young Falun Gong practitioners. The skin on his back was torn and the flesh was exposed. 

Mr. Xia was detained again in April 2001 and was released after his family was forced to pay the police 1,000 yuan. After that, police officers frequently searched and ransacked his home and monitored him. Mr. Xia’s family was also harassed around major political events or anniversaries related to Falun Gong, causing them to be unable to lead normal lives.

Mr. Xia’s next arrest was on December 24, 2008, after being reported for distributing Falun Gong materials. He was first held at the Laishui County Lockup and then transferred to the Laishui County Detention Center on January 1, 2009. The police told him during the interrogation, “If we don’t send you to the detention center today, we will lose our jobs.”

At the detention center, the guards shaved Mr. Xia’s head. They instigated the inmates to pour barrels of cold water over him, claiming that they were “giving him a shower.” He had to work 12 hours a day, mostly wrapping colored paper around metal wires for artificial flower bouquets. If he failed to meet the designated quota, the inmates would kick him or slap him with their shoes.

Although Mr. Xia was released on January 31, 2009 after he held a hunger strike to protest the persecution, the authorities arrested him again the next day and took him to the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp. 

Between July 21 and 25, 2018, the police called Mr. Xia’s son many times to harass him. They threatened to find him at work if they couldn’t locate Mr. Xia. 

The police also went to Mr. Xia’s home twice, first on the morning of July 22 and then at 11:30 p.m. on July 25. His wife, who was at home alone, didn’t open the door. She was terrified and was forced to move out for a period of time to avoid the harassment.

Mr. Xia was arrested again on November 13, 2019 after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong at a community fair. He escaped from the Hujiazhuang Police Station, only to be targeted again three years later.

Perpetrators’ contact information:

Han Jinlong (韩进龙), deputy chief, Hujiazhuang Village Police Station: [phone]Ma Haitao (马海涛), head, Laishui County Lockup: [phone]Dai Chunjie (代春杰), head, Laishui County Domestic Security Office: [phone]Wang Jinqiao (王金桥), secretary, Laishui County Political and Legal Affairs Committee: [phone]

(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)

Related reports:

Police Threaten To Cut Off Falun Gong Practitioners’ Fingers While Collecting Their Fingerprints

Mr. Xia Hongmin in Laishui County, Hebei Province Arrested Again

Persecution of Practitioner Mr. Xia Hongmin from Laishui County in Hebei Province