(Minghui.org) According to information collected by Minghui.org, 3,133 incidents of Falun Gong practitioners being arrested or harassed for their faith were reported in the first half of 2023.
In Wuhan City, Hubei Province, a 64-year-old woman died six days after she was arrested. The police strictly censored information about her death and also closely monitored her wake at home. Another practitioner’s wife, who had been bedridden for six years, was so terrified to see the police ransack her home that she died ten days later.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999. Countless practitioners have been harassed, arrested, sentenced, or tortured for upholding their faith. But due to strict information censorship in China, the persecution cases can’t always be reported in a timely manner, nor is all the information readily available.
Among the 1,752 newly reported arrest cases, 3 took place in 2021, 161 in 2022, and 1,588 in 2023. Of the newly reported 1,381 harassment incidents, 133 were in 2022 and 1,248 were in 2023. A total of 1,041 practitioners had their homes ransacked. In particular, two practitioners had 80,000 yuan and 100,000 yuan in cash, respectively, taken from them during their arrests in March 2023.
The 3,133 practitioners arrested or harassed came from 28 provinces and municipalities. Shandong (510), Jilin (484) and Sichuan (270) reported the most combined cases of arrests and harassment. Hebei, Heilongjiang, Hubei, Liaoning and Beijing also reported triple-digit cases, from 114 to 269. Sixteen other regions had double-digit cases. Zhejiang and Hainan each registered four arrest cases, while Fujian and Xinjiang each had one harassment case.
A total of 535 practitioners, including 331 arrested and 204 harassed, were 60 and above, with eleven practitioners in their 90s.
The following chart shows the monthly distribution of the 1,588 arrest cases and the 1,248 harassment cases that took place in the first half of 2023.
Both March and May saw intensified persecution cases, likely due to the regime’s annual political meetings in March and the annual “World Falun Dafa Day” on May 13 (the anniversary when Falun Gong was introduced to the public). During the “sensitive days” such as major political meetings or anniversaries related to Falun Gong, the authorities often ordered local police and the residential committee to harass practitioners on a large scale to prevent them from going public to expose the persecution.
The 3,133 targeted practitioners came from all walks of life, including 37 college professors and 34 professionals in other industries, such as doctors, judges, engineers, journalists, and accountants.
A world record-breaking athlete was arrested in May 2023, after spending 17 years on the run to hide from the police. A married couple in their 40s, both of whom worked for an automobile factory, was arrested in February 2023, after the wife had served 5 years in prison and the husband 11 years.
A mentally healthy former engineer was taken to a psychiatric hospital, after the local detention center refused to admit her due to her high blood pressure. Her family is now worried about her being subjected to involuntary administration of psychiatric drugs. A middle school teacher was arrested at work, after the school administrator deceived him into going to his office for a talk.
Fired by the bank he worked at in 2000, a former IT technician is now barred from applying for retirement benefits after having reached retirement age.
Following most arrests, the police also forced the practitioners to go through suspicious physical examinations and submit to blood draws against their will. On a few occasions, the police altered the practitioners’ exam results in order to get them admitted to detention centers.
No lenience was given to elderly practitioners either. The family of an 83-year-old wheelchair-bound woman reported that the police pried open their door and took their loved one away in an ambulance, without telling them where they were taking her to.
Arrests and Harassment Around Politically Sensitive Days
China’s legislative body, the National People’s Congress (NPC), and its top political advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), both hold their annual meetings (known as “two sessions”) around the same time every year (though separately). This year’s CPPCC meeting began on March 4, and the NPC meeting started the following day. Falun Gong practitioners across China were harassed prior to the “two sessions.”
Shortly before the conferences started, Ms. Zhang Heyu, around 70, and her daughter Ms. Chen Lifang, 49, both living in Chaoyang District, Beijing, went missing. According to their neighbors, the local police and residential committee staff members had started to harass them and monitor their daily activities since 2020.
In Nongan County, Changchun City, Jilin Province, the local police harassed all of the practitioners in the county and arrested more than ten practitioners during the “two sessions.” When one practitioner went to Hainan Province, more than 2,000 miles away for a business trip, three police officers even followed him there, took his photo, and collected his saliva sample.
The police in Shouguang City, Shandong Province, harassed local practitioners by calling them, taking their photos, or asking their family members to prevent them from going out.
According to an insider, after the “two sessions” ended in late March, the authorities in Haidian District, Beijing, prepared a list of over 100 practitioners. They first arranged the police to monitor each practitioner’s daily life and had at least one face-to-face meeting with them every one or two weeks. All of such meetings were recorded. If the practitioners refused to renounce Falun Gong, or they had a “criminal record” of being sentenced for practicing Falun Gong before, the authorities would use more aggressive ways to harass them or take them to brainwashing sessions.
Entering May, the police in Guan County, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province dispatched many police officers to harass local practitioners. Two officers held a practitioner as soon as she opened the door and forcibly collected her blood sample. Another practitioner was stopped by the police on her way back home after studying Falun Gong books with other practitioners. The police removed the key on her motorcycle and attempted to draw her blood on the street. She shouted in protest and the police weren’t able to do it. A few more practitioners also reported that the police attempted to collect their blood samples.
Also in Shandong Province, the authorities in Longkou City dispatched more than 100 officers to arrest local practitioners at around 5 a.m. on May 9. The officers wore civilian clothes and drove their private cars to carry out the group arrest. They deceived the targeted practitioners into opening the door by claiming to be street committee staffers or downstairs neighbors whose ceilings were leaking.
According to insiders, the Longkou police had monitored the practitioners for at least six months before making the arrests. Many of the arresting officers are young people who had been misled by the CCP’s slanderous propaganda against Falun Gong.
All the practitioners’ homes were raided, with the police searching every nook and cranny, even under the beds. A large amount of Falun Gong books, informational materials exposing the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong, and other valuables were confiscated. The practitioners reported that these plainclothes officers changed into police uniforms after taking them to their police stations.
At least 21 Longkou practitioners and two family members were arrested, including four married couples, two children of one of the couples, two sets of siblings, and nine other practitioners.
In Yingcheng City, Hubei Province, the community office displayed large propaganda posters to smear Falun Gong and its founder on an “anti-cult” bulletin board in a prime location on Gongnong Street. Chai Wenguang, the director of the Gongnong Street Committee, personally gave instructions to print the posters. He also harassed an elderly practitioner, Ms. Liu Jiaoya, and threatened her not to go out. When practitioner Ms. Li Guifeng went to the street committee to update her house registration, Chai ordered her to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong. When she refused to comply, Chai called in the police, resulting in Ms. Li’s arrest and detention for four hours.
When Pan Jiqiang, the 51-year-old chief of the Sanhe City Police Department in Hebei Province, visited Yanjiao Town in Sanhe City, around May 10, 2023, he saw a banner reading “Celebrate World Falun Dafa Day on May 13.” He gave the order to arrest whoever hung the banner and swiftly prosecute the “offender.” The police station pored over surveillance videos and determined that Ms. Sui Lixian, a retired teacher around 72 years old, had hung the banner. Ms. Sui was taken from her home by police on May 14, 2023. Her arrest warrant was approved ten days later and she is now facing indictment.
Below are select persecution cases of individual practitioners.
Tragic Deaths
Wuhan Woman Dies Six Days After Arrest
A 64-year-old woman in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, died six days after she was arrested for refusing to give up her faith in Falun Gong.
Ms. Hu Yongxiu was arrested outside of a hospital on March 30, 2023, while talking to people about the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong. Her family confirmed on April 5, 2023, that she died that day. Her wake at home was closely monitored by the police. Due to strict information censorship, details about her death aren’t available.
Ms. Hu was the second Falun Gong practitioner in Wuhan known to have been persecuted to death in 2023. The other practitioner, Ms. Zong Ming, was emaciated and had difficulty talking when she was released on December 26, 2022, after being held at a local brainwashing center for eight months. Her hair had turned gray. Her family took her to a hospital on January 1, 2023. The doctor refused to admit her and she died in the emergency room that day. She was 59.
Bedridden Woman Terrified by Police Raid Targeting Husband, Dies Ten Days Later
A bedridden woman in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, was terrified when three plainclothes officers broke in and raided her home, having arrested her husband at their son’s restaurant hours before. She died ten days later when her husband was still in detention.
Mr. Jiang Chunlin was helping out at his son’s restaurant on the morning of May 9, 2023, when three police officers showed up. After one of them flashed his police ID, they arrested him and confiscated his iPhone before going to his home. They later returned the SIM card in the phone but not the phone itself. They confiscated from his home a printer, a computer, some Falun Gong books, and his personal notebook with experiences and understandings of Falun Gong’s cultivation.
After she had a stroke in 2017, Mr. Jiang’s wife became disabled and couldn’t speak. She could only lie in bed helplessly, watching the police rummage through her home. Her son had to remind the officers to be quiet so as to not traumatize her.
The police said that Mr. Jiang was their key target and that they had been monitoring him for more than six months. They made the arrest after a surveillance video captured a backpack-wearing man who looked like Mr. Jiang in a particular neighborhood, so they suspected him of distributing informational materials about Falun Gong there.
The footage only showed the man’s back, not his face, but the police still used it as evidence to have Mr. Jiang admitted to a detention center the next day.
His wife, who had relied on him for care since her stroke, died ten days after his arrest. As his son wasn’t allowed to visit him, his lawyer relayed the news while visiting him in the detention center. The police denied his son’s request to have him released on bail to tend to his wife’s funeral.
Persecution of Elderly Practitioners
Police Pry Open 83-year-old Wheelchair-bound Woman’s Door and Take Her Away in an Ambulance
An 83-year-old wheelchair-bound woman was taken away in an ambulance from her home in Kunming City, Yunnan Province on May 9, 2023, by the police who pried open her door. Neither Ms. Gao Qiongxian nor her family had called for any medical assistance.
Ms. Gao was previously sentenced to six years in April 2022. She was allowed to postpone serving time due to health reasons. Her family suspected that the police targeted her this time because they intended to put her in jail to serve her prison sentence. At the time of writing, her loved ones haven’t been told where she is being held.
This is not the first time that Ms. Gao has been targeted for her faith. She was first arrested in July 2004 and given three years of forced labor. Upon being released in 2007, she resumed her efforts of informing the public of the persecution. She was arrested again in 2016 and sentenced to two years with three years of probation on August 29, 2017.
78-Year-Old Woman Harassed Numerous Times Before Being Indicted
Ms. Wu Yuying, a 78-year-old resident of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, got a phone call from her daughter on June 16, 2023, saying that the local police had ordered her to get her mother to report to them that day; otherwise, she would not be allowed to go to work.
Ms. Wu went to the police station at 2 p.m. that afternoon. When she asked about their threat to her daughter, all the officers present denied having ever contacted the younger woman. Ms. Wu decided to leave, but the police stopped her.
Ms. Wu suddenly felt dizzy and fainted. When she came to, she wanted to sit up to do the Falun Gong meditation, but couldn’t. She then passed out a second time. After she regained consciousness, the police said they’d call an ambulance this time. She said no and returned home after taking a brief rest.
Not long after, several officers and a staffer from Chengguan District Procuratorate came to her home to deliver a “notification of the time limit for review and prosecution,” a standard document issued by police in China after they have submitted suspects’ cases to the procuratorate. The Chengguan District Procuratorate indicted her on the same day (June 16).
This is not the first time that Ms. Wu, a retired employee of Changfeng Machinery Factory in Lanzhou City, has been targeted for her faith. The security department at her workplace often sent people to harass her at home. The factory management worked with the police and got her arrested many times. They also suspended her pay for a period of time and pressured her husband to divorce her. Her husband became gravely ill and died shortly after the divorce.
Bedridden 85-year-old Woman Not Spared in the Persecution
An 85-year-old woman in Maoming City, Guangdong Province has been repeatedly harassed by police in the past two years for practicing Falun Gong. Even after she became bedridden, the authorities still came to her home to deliver a guilty verdict against her.
Between April 21, 2022 and January 20, 2023, Ms. Liao Yuying was harassed four times. The police changed the lock on her front door in June 2022 and kept a key for themselves. To avoid further persecution, Ms. Liao lived away from home but had to return a month later due to her declining health and systemic pain.
She was bedridden when the police came to harass her again on January 20, 2023, two days before the Chinese New Year. They attempted to carry her away, but then relented due to the severity of her condition.
In March 2023, several officers came again and demanded to take her to court to sign her case document. She didn’t understand what was happening and burst into tears. Her neighbors heard her cry and came over to check on her. Not wanting her neighbors to see the persecution, the police quickly left.
The police called Ms. Liao’s son two days later and ordered him to pay a 5,000 yuan fine for her. He refused to comply, even after the police repeatedly called him.
The police knocked on Ms. Liao’s door again on April 20. She refused to let them in. The next morning, after Ms. Liao went out, the police talked to her neighbors and asked them about her situation. The police said they were just visiting her and brought her some bananas. They promised that they wouldn’t arrest her this time.
Moments after Ms. Liao returned home, the police came again and still asked her to go to the court to sign her case document. She insisted that she wouldn’t go.
As the pressure mounted, Ms. Liao suffered severe pain in her legs again and couldn’t get out of bed.
On April 25, several members of the Maonan District Procuratorate forced her son to take them to her home. They announced that she was guilty of having Falun Gong books at her home. In addition to forcing her son to sign her case document on her behalf, they also ordered her son to grab her hand and press her fingerprint on the document. The prosecutor then said that she was allowed to serve time at home. [Note: usually it’s the court’s responsibility to announce verdicts, but the prosecutor may have been asked to pass along the message in this particular case.] Only then did the still bedridden Ms. Liao realize that she had been sentenced. Neither she nor her son were told the details of her sentencing.
Arrested Again After Decades of Persecution
A married couple in Changchun City, Jilin Province, was arrested at home at 7:30 a.m. on February 24, 2023. The police took Mr. Zhuang Xiankun, around 49, and his wife Ms. Han Yingli, around 48, to the Jiutai Detention Center. The couple was held there until March 4 when they were transferred to the Weizigou Detention Center, where they remain.
Both Mr. Zhuang and Ms. Han once worked for the Changchun City Automobile Factory. They have been repeatedly targeted for their faith over the past 24 years of persecution.
Wife Once Jailed for 5 Years
Ms. Han went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong around February 2001 and was arrested. She was held at a detention center affiliated with the Beijing Police Department for several months. A man who claimed to be from the National Security Bureau later went to her workplace to investigate her background. She was then sentenced to five years in the Jilin Province Women’s Prison. She had to entrust the care of her baby, then only months old, to her younger brother.
Husband Gets 11 Years for Tapping Into Cable TV
Mr. Zhuang stayed in Beijing between October and December 1999 to raise awareness of the persecution. He was arrested and detained for 15 days.
Following his other arrest at work in February 2000, he was given one year of forced labor and had his term extended by seven months because he refused to renounce Falun Gong.
On March 5, 2002, Mr. Zhuang participated in the TV interception to raise awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong. He was arrested and sentenced to 11 years in Shiling Prison.
Background of the TV Interception in Changchun on March 5, 2002
Eighteen Falun Gong practitioners tapped into the state cable television broadcast network around 8 p.m. on March 5, 2002, in Changchun, Jilin Province. The programs “Self-immolation or Hoax?” and “Falun Dafa Spreads Worldwide” were broadcast on eight channels simultaneously for about 45 minutes.
The entire city of Changchun was stunned, and many people learned the facts about Falun Gong. Some thought that the ban on Falun Gong had been lifted.
Jiang Zemin, the former head of the Chinese communist regime, gave a secret order to “kill all Falun Gong practitioners involved.” Within days, more than 5,000 practitioners in the Changchun area were arrested, and seven were beaten to death.
Fifteen of the arrested practitioners were given heavy sentences on September 18, 2002: Ms. Zhou Runjun (20 years), Mr. Liu Weiming (20 years), Mr. Liu Chengjun (19 years), Mr. Liang Zhenxing (19 years), Mr. Zhang Wen (18 years), Mr. Lei Ming (17 years), Mr. Sun Changjun (17 years), Mr. Li Dehai (17 years), Ms. Zhao Jian (15 years), Mr. Yun Qingbin (14 years), Mr. Liu Dong (14 years), Mr. Wei Xiushan (12 years), Mr. Zhuang Xiankun (11 years), Ms. Chen Yanmei ( 11 years), and Ms. Li Xiaojie (4 years).
Three of the sentenced practitioners, including Mr. Liu Chengjun, Mr. Lei Ming, and Mr. Liang Zhenxing, have died as a result of the persecution.
After 17 Years of Displacement, World Record-Breaking Athlete Arrested Again
Mr. Zhang Qingyuan, a world record-breaking athlete of Wuhan City, Hubei Province, was arrested on March 29, 2023, and has been detained incommunicado since. His family hasn’t been given any updates about his situation either.
Mr. Zhang was previously sentenced to four years in 2006 for practicing Falun Gong. To avoid being jailed, he lived away from home for the next 17 years, before being arrested in 2023. While he was still on the run, the authorities pressured his employer to fire him in 2008 and also stopped his model worker stipend and disability benefits (totaling 10,000 yuan per year).
Mr. Zhang, around 55 years old, had his left forearm amputated after an accident when he was little. His disability didn’t stop him from being athletic and he won numerous national competitions.
In 1994, he broke the world record and won the triple jump championship in the 4th Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled. In 1995, he became a member of the national team scheduled to attend the 1996 Special Olympics in Atlanta, though he ended up not making the trip due to some unexpected reasons.
After the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, Mr. Zhang was repeatedly arrested for upholding his faith.
Twice Jailed for a Total of 13 Years, Jilin Man Again Faces Trial
Hours before Mr. Shi Wenzhuo’s arrest on March 16, 2023, six officers came to the property management office at his apartment complex, demanding to see surveillance videos. The police decided to arrest the 59-year-old resident of Changchun City, Jilin Province upon seeing him taking out trash in a video.
After the local detention center refused to admit Mr. Shi due to his medical condition, the police demanded another round of physical examinations, and he was still shown to be in poor health. The police next went to a hospital and had a doctor there alter Mr. Shi’s physical examination results. The detention center then agreed to accept him.
Mr. Shi is now facing prosecution after the Kuancheng District Procuratorate indicted him and forwarded his case to the Kuancheng District Court.
Mr. Shi took up Falun Gong in March 1999 and never wavered in his faith after the persecution began four months later. He has since been repeatedly targeted for upholding his faith. Prior to his latest arrest, he was given one year of forced labor in 2000 and twice sentenced to prison (nine years in 2002 and four years in 2012).
During his two prison terms, Mr. Shi was subjected to various forms of torture, including beatings, electric shocks, scalding with hot water, and tying up with ropes.
Arbitrary and Incommunicado Detention
Australian Senator Expresses Concern Over Arbitrary Detention of Engineer in Psychiatric Hospital
Ms. Liu Chunxia, a former engineer in Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province, was seized at work on May 6, 2023, thirteen days before the inaugural China-Central Asia Summit was to be held in Xi’an. Communist Party leader Xi Jinping was scheduled to attend.
According to the arresting officers, the local authorities were carrying out an operation dubbed “net-tightening” ahead of the summit. Usually before such major events or political meetings, the authorities in the host city often ramp up the arrests and harassment of Falun Gong practitioners to prevent them from raising awareness of the persecution and “causing trouble” for the regime.
After the local detention center refused to keep Ms. Liu due to her extremely high blood pressure, the police moved her to Ankang Hospital, where mentally healthy practitioners are subjected to the involuntary administration of psychiatric drugs.
Following Ms. Liu’s arrest, her nephew, who currently lives in Australia, contacted his senator to seek help. Senator Simon Birmingham of Australia, who is also the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, replied to him on June 30, 2023, expressing his concern for Ms. Liu’s safety and well-being.
Senator Birmingham wrote, “The Coalition remains deeply concerned that religious and other minorities in China, including Falun Gong practitioners, continue to be targeted on the basis of their beliefs. In Government, the Coalition ensured that Australia raised these concerns directly with the Chinese Government on many occasions, including as recently as earlier this year.”
He also said, “The Coalition strongly urges the Labor Government to continue Australia’s strong and direct approach to the Chinese Government regarding the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners and other minorities.”
He added that they had also encouraged the Government to ensure senior representatives from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade continue to meet directly with Falun Gong representatives, as well as practitioners’ family members, to ensure they hear first-hand evidence so that these can be raised with Chinese authorities as part of efforts to help secure practitioners’ release.
He closed his letter by saying, “I will ensure that the Coalition continues to seek updates from the Government on matters related to the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese Government.”
Middle School Teacher Arrested at Work, Denied Family Visitation
A middle school teacher was arrested at work on April 27, 2023, and his family has been denied visits with him since then.
Mr. Cheng Panfeng, in his 40s, has been working at the Songyuan Middle School in Zhongshan City, Guangdong Province since he graduated from college in 2002. While he was working in the school on April 27, 2023, a school administrator called him to the office. He went there, only to be arrested and taken to the local police station.
Shortly after Mr. Cheng’s arrest, the police broke into his two residences and confiscated his Falun Gong books, IDs, iPad, laptop, and private car. His family went to the police station in the evening several times to inquire about his case, but the police refused to provide any information, with the excuse that his case was confidential. The police also denied the family’s request to visit or call him.
After nearly 24 hours of interrogation at the police station, Mr. Cheng was transferred to the Zhongshan City Detention Center for criminal detention on the evening of April 28.
Several plainclothes officers and residential committee staff members harassed Mr. Cheng’s family at home at around 6 p.m. on May 2, warning them not to seek information about Mr. Cheng’s case. Despite the family’s strong demand, only one officer showed his ID.
The front gate of Songyuan Middle School
Suspicious Physical Exam
Detained for Urging Mayor Not to Persecute Falun Gong, Woman Forced to Have Suspicious Physical Exam
A retired railroad employee was arrested at her daughter’s home and detained for 12 days after it was discovered that she’d mailed a letter to a government official urging him not to participate in the persecution of Falun Gong.
Ms. Li Shoulan, in her late 60s, was given a comprehensive physical exam following her arrest, but she was never given the exam results or told the purpose of the exam. She suspects it was likely done to collect her biometrics to see if she would be a good donor for the CCP’s ongoing program of forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.
Arrest in February 2023 and Physical Exam
Ms. Li splits her time between her own residence in Wanyuan City, Sichuan Province, and her daughter’s in Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, about 70 miles away.
On February 22, 2023, police officers descended on Ms. Li’s daughter’s place of work, the Ankang City Railway Bureau Electrical Department. They ordered her to take them home to arrest her mother. Her supervisor warned her to not return to work if she failed to “handle” the situation.
Ms. Li was arrested at her daughter’s home and taken to the local police department, where eight agents awaited her. She demanded to know their names, phone numbers, and job titles. Only two people gave her the information, but the police later confiscated her notes.
During the interrogation, Ms. Li managed to discover the identities of several others, including Fan Yongbin (secretary of the Ankang City Political and Legal Affairs Committee), Luo Junkang, and Tang Mei.
They showed Ms. Li a letter addressed to Wang Hao, mayor of Ankang City. Wang ordered the police to find out who’d mailed it to him. The police also played a video showing someone dropping off a letter at a mailbox. But the video was blurry and one could not make out who the person was.
The police took turns interrogating Ms. Li, asking her where she got the letter to mail to mayor Wang. They next took her to the Railroad Hospital for a comprehensive physical exam, including a COVID-19 test, blood test, electrocardiogram, and eye exam. They then took her back to the police department to collect her fingerprints, which they did many times as they were not satisfied with the results.
The next morning, Ms. Li faced another round of interrogation. Two officers restrained her on a tiger bench. They repeatedly asked her who gave her the letter, where she took the bus, who did she go with to the mailbox, and how she contacted other practitioners.
Ms. Li refused to answer any of their questions. One officer pushed her inside a glass room and said, “Stay here! Don’t even think about getting comfortable here!”
The police brought in an eye exam instrument at around 2 p.m. Even though they were not medical professionals, they attempted to examine Ms. Li’s eyes. They turned on the device to shine a bright light at her eyes as one person pried open her upper eyelid and another her lower eyelid.
Not knowing how to operate the instrument, they took turns trying to figure it out. Ms. Li was treated like a guinea pig with one officer after another poking her eyes. The instrument then broke. The police called in a technician but he couldn’t fix it. They reported the situation to their supervisor, “We’ve spent several hours trying to make this thing work. And she’s not cooperating with us. How much longer should we try?”
The police eventually stopped when it was time to get off work. Ms. Li’s eyes still hurt more than two months after the incident.
They held her at the police department for two days before taking her to Hanbin District Lockup, where she was detained for 10 days.
The police also raided her daughter’s home after dropping her off at the lockup. They confiscated a copy of Zhuan Falun, the main teaching of Falun Gong, and deceived her daughter into turning over her mother’s phone to them.
Brief Detention on March 27
On March 27, Ms. Li’s daughter had just returned home from working her night shift when she received a call from the police. They ordered Ms. Li to report to them immediately. Her daughter ignored them, only to have police break in and arrest her and her mother.
While interrogating Ms. Li that afternoon, the police showed her the letter again and pressed her to reveal who wrote it and who gave it to her to mail to mayor Wang. She said that she wrote the letter and mailed it, but she broke no law when she did. When she asked the police to read it aloud, they stopped the interrogation and released Ms. Li and her daughter.
Daughter Threatened, Family Implicated
Ms. Li’s daughter has been under tremendous pressure since her arrest in February 2023. The police, her employer, and the local street committee all ordered her to keep an eye on her mother and not let her step out the door. The police also ordered her to be on standby, ready to accompany her mother to the police department to face questioning. To make things worse, her employer threatened to fire her if she didn’t do a good job monitoring her mother.
As a full-time working mom, Ms. Li’s daughter has to drop off and pick up her child every day. The police even harassed the child’s after-school tutor, ordering him to report any suspicious activities he saw the child’s family engaged in.
Ms. Li’s daughter buckled under tremendous pressure when the police came to arrest her mother on March 27. She hit her mother when the police broke in that day. Ms. Li did not blame her because she knew how much her daughter was suffering because of the persecution.
When Ms. Li was first arrested on February 22, the police also raided her daughter’s parents-in-law’s home.
During the past 24 years of the persecution, many other family members and friends of Ms. Li have also been implicated. Her husband lived in fear and died years ago. Her 93-year-old mother still trembles at the sight of the police.
Financial Devastation
Former Bank Employee Wrongfully Terminated and Not Allowed to Apply for Retirement Benefits
Because a Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province resident refused to renounce Falun Gong, he was terminated by his employer and barred from applying for retirement benefits despite that he has reached retirement age.
Mr. Tian Haitao used to work as an IT technician at Fujin City Agricultural Bank. He worked very hard and was awarded provincial level and city-level star employee for several years in a row. After the Chinese communist regime ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, the bank worked with the local 610 Office to persecute him. Since 2000, he hasn’t been allowed to report to work nor issued any pay. No formal termination notice was ever issued.
When Mr. Tian reached retirement age in May 2023, he contacted the bank again to submit his retirement application. But the bank refused to accept it, and Zhang Ruifeng, the current bank president, said to him, “You were already fired in 2000 because you were absent from work. You can file a complaint against us at the disciplinary committee.”
Mr. Tian said he never received any notice in 2000 about his job termination. When he was serving a labor camp term in 2001 for practicing Falun Gong, the bank was still paying into his retirement account. He said to Zhang that verbal job termination was not legally enforceable. Zhang responded, “Feel free to bring a lawsuit against us.”
Mr. Tian wrote a letter to the bank. He pointed out that his spiritual belief could not be used as a reason for the bank to deprive him of employment. He said that anyone who was involved in making the decision has abused their powers and violated his basic human rights.
Mr. Tian cited Article 44 of the Constitution, which stipulates that “The state implements the retirement system for employees of enterprises, institutions, and state organs in accordance with the law. The livelihood of retirees should be guaranteed by the state and society.”
In addition, Article 73 of the Labor Law also ruled that “The conditions and standards for laborers to enjoy social insurance benefits can only be regulated by laws and regulations, while local government departments have no right to decide the conditions and standards of social insurance benefits for retirees to enjoy.”
In addition to the financial persecution, Mr. Tian has also been arrested multiple times and subjected to brutal torture in custody over the past 24 years.
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