Reminder to Pay Attention to Cell Phone Security

(Minghui.org) After so many years of persecution, I’m sad to see that some practitioners still don’t pay attention to cell phone security and bring about losses to ourselves.

One practitioner’s cell phone was monitored in 2015, which led the police to target several others who had contact with him. When several practitioners went to his home to print materials, the police soon showed up. They went straight up to the second floor, walked up to the desk where the cell phone was kept, opened the drawer, took out the cell phone and asked, “Whose phone is this?” After the practitioner claimed the phone, the police opened a cabinet and took out another phone, again asking, “Whose phone is this?” Another practitioner said, “It’s mine.”

The police searched the place for a while before taking the practitioners to the police station for interrogation. They showed many screenshots of surveillance videos of practitioners coming and going to that practitioner’s home, and asked whether the arrested practitioners knew anyone in the photos. Some practitioners’ information was revealed this way. An officer asked his colleague how they collected the information, and the person said it was from cell phone surveillance.

The police also showed photos of some practitioners hanging up Falun Dafa banners. They asked the practitioners, “Is this you?” Unable to refute the police, some admitted it right away.

I know another practitioner who ran a material production site and Fa study group whose cell phone was also monitored. Wherever he went, be it buying supplies, delivering materials to fellow practitioners, printing materials, or studying the Fa, he always had his phone with him. One day in 2020, as soon as the practitioners gathered for Fa study, the police broke in and arrested all eight practitioners present.

During another arrest in 2022, as soon as a practitioner working at a material production site met with a few others, the police showed up and arrested them. We later learned that that practitioner kept her phone next to her computer when she was printing materials. It looked like the police knew every place she went to, and many of the practitioners she visited were harassed later on. Perhaps her motorcycle and her home environment were under police surveillance, as well.

Due to the harassment, many practitioners suspected that she deliberately revealed their information to the police and stayed away from her. After she was arrested, none of us knew where she was detained. It was not until she was on the verge of death a year later, that the brainwashing center told her family to pick her up. But she was already in a delirious state, and the hospital refused to treat her. She passed away shortly after.

This year, another material production site and a Fa study group were raided by the police, all involving practitioners who brought their cell phones to the study group. Before the tragedy happened, some practitioners reminded them that they shouldn’t have the material production site and the Fa study site in the same place, but those practitioners said that the Minghui website never specifically said that.

When such tragedies happened, it always caused tremendous losses to our already limited financial resources, led to mass arrests of local practitioners, increased the burden to other material production sites, and caused disruption to the local cultivation environment. Many of the practitioners were sentenced to heavy terms. Some stopped practicing and some were persecuted to death. The loss to our cultivation and saving people was immeasurable.

Even now there are still practitioners who always have their cell phones with them wherever they go. Some answered calls at other practitioners’ homes during Fa study, which has the risk of having other practitioners’ voices being recorded. Some still use the same phone number they listed in their criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin back in 2015, because they get free monthly coverage with that phone. Some, after being arrested or knowing that their cell phones were monitored, still didn’t change their phone number and also contacted practitioners with that number. Yet another practitioner brought her phone with her when going out to clarify the facts to people. She told practitioners going with her that she didn’t have her cell phone, only to take it out and use it shortly after.

When being reminded of cell phone security, some practitioners argued that others have been doing this all the time, but they weren’t arrested. My fellow practitioners, why is it so hard for you not to bring your cell phone when you are with other practitioners? We should really be considerate of each other and keep each other out of harm’s way.

Editor’s note: This article only represents the author’s understanding in their current cultivation state meant for sharing among practitioners so that we can “Compare in studying, compare in cultivating...” (“Solid Cultivation,” Hong Yin)