(Minghui.org) Ten residents of Qujing City, Yunnan Province, were arrested on July 10 and 11, 2023, for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
According to insiders, the group arrest was jointly conducted by Qujing police and their counterparts in nearby Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province. The police had been monitoring the practitioners since March 2023 during the communist regime’s “two sessions.”
“Two sessions” refer to the annual plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) held in March every year. The regime usually intensifies the persecution of Falun Gong around sensitive dates, including important political meetings and anniversaries related to Falun Gong.
One officer even threatened a practitioner during her arrest, saying. “You guys’ internet bandwidth usage had exceeded 5 Gigabytes. Wait to see how I’m going to kill you all!”
One of the arrested practitioners, Ms. Huang Xilan, recalled what happened when she went through security checks at a train station in early June 2023. A security officer said to his coworkers when it was her turn, “Isn’t this woman in black the same as the one in our database?” Ms. Huang realized after she was arrested a month later that the security agent must have been comparing her with the photo of her in their database. They didn’t arrest her at the train station but apparently kept monitoring her afterward.
The other arrested practitioners were Ms. Li Hongmei, Mr. Chen Zhongcun, Ms. Xu Yamei, Ms. Pu E’mei, Ms. He Zeying, Ms. Zhao Qunmei, Ms. Yang Yufen, Mr. Yan Jianming, and a practitioner surnamed Liu whose first name is unknown.
Ms. Pu’s children were terrified when the police broke into her home on July 10. She was not home but was later arrested elsewhere hours later.
Ms. Huang, Ms. Li, Ms. Xu, and Ms. Pu are still being held at the Qilin District Detention Center. Ms. He and Mr. Chen are currently out on bail. The remaining practitioners were released “unconditionally” (in the police’s words) but still being closely monitored and having their personal freedoms restricted.
Ms. Zhao Feiqiong and Ms. Chen Fachun, both senior citizens, were not arrested, but the police raided their homes on July 13.
Past Persecution of Ms. Xu
Ms. Xu has been frequently harassed since she was released from prison on July 16, 2020, after serving a three-year term for her faith. The Baishijiang Police Station and Jiangnan Street Committee threatened to cause trouble for her nieces in their careers in an attempt to turn her family against her. Her brothers could no longer cope and at one point even asked her to disown their parents, both in their 70s. She didn’t and continued to take good care of her parents.
It was past 9 p.m. in December day 2022, when agents broke into Ms. Xu’s home to harass her. She was not in and her parents, who lived with her, were terrified.
A police officer called Ms. Xu’s father on January 3, 2023, to get him to persuade Ms. Xu to renounce her faith. When she heard about the call, she got the officer’s mobile phone number (+86-159-24861326) and called back. The officer said he was from the Baishijiang Police Station but refused to disclose his badge number, name, or job title. He demanded to have an in-person talk with her. It is unclear if Ms. Xu complied.
Related Report:
“Strict Discipline” of Falun Gong Practitioners in Yunnan No. 2 Women's Prison
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