(Minghui.org) After Ms. Zheng Xingzhen took up Falun Gong in 1997, the Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province resident experienced significant health improvement. As such, she continued the practice after the Chinese communist regime ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999. Her simple pursuit of health was met with repeated arrests over the next 25 years.

Ms. Zheng wrote a letter to Wu Bolun, head of the Ningbo City Police Department, shortly after the onset of the persecution, as Wu relentlessly went after local practitioners. In retaliation, Wu ordered Ms. Zheng’s arrest and a subsequent 25-day detention.

Ms. Zheng was arrested again in September 2004 and held in a brainwashing center for a month. There were eleven other Falun Gong practitioners also detained there. Each of them was monitored by two people around the clock. They were forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong in the morning and then write “thought reports” in the afternoon and evening. One practitioner surnamed Zhu refused to write the thought reports and was given three years of forced labor as a result. 

The brainwashing center staff members enjoyed extravagant meals every day. One of them revealed to the practitioners that their aggregated monthly living expenses at the brainwashing center were over 30,000 yuan, which was paid by the government. Some threatened to have the practitioners pay for their expenses and send them to labor camps if they didn’t renounce Falun Gong.

When the city of Hangzhou, the capital of Zhejiang, held the G20 Summit in September 2016, Ms. Zheng was taken to a brainwashing center one more time. There, she saw fellow practitioners Ms. Ying Fanggang, Ms. Hong Jiejing and Ms. Zhang Chunsheng, as well as ten other practitioners whose names she didn’t know. 

Due to the mental distress of the persecution, Ms. Zheng struggled with dangerously high blood pressure. She lost her appetite and suffered from insomnia. She fainted several times and was taken to the hospital for emergency treatment. 

Every time Ms. Zheng was arrested, the authorities raided her home and confiscated any and all Falun Gong-related materials, including books, calendars and articles written by other practitioners. The police also installed surveillance cameras at her home.