(Minghui.org) Five Baoding City, Hebei Province, residents have been detained for more than two months for their faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. The practitioners are currently held at the Baoding City Detention Center. They are facing prosecution after their arrests were approved in late May.

The five residents were targeted in a police sweep on April 9, 2024. Under the directive of the Baoding City Police Department, the police in Jingxiu District and Lianchi District arrested 12 Falun Gong practitioners that day and raided their homes. Although seven practitioners were later released, five of them remain in custody, including Ms. Qin Yingli, a 60-year-old electric train worker, Ms. Zhang Ximei, 57, Ms. Li Xiaoxiao, a 54-year-old accountant, Mr. Zhi Zhanmin, 54, and Ms. Chen Jinmei, a house aide. Ms. Li’s family later revealed that she was arrested by officers of the Dongjinzhuang Village Police Station. Her Falun Gong books, several thousand yuan in cash, and two work computers and printers were confiscated. 

To pursue heavy prison sentences for the practitioners, the police first held Ms. Qin, Ms. Zhang, Ms Zhi, and Ms. Chen at a local resort, the Xiulan Mountain Villa, for ten days. The four practitioners were constantly interrogated and intimidated. The police also brought in psychology experts to work on the practitioners and deprived them of sleep, in an attempt to make them provide information about other practitioners and renounce Falun Gong. When the practitioners remained firm in Falun Gong, the police transferred them to the Baoding City Detention Center, where Ms. Li has been held since her arrest. 

In late May 2024, the Lianchi District Procuratorate approved Ms. Li’s arrest, and the Jingxiu District Procuratorate approved the other four practitioners’ arrests. 

Prior to her latest arrest, Ms. Zhang was sentenced to three years and two months in November 2019 after an arrest in January 2019. She was arrested in October 2022 together with ten other practitioners prior to the 20th Party Congress and detained for ten days. Her family was intimidated by the officers from Tianwei Police Station after her latest arrest.

Mr. Zhi was previously arrested in 2005 and sentenced to 12 years for intercepting a TV signal to broadcast information about Falun Gong, as a way to raise awareness about the persecution due to strict censorship in China. His heavy sentence dealt his parents a heavy blow and they passed away one after another when he was still serving time. His older sister Ms. Zhi Ping, who served a forced labor camp term for practicing Falun Gong, also died in 2014 at the age of 41. 

When Mr. Zhi was released in 2017, he relied on help from another sister and found a job to do house renovation. Just as his life was stabilized, he was arrested again on April 9, 2024, by officers of the Xinshichang Police Station. According to his roommate who shared the apartment with him, the police broke in with Mr. Zhi’s key, forced his roommate to leave, and turned the place upside down.