(Minghui.org) Mr. Lu Gang’s family received a phone call from the police on June 14, 2024, saying that he had been admitted to prison to serve a five-year term for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. Other than the verbal notice, the family has received no other official updates about his case since his latest arrest on July 20, 2023, such as when he was indicted, tried, or sentenced.
Mr. Lu, a 37-year-old resident of Julu County, Hebei Province, took up Falun Gong around 2013. He was previously arrested on March 9, 2016, after being reported for displaying Falun Gong informational materials at a farmers’ market. The Guangzong County Court sentenced him to five years in January 2017.
By the time Mr. Lu was released one year early in 2020, his wife had divorced him and gained sole custody of their son. His mother fell ill and became incapacitated due to the mental distress of worrying about him. The entire family had relied on his father’s sole income to get by.
Mr. Lu received an alert one day in 2022 that a local court had frozen the bank card he’d designated for his paycheck deposit. So he went to there to inquire about the reason.
The judge in charge of the matter said the court froze Mr. Lu’s bank card to fulfill a requirement set forth in his prison sentence given in 2016. The requirement called for the sales of his printer, computer, and other valuables to pay a court fine. As Mr. Lu never did those things, the court froze his bank card.
Mr. Lu argued that he should never have been sentenced to prison for exercising his constitutional right to freedom of belief, and hence the court fine was illegal. He demanded that his bank card be reactivated immediately. The judge agreed, but said that the person who handled bank card procedures wasn’t in that day, and he promised to reactivate it the next day. He asked Mr. Lu to sign two documents regarding the reactivation of his bank card and Mr. Lu signed both of them.
Then the judge took out another form, which had two big blank boxes with a line below them reading, “This person was once sentenced to prison for using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement [the standard pretext used by the Chinese Communist Party to frame and imprison Falun Gong practitioners].”
Mr. Lu refused to sign, worried that the authorities may attempt to frame him again for his faith. The judge took the form back and wrote “subpoena” in one of the boxes and urged him to sign it. Pressured by the judge, Mr. Lu signed the form, only to regret it upon returning home.
Mr. Lu’s worry about further persecution materialized on July 20, 2023, when agents from the Julu County Domestic Security Office and the Yantong Town Police Station arrested him at home and confiscated his computer, printer, Falun Gong books, and other valuables.
Shortly after his arrest, the police summoned Mr. Lu’s father to the police department to sign some paperwork, without allowing him to read it. They threatened to make his son disappear if he didn’t comply. The elder Mr. Lu obliged, only to learn later that the paperwork he signed was the arrest warrant for his son. He then sought to nullify his signature, but the police refused to return the paperwork he signed.
With the arrest warrant, the police took the younger Mr. Lu to the Julu County Detention Center, where he soon started a hunger strike.
Because Mr. Lu refused to renounce his faith, the police summoned his father to the detention center to “work” on him. They promised to release him as soon as he signed statements promising to give up his belief. Mr. Lu, who had become very weak from his hunger strike, said to his father in a barely audible voice, “Dad, go home please. Don’t ever come here again [per the police’s order]. I’ll never renounce my faith!” He also said to the police, “Don’t ever try again to make me ‘transform’!”
Mr. Lu’s father received no other updates about his case until a police officer informed him of his son’s second prison term on June 14, 2024. The officer also said that Mr. Lu had been taken to the Jidong Branch of the Hebei Province Prison Administration Bureau, which have nine prisons, all located in Tangshan City. It’s unclear which prison Mr. Lu is being held at.
Related Reports:
Once Jailed for Four Years, Hebei Man Faces Indictment for His Faith Again
36-year-old Man on Hunger Strike Following Latest Arrest for Practicing Falun Gong
Two Practitioners from Xingtai City Sentenced to Prison
Two Men from Hebei Province Sentenced to Prison for Their Belief
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