(Minghui.org) Ms. Zuo Xiuyun went out for grocery shopping on the morning of May 21, 2024. Her brother Mr. Zuo Fusheng, who lived with her, heard someone opening the door a bit past 11 a.m. He thought she had returned home and asked, “You back now?”
No one answered him. He then heard chaotic footsteps in the hallway of their apartment building. Before he knew it, a group of officers barged in. They searched everywhere and confiscated a computer, a printer, some blank envelopes, and Falun Gong books.
Both Mr. Zuo and Ms. Zuo, residents of Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, practice Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
One of the officers announced himself as captain Liu Weiping (+86-13600807223) of the Jin’an District Domestic Security Division. He informed Mr. Zuo that his sister had been arrested that morning for practicing Falun Gong.
Mr. Zuo called Liu two days later and asked when his sister would be released. Liu told him to wait for a notice in the mail. Mr. Zuo received a registered mail from Liu on May 24, 2024, but it was just a blank sheet of paper. He called Liu again but it was always a busy signal.
Unable to get hold of Liu, Mr. Zuo still does not have his sister’s detention notice, without which he’s been unable to hire a lawyer to represent her.
Mr. Zuo, who is legally blind in both eyes, is now left to fend for himself. This is not the first time that he and his sister have suffered at the hands of the communist regime.
Mr. Zuo, a veteran and also a Falun Gong practitioner, served a forced labor term of one and half years following his arrest in late 1999. His wife was forced to divorce him and given full custody of their daughter. He has not seen his daughter ever since.
Mr. Zuo was arrested again on November 1, 2002 and given another forced labor term of two years and two months. After yet another arrest on January 19, 2011, he was sentenced to six years in prison. He was savagely beaten and once hung up for six straight hours. One of his eyes became blind as a result of torture. After he was released in January 2017, he gradually went blind in the other eye, too. Despite his condition, the police installed five surveillance cameras outside his home to monitor him. One camera faced his balcony, a second faced his front door, a third one monitored the hallway leading to the elevators, and the remaining two cameras were located near the staircases on either side of his apartment building.
Ms. Zuo was also repeatedly targeted for practicing Falun Gong. She served four prison sentences during the past two-plus decades, including three years between October 12, 2000 and October 12, 2003, six years between June 3, 2004 and June 3, 2010, three and a half years between December 16, 2011 and June 16, 2015, and five years between December 28, 2015 and December 28, 2020. Her husband divorced her while she was serving her first prison sentence.
The siblings’ mother passed away on April 25, 2015, while both of them were in prison. Ms. Zuo moved in with Mr. Zuo after she completed her fourth prison term in late 2020 to take care of him. Only six months later, she was arrested again on June 19, 2021 and detained for an unknown amount of time before her latest arrest on May 21, 2024.
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