An Account of the Persecution of Ms. Chen Liping in Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province

The following is an account of the persecution of Ms. Chen Liping, a Falun Gong practitioner, by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after it launched the brutal persecution of the spiritual practice on July 20th, 1999. The persecution of Ms. Chen included having her behaviour monitored by co-workers, detention, home searches, sentencing to forced labour, torture, financial punishment, etc.

On July 22nd, 1999, Ms. Chen went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was taken to the branch office of Daqing Storage and Transport Company (DSTC) where she was detained for 15 days in an apartment building without being allowed to go home.

In March 2000, fearing that practitioners would go to appeal in Beijing during the CCP's Summit Conference, the DSTC personnel kept Ms. Chen for an additional 33 days.

On June 18th, 2000, due to Ms. Chen's openly practising Falun Gong in public, she was again detained for two months.

In January 2001, Ms. Chen went to Beijing to appeal, and she was sent back to her work unit. She went on a nine-day hunger strike to protest the persecution, but was force-fed by the police. On the twelfth day, due to her poor physical condition, she was released on bail. Several days later, she requested to go back to work, but was refused by her work unit, so she went to her parents' home. Soon she was asked to come to work again. She didn't go, thinking that the authorities were plotting against her.

Just two days before the Chinese New Year, her work unit and the Public Security Bureau searched and arrested many practitioners and sent them to forced labour camps. After Ms. Chen heard the news, she fled from her parents' house and moved from place to place, living a homeless life for a year. Just a few hours after Ms. Chen left the house, the police came. When they didn't find Ms. Chen, they took away her husband and son. Her son was released the next day, but her husband was detained for 15 days.

During Ms. Chen's forced homelessness, her work unit dismissed her from her job and took steps to prevent her from being employed anywhere in the country. They put her on probation for one year, and threatened not to assign her an apartment.

On January 13th, 2002, Ms. Chen went to Beijing to again appeal for Falun Gong. She was arrested and detained in Beijing for three days. Personnel from the Daqing City 610 Office¹ and the Public Security Bureau, working together with her employer, sent Ms. Chen directly to the Harbin Drug Rehabilitation Centre, where she was subjected to "re-education through forced labour." During the first seven months in the forced labour camp, she was brainwashed by being made to watch defamatory videos and read slanderous materials about Falun Gong 17 hours per day, and put under 24-hour surveillance. Afterwards, she was forced to perform hard labour, sometimes having to work all night.

In 2004, Ms. Chen made a "solemn declaration" and voided the statement she had written renouncing Falun Gong while she was held in the Drug Rehabilitation Centre. Because she wrote "Falun Dafa is good" in the boxes as she was packaging handicrafts, the authorities extended her imprisonment and fined her 1,500 yuan². Ms. Chen protested and went on a hunger strike. She was injected with an unknown drug that made her confused, and caused her hands and feet to become numb. After 38 days, her family called an ambulance and brought her home. Because Ms. Chen didn't give up her belief, her work unit was unwilling to take her back.

After Ms. Chen returned home, through practising the exercises and studying the Falun Gong books, her health was quickly restored. One month later, she was able to go to work. Because she didn't give up her belief in Falun Gong, her work unit released a secret document and the 610 Office put her under surveillance.

Since July 22nd, 1999, several people in her work unit have often tried to destroy Ms. Chen psychologically. On the so-called sensitive days, they talked to Ms. Chen, attempting to convince her to give up her spiritual practice. During Ms. Chen's detention, her work unit deducted all her wages, bonuses, labour insurance, and various benefits, causing a direct economic loss of more than 100,000 yuan to her family.

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

2. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/12/20/168716.html