Eight Years of Persecution Endured by Dr. Jiafeng Zeng

Police once again arrested Falun Dafa practitioner Dr. Zeng Jiafeng from Shanghai on February 10th, 2008. The arrest happened when Dr. Zeng visited his hometown in Rudong County, Jiangsu Province during the 2008 Chinese New Year. This is his sixth arrest since the Chinese Communist regime launched the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999.

Zeng Jiafeng began practising Falun Gong in 1996 while he was a Ph.D. candidate at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica (SIMM), of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. While pursuing his studies at SIMM, the Chinese Academy of Sciences awarded him the "Di'ao Scholarship" for his excellent academic performance. After earning his Ph.D. degree in 1998, Zeng worked as a researcher at SIMM.

In the course of work at SIMM, Zeng Jiafeng conducted his life according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. He worked hard and treated people with kindness, and won many favourable comments from his supervisor and colleagues.

At the end of 1998, Dr. Zeng's supervisor granted him a bonus of 4,000 yuan¹ as praise and encouragement for doing an outstanding job, but Zeng declined to accept it and insisted that the money should be given to colleagues who were in more difficult financial situations than him.

During the more than eight years of persecution, Zeng Jiafeng has been arrested six times in complete violation of the Chinese Constitution. He has been detained and brutally tortured over and over.

First Arrest and Detention

When Zeng Jiafeng heard about the ban of Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, he went to the Shanghai municipal government's Office of Letters and Appeals, to petition for Falun Dafa. He went with his wife Tang Chunping and another practitioner, Jiang Desheng, a Ph.D. candidate from the Shanghai Brain Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The officials didn't reply to their requests for justice and instead alerted a large contingent of riot police to force them and other practitioners into several buses. They were sent to the Taiping Road Police Station and were not released until late at night. At about 3 o'clock in the morning, several policemen broke into Zeng Jiafeng's home and took him to the Fenglin Road Police Station where he was interrogated and detained until 10 o'clock that morning. This was Zeng Jiafeng's first arrest.

Second Arrest and Detention

On July 24th, 1999, Zeng Jiafeng, his wife, Jiang Desheng and Gang Peng went out to practise the Falun Gong exercises at their local practice site. The police arrested them again. Zeng Jiafeng and his wife were taken to the Fenglin Road Police Station. The police attempted to force them to renounce their belief and sign a guarantee that they wouldn't do the Falun Gong exercises outside. But the practitioners didn't give in. The police then interrogated and tortured them for nearly 20 hours before setting them free.

Third Arrest and Detention

In October 1999, Zeng Jiafen and his wife went to the appeals office in Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. They were arrested by police and taken to the Shanghai Government Liaison Office in Beijing. Officials there notified officials at their research institute - SIMM - and they were subsequently returned to Shanghai. Once they arrived at SIMM, they were held in two different offices for a couple of days, during which time they were not allowed to work or go home.

Fourth Arrest and Detention

On April 24th, 2000, Zeng Jiafeng went to the appeals office in Beijing for the second time to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. Tiananmen Square police arrested him on April 25th, 2000 and took him back to Shanghai the next day. This time he was incarcerated in the Shanghai No. 1 Detention Centre for 30 days, where he suffered all kinds of humiliation and abuse. A month later he was released and returned to his research institute. But officials there laid him off, saying that his work contract had expired. Therefore, Dr. Zeng lost his job and the couple had to rely on his wife's income to make ends meet. Life was very difficult for them. This was his fourth arrest.

Fifth Arrest and Detention

Zeng Jiafeng's fifth arrest and detention came in mid-October 2000. At that time, he and his wife, as well as two other practitioners - Cui Yuming and Jiang Desheng, had distributed leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong to people. All four of them were followed and arrested by Communist agents.

Zeng Jiafeng was first held in the Xietu Road Police Station where he was tied to a metal chair² for interrogation, and deprived of sleep and food. He was beaten, tortured, and insulted for three days. Then he was transferred to the Xuhui District Detention Centre where his wife was also locked up. He and other detained practitioners were attacked by brainwashing with radio and TV programmes, and they were abused by criminal inmates as well. The guards failed to change the practitioners' mind, so they forced them to do hard labour. After an 11-month detention, Dr. Zeng was sentenced to two years of forced labour.

In September 2001, Zeng Jiafeng was transferred to the Shanghai First Forced Labour Camp located in Dafeng City, Jiangsu Province, where he was subjected to a variety of inhumane treatments including long-term sitting on a hard bench and being forbidden to move, corporal punishment, military drills, brainwashing, forced labour, verbal insults, and other abuses.

Six months later, he was taken to the Shanghai Third Forced Labour Camp, where he was persecuted for more than six months. He was finally released in mid-October 2002 after two years of vicious treatment.

After returning home, Zeng Jiafeng and his wife borrowed money and bought a house in the Pudong District of Shanghai. However, the local police station officials didn't allow them to live there because they were Falun Gong practitioners. Following several negotiations, although they got permission to live in their new house, their daily life was filled with disturbance. The police and the security people often went to his work place to find him or his leaders to harass them, which disrupted his normal work and life.

Sixth Arrest and Detention

On February 10th, 2008, Xu Xiaohua, a member of the Domestic Security Division from Rudong County, Jiangsu Province, arrested Zeng Jiafeng when he visited his hometown to celebrate the Chinese New Year with his family.

For most Chinese families, Chinese New Year is a traditional festival when families reunite to celebrate together. However, this New Year was tantamount to a disaster for Zeng Jiafeng's family. His innocent four-year-old daughter's joyful family time was ruined, and she cried, asking daily for her daddy. Zeng's parents could not conceal their desolation and cried frequently because of their son's sixth arrest.

In fact, for the past eight years, tragedies like those striking Zeng Jiafeng's family have been taking place throughout China. How many families have been broken up, and how many children have lost their parents? This persecution is taking place simply because these individuals want to be good people and inform people about the true nature of Falun Gong.

I hope that the people of the world can help stop the inhuman persecution. Only then will Zeng Jiafeng, along with all the unconstitutionally detained and persecuted Falun Gong practitioners, have their freedom and regain their basic human rights.

Note

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

2. Iron Chair: The "Iron chair" is made of iron pipes. Victims are restrained on the iron chairs with both arms and legs tied for a long period of time, see illustration at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/1/9/17577.html

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/2/22/172911.html