Practitioners Pursued and Arrested as CCP Launches Largest Nationwide Assault on Falun Gong Since July 20th 1999

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime is pursuing and arresting Falun Gong practitioners on a large scale. According to news collected from a variety of sources, the arrests have been orchestrated in a unified way throughout the entire country and Falun Gong practitioners are being specifically targeted. This police action is taking place on the largest scale since July 20th 1999.

According to sources in China, in order to take advantage of the people's aversion to politics and fear of political persecution, the authorities in Beijing have branded Falun Gong as a "reactionary political organisation" in an attempt to create an atmosphere conducive to escalating the persecution. In March, they issued an internal document that ordered the ransacking of Dafa practitioners' homes throughout the entire country. Even before this, the number of practitioners arrested in different areas had been increasing. Since the end of 2004, facilities for printing and downloading informational materials from the Minghui website in different areas of China had encountered more serious persecution. News continued to emerge of people participating in the distribution and production of truth-clarifying materials being arrested.

Yesterday evening, Shandong Province began enforcing martial law and arresting Falun Gong practitioners. The number of practitioners abducted is estimated to be very high, although currently we are not able to ascertain the exact number.

According to reliable sources, the authorities in the Jinan area of Shandong Province have held a meeting to plan how to locate and arrest practitioners in the entire city. On the evening of April 21st, many police cars were checking vehicles at intersections. It was obvious that they were targeting Dafa practitioners, because they didn't check the vehicle's annual inspection, nor did they check for driver licenses. Instead, they stopped the vehicles and looked to see if the drivers looked like good people. At the Tikou Road exit of the railroad overpass east of Hualian, a three-wheel farm vehicle was stopped. A policeman dragged a kind looking older gentleman in his 60s from the vehicle by his collar. After the three-wheel vehicle left, a passerby said he heard the policeman tell the driver, "I will watch where you run to." A taxicab driver stopped and wanted to see what was going on, why people were being stopped and dragged from their cars. Wasn't this checking people, instead of cars? The policeman chased away the taxicab driver.

According to other news, before the CCP leader Hu Jintao visited Weifang in Shandong Province, the Ministry of Public Security called the Police Department in Weifang and said, "If you find any Falun Gong activity, find one and kill one. The police will bear no responsibility." This order was delivered orally, and not put in writing. When Hu Jintao was visiting the Weichai Power Company, two thirds of the workers that Hu interviewed were replaced by policemen. Those who shook hands with Hu were also policemen, and the company's leaders.

On April 6th and 7th, a large-scale persecution was carried out in Yifeng County, Jiangxi Province. All the people that they believed to be firm Falun Gong practitioners were arrested.

Around April 10th, the police in Guangan, Sichuan Province held an urgent meeting for five consecutive days, and secretly planned further persecution of Dafa practitioners.

The police departments in Urumqi posted rewards on bulletin boards for information leading to the arrest of practitioners. (They did not dare to stamp the official seal on the postings, because they were afraid of leaving evidence of persecution.)

In Wuhan, Hubei Province, the CCP has handed documents to its members in the region. A policeman privately told practitioners that any practitioner found having even one copy of the "Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party" in his possession would be sentenced to a four-year jail term.

The wave of withdrawing from the Party is still building, with the number of people announcing their withdrawal from the Party on the Internet reaching one million. According to internal sources, the large-scale persecution at this time is directly related to this event. The publication of the "Nine Commentaries" on both the Chinese and English language version of The Epoch Times has caused a huge response and reaction. The CCP has now launched its well-planned persecution of Dafa practitioners throughout the entire country. And their means will be exceedingly brutal.

According to different news sources, the secret persecution is being mapped out nationwide. We are investigating the details in the regions that have already begun to act. Inside the police departments in different areas, there are some people who know the truth of Dafa and are sympathetic to Falun Gong. Through the various political movements in Chinese history, they have clearly seen the evil nature of the Communist Party. They hope Dafa practitioners will be careful, and not let the Party's treacherous plots succeed.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/4/22/100257.html