Successful TV Station Host Arrested, Fired, and Harassed for Practising Falun Gong

My name is Luo Hui and I am 45 years old. I was the host of CCTV's former Sanjiang Food Company of the Agriculture Bureau of Heilongjiang Province for 13 years. Two months after my husband started to practise Falun Gong in 1996, I had the good fortune to became a Falun Gong practitioner myself.

My employer is located in Jiamusi City. The company is a locally famous, state-owned, large, modern enterprise. The employees are mostly college graduates.

The company supports practising Falun Gong

Before 1999, over 50 employees were practising Falun Gong. These practitioners followed the standard of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in their daily work and lives. They enthusiastically did their jobs and refrained from fighting for fame or self-interest.

The whole company, from the management to the regular employees, held practitioners in high regard, and the company fully supported the practising and promotion of Falun Gong. They even provided an area for an exercise site for free and transportation for practitioners to go to the countryside to promote Falun Gong. Some company leaders started to read the book and practise when they saw the changes in those who began to cultivate.

The persecution begins--I am laid off and arrested

However, due to Jiang Zemin's, [former leader of China and instigator of the persecution] jealousy, he launched a comprehensive persecution against Falun Gong in July 1999. I was laid off from my position at the TV station. To let people know the truth about the persecution, my husband and I went to Beijing to appeal.

At that time Falun Gong practitioners were routinely arrested at the Appeals Office and Tiananmen Square. One morning in Beijing, several practitioners from all over the country and I were doing the exercises in the apartment we had rented when the police broke in. They took us to a police station and notified my company's Liaison Office in Beijing. The next day the Security Section chief and someone in security at my company rushed from Jiamusi to Beijing to take my husband and me back. At that time the female cell at Jiamusi Detention Centre was full of practitioners waiting to be picked up. Since the cell was full, I was taken to Huachuan County Detention Centre by officers from Nanwei Police Station. My husband was detained in Jiamusi Detention Centre.

When I was in Huachuan County Detention Centre there were already over a dozen practitioners transferred from Jiamusi Detention Centre imprisoned there, and they were on a hunger strike. I knew several of them, and one was an employee of my company. We were very sad. Why were so many good people imprisoned here?

In the detention centre

At the detention centre we had two meals each day. Breakfast consisted of muddy soup with a few vegetable leaves and a black flour bun. Dinner was a bowl of congee and pickles. All of our activities were confined to one cell. That was in the dead winter of Northeastern China, and it was frozen outdoors. But we were only given chilly tap water for rinsing and drinking, and we frequently went without water. We were usually only allowed to go outside to do forced labour.

After I was there for two months, Dongfeng Police Department extorted 2000 yuan¹ from me as "bail," Huachuan County Detention Centre extorted 1000 yuan from me, which they claimed was a "boarding fee" before notifying my company to take me back. My husband was held in the notorious Xigemu Forced Labour Camp in Jiamusi for two years.

Back at the TV station

Our appeal in Beijing had quite an impact on my company and the management. My company was singled out for criticism by upper-level leaders at a meeting. Company management felt they had been hasty in their handling of my case and felt sorry for me personally. Thus, they let me resume work the day after I returned.

I was temporarily assigned to my original position, the TV station, but without any specific duties. Soon after the company underwent some reforms, and I was assigned to the human resources office.

Harassment

For several years after I returned from the detention centre, local police officers constantly came to my home and job to harass me. On sensitive dates, the company arranged for someone to follow me or put me on duty. Even when my father was very ill, they didn't allow me to go see him, because they worried that I was using this as an excuse to go to Beijing again.

They didn't approve my time-off requests, but they dispatched someone to drive over four hours to my parents' home to see whether my father was indeed ill. When they arrived at my parent's home and saw my father was indeed bedridden, they dispatched someone to buy some nutritional supplements for him. I didn't know about this.

Some time later, when a manager who had gone to my parents' home chatted with me, he unintentionally revealed what had happened. Seeing that I didn't know about it, he was surprised and asked, “Didn't your mother tell you? We indeed told your mother not to tell you, but we didn't expect that she really wouldn't tell you.” I was a little emotional at that time and called my mother to ask about it. My mother told me, “Your supervisors told me not to tell you.” I then asked that manager why they did that. He knew that the way they operated was not very honest, so he used all kinds of excuses to explain himself.

Officers from Nanwei Police Station twice took me to their station “to just have a talk.” Once I was not allowed to go home and was detained overnight at the station because someone reported that I intended to go to Beijing to appeal.

That night a woman in her 20s was there because her boss reported that she stole her client's mobile phone. At night she and I were locked in one room under the watch of two policemen, who slept on two beds by the entrance. The next morning, policeman Sun Shulong ordered me to write a guarantee statement to give up Falun Gong. I refused, so he shouted at me. Seeing his twisted face, I felt sorry for him. He was familiar with me and my husband before the persecution and would call us "brother" and "sister." He had become such a bad person under the influence of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

My husband escapes; I am closely monitored

The second year of my husband's forced labour (November 3rd, 2000), he and 10 other practitioners successfully escaped and became homeless and destitute.

Because of my husband's escape, the local police station monitored me even more closely, and the labor camp dispatched agents to my company to look for my husband, telling me to notify them promptly if I heard anything about him or other practitioners. I told them I didn't know anything.

One day my husband went to a friend's home and was arrested by the local police. He went on a hunger strike for over 40 days and broke through with his righteous thoughts and returned home.

My husband arrested again, home ransacked

A few months later he was arrested once again in city-wide arrests on April 9th, 2002. That night another female practitioner was at my home and she heard noises outside. I went to the door to listen. It was my husband, who had been arrested by the police. The police shouted at him to open the door, so they could come in and search. My husband didn't cooperate, so they searched him and found the key.

I saw my husband's hands tied behind his back and an officer stepping on his head to prevent him from moving. The other police searched everywhere in my home, including the balcony and the kitchen. It was like a robbery scene from a movie. I was shaking with fright. They forced me and the other practitioner to sit on the sofa and not move.

During the search I asked to get my handbag on the washing machine. They didn't let me stand up. I insisted on getting my handbag and found that my new mobile phone worth over 3000 yuan was missing. Since I had just used it to make a call before they entered my home, I told them, “It must be one of you that who took it.” They all denied it.

They also took over 2000 yuan in cash from my husband's shirt pocket, claiming it was "funds for illegal activities." They took the three of us to Nanwei Police Station and separated us for interrogation. I was locked up in the office on the first floor and could hear someone being beaten upstairs. I wanted to go upstairs to see if they were beating my husband. The policeman watching me held me back, telling me that after the interrogation he would let me go.

After a while the police released me and the other female practitioner. I never saw my husband. When I opened the door to my home, it was a wreck. I felt so bad I couldn't stand it, so I closed the door and went to my friend's place. My husband was imprisoned at the police station.

Seeking justice

Hearing that their son had been arrested again, my parents-in-law rushed to my place from their daughter's home in Daqing City. The three of us went back and forth between Nanwei Police Station, Dongfeng Police Department (now Jiadong Police Department), and the Municipal Police Department to demand a meeting with my husband, as well as the return of the money and property they illegally took from my home.

Sometimes I went to those police departments with my parents-in-law, sometimes they went by themselves. They were not afraid to say what they thought. My father-in-law was once a government official before his retirement, and he knows how the government treats common people. They said, “Nowadays the CCP is just like the bandits in the past. When they get into people's homes, they just steal.” Perhaps what they said hit a nerve, because the police were embarrassed. The police thought I was manipulating my parents-in-law, so they set out to arrest me.

Hounded by the police, I became homeless

Around the May 1st holiday, several police officers drove a jeep to my home and surrounded it. They pounded on the door and started to pry it open when I didn't open it for them. My father-in-law took a cutting knife, stood at the door, and said to them, “I will slash whoever dares come in.” Seeing that my father-in-law was serious, the police dared not pound on the door anymore. They tried to persuade my father-in-law, saying that they were not coming to arrest me but to just see whether I was at home and wanted to talk with me. My father-in-law berated them.

All the commotion upset my mother-in-law, and her heart disease relapsed. Even now if she hears a loud knocking on the door she trembles. My parents-in-law were both old and not in good health. After this incident they were frightened and could not eat or sleep. Even after taking medicine my mother-in-law's condition didn't improve.

Residents in the building saw what went on and said, “Nowadays the police do not do good things--they just know to arrest good people.” Some neighbours tipped off my father-in-law, telling him not to let me out as those police hadn't left. Since we didn't open the door, the police were concerned their image might be tainted and the residents might hold grudges against them if they continued to pound on and try to open the door, but they didn't want to return empty handed, so they hung around my building. My parents-in-law and I were very worried and spent a sleepless night.

The next morning a good neighbor told my father-in-law the police had gone and that I should hurry up and leave. Maybe the police realized the next day was May 8th and I would go back to work after the week long holiday, so they thought they could arrest me at work. My father-in-law called a taxi for me and I left home under our neighbours' watch and started my homeless days.

Fortunately for me, another practitioner assisted me with accommodation when I was homeless. However, to avoid the police I frequently changed addresses and worried all day that they might come to get me. I also worried about my husband, who was imprisoned in the detention centre.

My parents-in-law suffer

My parents-in-law never gave up demanding a meeting with their son. They went to the police station and police departments but never got a response. They didn't know where their son was being held and asked friends for help to find out. My mother-in-law cried all day, every day, and sighed frequently.

They also had to deal with my colleagues, who frequently came to my home to see whether I had returned home. They tried to deceive my parents-in-law by claiming that it was safe for me to go back to work and that the police would not arrest me. After having experienced so much turmoil with the police, my parents-in-law didn't believe what they said and turned them down.

The fate of my company

Half a month later, my company posted a notice at the company entrance stating that I was fired. Afterward I heard that, in order to assist the Nanwei Police Station in arresting me, my company paid the police station a monthly sum of money to fund the cost of searching for me.

One of my friends once heard two people talking about this when she was on a bus. She immediately defended me and told them, “How can you justify arresting her? She didn't do anything wrong. Your company is paying to help get her arrested? Isn't that terrible?”

The leaders at my company didn't realize how their actions would eventually impact the whole company, themselves as individuals, and the employees. They had helped the CCP authorities persecute cultivators. In just a few years, their modern company (Sanjiang Food Company) went bankrupt, and all the employees lost their jobs.

Nine years pass

To avoid being arrested and to make a living, I decided to leave my hometown and go to a southern city to look for work.

Before I left my hometown, I went to the detention centre to visit my husband, whom I hadn't seen for 8 months. At that time I was told that he was sentenced to 10 years and that he had been on a hunger strike for nearly two months to protest. He was tortured in many ways, but he never gave in. Even in that situation, he smiled and told me he was fine and that I should not worry about him. Seeing how emaciated he was, my heart ached.

My husband and I were apart for the next nine years.

Then, in March 2011, during a span of 12 days, 3 Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death in Jiamusi Prison. Due to international media attention and overseas and domestic phone calls clarifying the facts, as well as pressure from practitioners' family members, the prison authorities started to get the imprisoned practitioners examined. Families were notified if practitioners were eligible to be bailed out for medical reasons.

My husband's blood pressure was 210mmHg, and he had other symptoms. The prison notified his family to bail him out for medical treatment. When I heard, I returned home in March. As soon as I got off the train, I went to the prison with two other practitioners to see my husband. The prison balked at letting me see him. It was not until his brother and sister came was I finally able to see my husband.

When we were going through the procedure for the bail out, Nangang Police Station and Qianjin Police Department pushed the paperwork back and forth. My mother-in-law was almost 80 years old and she took the train for a full day from Daqing to take her son home. After five months and countless trips for both myself and my mother-in-law between the police station and the police department, in the end it was through my friend's acquaintance, and after spending quite a bit of money, that we were able to complete the process.

My husband was finally released in August. This is the CCP system that brutally persecutes a group of kind people who cultivate Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. How many families were broken up and had nowhere to go even though they previously had a home?

Heaven's law shines brightly. We urge those who still do bad deeds in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners to stop immediately. I hope you and your family can all understand the truth and withdraw from the CCP's organizations to choose a bright future for yourselves.

Note

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