Dr. Lin Yanqing Suffers Great Hardship For His Courage in Appealing for Falun Gong

Dr. Lin Yanqing was a Postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Civil Engineering of Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province. Dr. Lin is now handicapped and in poor health due to the persecution against Falun Gong in China. Despite the fact that he only has three fingers left, Jiang Zemin's accomplices remain aggressive in their persecution against him. [Of the 824 total verified deaths of Falun Gong practitioners throughout the country as of December 3, 2003, China's most northeastern province, Heilongjiang, accounts for approximately 16% -- the highest of any province. See "Northeastern Province Records China's Highest Death Toll of Falun Gong Practitioners" for details.] In the past four years, Dr. Lin has been illegally abducted and detained in prison, brainwashing centre and the forced labour camp. He has also been stripped of his PhD degree. His wife and her parents who practise Falun Dafa have also been persecuted. In May 2001, Dr. Lin's wife, daughter and his parent-in-laws had no choice but to leave their home in Beijing, and go into hiding to escape the persecution.

Summary of the Persecution against Dr. Lin Yanqing and His Family:

Dr. Lin Yanqing, born in 1971, was a postdoctoral research fellow at Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province prior to Jiang's persecution of Falun Gong. He started practising Falun Dafa in 1996. After Jiang Zemin started to openly persecute Falun Gong in 1999, Dr. Lin tried to explain the truth about Falun Gong to the highest levels of government, but his efforts were fruitless as he encountered many obstacles. In October 1999, he decided to travel to Beijing and appeal for Falun Gong, but the staff from HIT stopped him at Harbin Train Station and brought him back to the college before he could get on the train.

In January 2000, Dr. Lin made a second attempt to go to Beijing. Although he arrived in Beijing this time, the Heilongjiang Police Force stationed in Beijing abducted and took him to the Harbin City's Public Security Bureau's branch office. They also notified HIT that they would transfer him, under police escort, back to Harbin and expected HIT's Security Office to pick him up at Harbin Train Station. Thus the Deputy Chair of the Security Office at HIT, Mr. Li Dongbiao, led a group of police officers to the Harbin Train Station on the scheduled date and time of the expected arrival. Dr. Lin managed to get off halfway through the train ride. Unfortunately, Dr. Lin became a fugitive without any means because the policeman who escorted him confiscated his train ticket, ID, and wallet. Determined to go to Beijing to speak the truth for Falun Dafa, the penniless Dr. Lin walked along the railway toward Beijing. It was a cold evening in January, the coldest month in northern China, when he started the long journey on foot back to Beijing. [Note: The distance between Harbin and Beijing is approximately 800 miles. It is not clear where Dr. Lin got off the train.] He walked non-stop from midnight until dawn, resulting in severe frostbite to his hands, face and ears. When he finally reached his parent-in-laws' home in Beijing, Dr. Lin's in-laws sent him immediately to the Surgery Department at Beijing Railway Construction Company's affiliated hospital. Somehow the police officers traced him to the hospital ward, but decided to temporarily delay their plans to persecute him, seeing that Dr. Lin had lost seven fingers from frostbite.

Despite his physical handicap, Dr. Lin remained determined to explain the truth of Falun Gong to the top-level management of the Party. In May 2000, Dr. Lin made another attempt to visit the State Council Appeals Office in Beijing. However, the Chinese police had already turned the State Council Appeals Office into a trap to abduct Falun Gong practitioners who came to exercise their constitutional right. When he arrived at the State Council Appeals Office, the Harbin police stationed in Beijing recognized him. They immediately seized him, handcuffed him and transferred him back to Harbin under police escort. HIT then started to try to coerce him into renouncing Falun Gong in writing.

In October 2000, Harbin City's Public Security Bureau's Internet police, who spy and monitor Internet traffic, arrested Dr. Lin for accessing Falun Dafa web sites. They confiscated his personal computer at his research laboratory, and illegally detained him at Harbin City Detention Centre in Nangang District of Harbin City for more than a month. During the detention, Dr. Lin was subjected to physical and mental torture that included repeatedly being slapped on the face, and tied to the "Iron Chair" for several days in a row. [See "Iron Chair Device Used by Jiang Zemin's Regime to Torture Practitioners" for the illustration of "Iron Chair.] When his mother heard the news, she came to Harbin all the way from Fujian Province (a southern province in China nearest to Taiwan) to rescue her disabled son. Helpless and alone in an unfamiliar city, Mrs. Lin had no choice but to beg and submit gifts to everyone in order to get Dr. Lin released. Each visit to see him cost her money and pride. Finally the Public Security Bureau agreed to release Dr. Lin on bail at the price of 3,000 yuan [500 yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China.] Although Dr. Lin was released on bail, HIT suspended his postdoctoral research work without pay. In addition, Harbin City Police forbid him to reunite with his wife and daughter who resided in Beijing. Instead, he was escorted back to his parents' home in Fujian Province by Mr. Li Dongbiao, the Deputy Chair of the Security Office at HIT and a police officer from Harbin City Public Security Bureau, and put under house arrest. Mr. Li and the police officer not only demanded that they escort Dr. Lin back to Fujian by air, but also insisted that his family pay for their round-trip plane tickets and all other travel expenses. During Dr. Lin's detention, the corrupt police officers had already extorted a large sum of money from Mrs. Lin. In addition, she had spent several tens of thousands of yuan bribing the police, as well as the faculty and staff at HIT, in order to rescue her son. The large sums she paid in bribes and others that were extorted from her took a severe toll on the family's finances.

While Dr. Lin stayed at his parents' home in Quanzhou City, Fujian Province, the local police station there often sent police officers to harass or spy on him. Dr. Lin was forced to live separately from his wife and daughter. Later they were even forced to lose contact with each other. Dr. Lin's wife is also a Falun Dafa practitioner. Because she was determined in continuing her cultivation in Falun Dafa, her work organisation removed her from her position in 2000 and took back the apartment that was assigned to her. Both of Dr. Lin's parent-in-laws are retired and practice Falun Gong. They are also victims of the persecution. In May 2001, Dr. Lin's wife, daughter and in-laws were forced to leave Beijing and become homeless. Moreover, the police stopped the payments of his in-law's retirement pensions, turning them into fugitives without any means of financial support.

Shortly after the Chinese New Year in 2002 (approximately towards the end of February), the State Security Bureau, the police station, and other associated government organisations formed a special task force to hunt for Dr. Lin's homeless wife, daughter, and in-laws. To get information of their whereabouts, they came to Fujian Province all the way from Beijing. They abducted Dr. Lin from his parents' home, evicted his family, and ransacked their home without any search warrant. They confiscated his cellular phone and took the few photographs he had of his daughter, which he could remember her by. After that, they interrogated all of his family and relatives. When the special task force arrived at the home of Dr. Lin's third aunt on his mother's side, they found no one was at home, and pried the door open like thieves. While they had Dr. Lin under illegal detention, Mr. Xie Hongfeng, Chairman of the Party's Office at his in-law's former work organisation, tried to coax the information out of him by lying. Mr. Xie said, "We have already apprehended your wife. It's no use concealing her whereabouts any more. Why don't you just tell us what you know?" Dr. Lin calmly replied, "Good. Please tell her that if I am found dead, then you would be the murderer." Dr. Lin went on a hunger strike to protest the injustice. Eleven days later, he was unconditionally released.

Dr. Lin encountered tremendous difficulties in his daily life and work after he lost seven of his fingers, yet he was determined to excel academically. He continued to publish essays and articles in domestic and foreign journals, and met the academic publishing requirements of the postdoctoral program. He only had the final oral exam and essay remaining to fulfill in order to acquire his postdoctoral degree from HIT. Dr. Lin anxiously waited for his advisor at HIT to notify him to complete the final stage of the postdoctoral program. However, the notification he anxiously anticipated turned out to be a bomb: in October 2002, HIT officially terminated his postdoctoral research work and withdrew his postdoctoral candidacy. Meanwhile, the Quanzhou City Public Security Bureau refused to give him a legal address, or register him as a legal resident in Quanzhou. [Note: In China, every Chinese citizen has to have a legal address registered at the local Public Security Bureau in order to legally reside in an area.]

Since he was already denied residence in Beijing, Dr. Lin went to the Quanzhou Police Station to apply for a legal address in October 2002. Instead, the police abducted him and charged him with public disturbance. He was then put in the brainwashing centre where he was watched around the clock and forced to watch and read materials that slandered Falun Dafa. They tried to coerce Dr. Lin into renouncing his belief in Falun Gong, but he refused to comply. After 2 1/2 months of illegal detention in the brainwashing centre, the police illegally sentenced him to three years in the forced labour camp. Dr. Lin and his family repeatedly filed an appeal against the sentence, but each time it was ignored. In January 2003, he was transferred to Lujiang Forced Drug Rehabilitation Centre located on No 47, Kuaian Road, Fuzhou, Fujian Province. [Note: Such "rehabilitation centres" are often, in reality, used to detain, torture, and hold brainwashing "classes" for Falun Gong practitioners.] In the forced drug rehabilitation centre, Dr. Lin was once again subjected to atrocious tortures, but he firmly resisted all attempts to make him renounce his belief in Falun Gong. In July 2003, he was transferred to the 9th Brigade, where he was forced to perform hard labour, and faced immense physical difficulties. His parents were overcome with worry, as Mr. Lin's hair has completely turned gray, and Mrs. Lin is suffering from insomnia.

Detention Centre:

The 9th Brigade of Lujiang Forced Drug Rehabilitation Centre
Address: No 47, Kuaian Road, Fuzhou, Fujian Province, Zip code 350000
Captain of the 9th Brigade, Mr. Hu Bo: 86-13600886642

Family:
Dr. Lin's parents' phone number in Quanzhou: 86-595-2555852

School:
Harbin Institute of Technology's web site: http://www.hit.edu.cn
Dr. Ou Jinping, Dr. Lin's advisor and Deputy Principal of HIT:
86-451-86282409(H), 86-451-86282094(W), 86-451-86415885(W)

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/4/61787.html