Dabei Prison Threatens Charge of "Harbouring Fugitives" if Families of Practitioners Released on Medical Bail Fail to Return the Practitioners to Prison

The Dabei Prison Administration Bureau in Liaoning Province recently issued orders instructing the family members of all Falun Gong practitioners who had been released on bail for medical treatment to return the practitioners to prison. Those family members who fail to comply will be sent to prison on charges of "harboring fugitives."

As a matter of fact, "release on bail for medical treatment" is not what it appears. The so-called "release on bail for medical treatment" is in reality extortion from family members of practitioners who have been tortured to near death to pay large sums of money as "medical expenses" in exchange for the practitioners' release. If the family members cannot pay the required sums of money, there is no way for them to see their loved ones. No matter how they plead, they are not allowed to see the practitioners, not even the bodies when they die in certain cases. The prison authorities would rather see the practitioners die in prison than release them if they do not get the money they ask for.

In order to rescue their beloved ones from the atrocities of the police at the prison, the family members of practitioners oftentimes exhaust all of their savings to satisfy the prison's demand; from at least tens of thousand Yuan1 to as much as several hundred thousand. Fearing their crimes might be exposed, the Dabei Prison authorities require family members to sign an agreement as "guarantors" according to their demands. They threaten the family members with taking back the practitioners and legal actions to put the family members in jail if they should breach.

Recently the Dabei Prison has escalated the persecution of detained practitioners, and included those who are released "on bail for medical treatment." Now, the prison is ordering the family members to return the practitioners to prison for a so-called "physical examination." Their true intention is to arrest the practitioners again and continue the persecution. They threaten to apply legal sanctions and put the family members in jail for the crime of "harbouring fugitives" if they do not bring the practitioners back.

Here, we urgently appeal to the international community to help stop the persecution of practitioners by the Dabei Prison. At the same time, we hope that family members of persecuted practitioners will cease to comply with and oblige the evil persecution, work together with practitioners to resist the persecution and protect their loved ones, and help collect and record detailed information about the persecutors and the background information of the events that transpire.

(1) Yuan is the Chinese unit of currency. The average income of an urban worker in China is around 500 Yuan.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/2/24/68371.html