Germany Calls for Concern over a Young Couple Harassed by the Chinese National Security Bureau

On March the 8th 2005, a young Falun Gong couple, Jiang Renzheng and his wife Guo Rui, returned to China from Germany, along with their two sons who are less than two years old. Shortly after that, the National Security Bureau’s agents came to their house and forced Jiang Renzheng to give up practising Falun Gong. These agents possessed Jiang’s personal photos and letters, saying that they knew everything about him. They also placed his family members under tremendous pressure.

After returning to China, the couple first visited Guo Rui’s parents in Shenyang and stayed with them for a week without any problems. On March the 16th, they visited Jiang Renzheng’s parents in Liaoning Province’s Bei Xi County. On March the 17th, when Jiang was visiting one of his relatives in a small city in Bei Xi County, three agents from the Bei Xi National Security Bureau unexpectedly brought his father Jiang Linguo to see him. Among these agents were the bureau’s director, section chief and a staff member, who also served as a driver. They took Jiang and his father to a room in the railway administration’s training centre, where these agents and other police officers took turns to interrogate him.

The agents said that they were informed long ago about the couple’s situation overseas and in particular they knew every detail of the Falun Gong activities they had participated in outside of China. The agents said they didn’t take any action before the couple arrived at Shenyang because the time was not ripe and that as long as Jiang confessed to all they had done overseas in the past several years, he would be offered a job. They also told him that the persecution of Falun Gong reported overseas was not true. They even said that if Jiang felt it was necessary, they would show him around the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp in Liaoning Province to prove that the situation there was not like what has been reported overseas. Seeing Jiang’s refusal to cooperate with them, they showed him the letters he wrote to his father and said that they were well informed of his situation overseas. In the letter to his father, Jiang wrote the facts about the persecution against Falun Gong happening in China. Because he did not give in, those agents exerted pressure on his father, saying that the reason for them to come was to rescue his son and ask him to cooperate with them.

With mounting pressure, Jiang's father asked his son to confess to what the agents wanted so that it wouldn’t affect the family. As his son was reluctant to give in, the father threatened to commit suicide. To relieve the pressure on his father, Jiang thus carelessly mentioned something about his participation in the appeal activities at the Chinese Embassy in Norway. The National Security Bureau’s agents forced him to sign a statement promising not to do anything violating national laws. They said to the father that so long as his son signed the statement, he would be released immediately. Jiang told his father that he would not sign even if he were imprisoned and beaten by them. He also mentioned that he fully understood that they would not let him go if he really signed. Nonetheless, his father didn’t believe him and desperately asked him to sign, hoping that his son would be released soon.

Looking at his father’s dismal situation, Jiang signed a statement against his own conscience. Though he was interrogated from 4 p.m. to 2 a.m. the following morning he was not freed because they failed to make him give up practising Falun Gong. Jiang's father furiously argued with the agents and accused them of breaking their promise. After the director made a couple of calls to his superiors, they were finally freed at about 4 a.m. in the morning.

Unexpectedly, about three hours later, several National Security Bureau agents rushed to their home and took turns to talk to them again, regardless of the fact that they were extremely exhausted in the wake of the ten-plus hours of uninterrupted interrogation that they had just endured.

Since then, a village chief and a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) secretary of the rural district were unusually concerned about this family. They came over to Jiang’s home from time to time and asked Jiang what he planned to do and who he had contacted. Whenever Jiang left his home, there would be someone monitoring him. On March the 20th, the director called him and invited him over for a chat. Jiang rejected the offer by saying that he was busy taking care of his kids and that if the director really wanted to have a chat with him, he might come over to his place. At about 11 a.m. on March the 21st, the director, along with the section-chief and the driver, arrived at his home, and insisted that he provide them with detailed information about the activities they participated in over the past several years. While Jiang refused to cooperate with them, the driver produced a photo to show him, which was taken by Jiang for his uncle and aunt who were Falun Gong practitioners. They once lived in Cambodia, but were harassed by the Chinese Embassy because they distributed Falun Gong flyers there. With the assistance of the U.N., they moved to Norway with refugee status. Jiang and his wife visited and learned Falun Gong from them in Norway.

Jiang talked sternly to the driver: "You are not entitled to check my personal photos and ask me personal questions." The driver smiled coldly and said, "Don’t you know who we are? We are authorised to investigate anything about you." Jiang replied, "Your director invited me to have a chat with him yesterday. Why are you here today?” The director said, "After returning to China, you are supposed to respect China’s laws. You may believe in any of the five major religions, but you are not allowed to believe in Falun Gong or you are breaking China’s laws.” Jiang responded, "The Constitution stipulates that everyone has the freedom of belief. I have read all of Falun Gong's books and they teach people to be good. It is very popular overseas. Why is it persecuted in China? Which Chinese law does it break? Do you know that the “Tiananmen Square self-immolation” is a fabricated lie and a true Falun Gong practitioner would never commit suicide because taking life is absolutely prohibited by Falun Gong?”

The director replied, "You should know that we are here to save you!"
Jiang: "I have benefited a lot from cultivating Falun Gong. Why do I need to be saved?” The director replied, "Are you still practising Falun Gong now? Don’t you think you have practised it for too long?" After three hours had passed, the director still couldn’t do anything about Jiang, so he had no choice but to give up. Before leaving, he told Jiang, “We’ll be back to talk to you.” Jiang replied, “Be sure to remember the Chinese saying, good begets good, and evil leads to evil.” The director said, “It is absolutely impossible for you to transform me.”

On March the 25th, the section-chief and the driver came to Jiang’s place again. But this time they only asked him one question, “What is your decision?” Jiang replied, “I don’t have to think about anything any further. My position is very clear, that is, I don’t have anything illegal to own up to.” They then talked to his parents for over an hour to ask them to persuade their son to completely confess to what he has done. They told the parents that if their son was killed, they might be blamed for it and that they were on the brink of losing their patience. Jiang’s parents were extremely frightened since Jiang was first interrogated. His father was so traumatised that he couldn’t even recognise his family members. As to Jiang’s mother, she wept every day and was deeply worried about the safety of her son and her other family members.

With two children to take care of, Jiang's wife was not yet interrogated, but she was under tremendous pressure as well. In addition, all Jiang’s friends and relatives’ telephones were tapped. One of Jiang’s close friends told him that someone in the telephone company informed him that the National Security Bureau stated that Jiang was a spy from Germany. Jiang wanted to find a job in Shenyang, but the director threatened the parents that if Jiang went to Shenyang, he would be in big trouble. That’s why the parents tried their best to dissuade their son from going away to avoid getting into trouble. In this way, Jiang was effectively under house arrest.

The young couple, Jiang and Guo, lived overseas for several years and they fully enjoyed the freedom and the goodness of cultivating Falun Gong. However, as soon as they returned to China, they lost all of their basic human rights. Like tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners and their family members, the couple’s friends and relatives are intimidated and suppressed by the Chinese communist regime. We would like to call on the international society and the extensive kind-hearted people around the world to be concerned about this couple’s situation and put an end to this persecution once and for all so as to help all Falun Gong practitioners regain their freedom.