National Security Team of Muleng City Police Department in Heilongjiang Province Extorts Money at Will

Since Sun Jibin, the new Director of the Police Department of Muleng City, Heilongjiang Province, came on board six months ago, over 30 Falun Dafa practitioners have been illegally arrested¹. As a result, this police department was recognised with the "Advanced Working Unit" award given by the national police system. In order to gain political prestige and amass capital, Sun Jibin started persecuting practitioners and extorting money from them without restraint in 2006.

Li Shuzhi and Xiao Gao have been sent to Harbin Drug Rehabilitation Forced Labour Camp and Lao Peng to Mudanjiang City Forced Labour Camp. None of their families were notified at the time they were sent. All these practitioners who were "illegally arrested" were cruelly tortured while held in detention. For example, Sun Shiwei, who is over 50, lost two teeth when he was force-fed. The guards smashed his mouth and teeth in the process and blood flew all over his clothes and stained his bedding.

Since the beginning of the year the police have changed their tactics. The procedure before was: arrest, physical torture, forced labour camp, and prison. Now, after they make the arrest, they right away attempt to extort money from the practitioners' families. The lowest amount is 10,000 yuan². If they receive no money, the practitioner will be sent directly to the forced labour camp.

In the first half of January, Zhou Xinsheng with the National Security Team took police officers and secretly broke into the workplace of practitioner Mr. Cheng Cheng. They found a copy of "Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party" and took Mr. Cheng to the National Security Team. Zhou Xinsheng demanded that Mr. Cheng give him 20,000 yuan, saying that 10,000 yuan would cover the copy of the Nine Commentaries and 10,000 yuan was to enable him to attend a party. He also said it was the lowest offer he would make. When Mr. Cheng refused to cooperate, Zhou Xinsheng said he would send Mr. Cheng to a forced labour camp. He then demanded money from Mr. Cheng's family. His wife went to borrow money from every place she could thing of and barely collected 10,000 yuan.

One day in the first half of January, Zhou Xinsheng and other officers handcuffed Mr. Xiao Zhen, and took him to the National Security Team. Zhou also demanded 10,000 yuan from Mr. Xiao's wife, also a practitioner. It was more than they had, so, with great effort, Mr. Xiao's family borrowed 2,000 yuan. After three days, the police told Mr. Xiao to give them more money.

Zhou Xinsheng then took police to practitioner Ms. Gao Xuehui's family store and demanded money from her husband. Their only goal is to extort money from practitioners. At present, many practitioners are being chased by the police. They have had to abandon their homes. Several of them are over 70 years old.

Note

1. Illegally arrested: Contrary to what former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution, and the Chinese Communist Party would like the world to believe, practising Falun Gong is NOT illegal in China. Although the Public Security Department issued an unconstitutional set of restraints on the practice at the onset of the persecution in 1999, no laws have been passed by the only legislative body in China, the People's Congress, banning Falun Gong or granting the police the authority to arrest Falun Gong practitioners for practising the exercises or distributing flyers. For a more complete discussion of the illegality of the persecution of Falun Gong, please refer to the article "The Ban on Falun Gong—A Dictator's Whim, Not the Rule of Law". (Variation: "illegally sentenced")

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

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/1/19/118984.html