The Persecution of Practitioners from Dongli District in Tianjin City

Since the persecution of Falun Dafa started on July 20th, 1999, the following people have been very active in the persecution and torture of practitioners: deputy head Yang Zilong of Dongli District Police Department in Tianjin, policemen Liu Qiang, Ma Yuqi, Chang Wanxin, Lu Yuyou, Sun Changbao, and Cui, Dongli District Zhangguizhuang Police Station head Liu Yonglei, deputy head Liu Qiang (not the same one as mentioned above), and policemen Han Junsheng, Han Ming, Zhang Liyong, and Hu. In over seven years, an estimated more than 100 practitioners from the Dongli District alone have been sentenced to prison terms, forced labour, brainwashing sessions, and other forms of detention.

The following is an account of the persecution that some practitioners from Dongli District in Tianjin City have suffered.

1. Practitioner Ms. Yang Cuilan was sentenced to a six-year prison term in October 2000, to be served in the Tianjin Women's Prison. Due to brutal torture in 2002, she suffered a heart attack and was taken to a hospital. Her family paid over 100,000 yuan¹ to have her released for medical treatment. In June 2006, she was arrested at a fellow practitioner's home for studying the Falun Dafa teachings by policemen Liu Qiang, Ma Yuqi, and Chang Wanxin. They intended to return her to prison. Ms. Yang suddenly had a heart attack again and was sent to the hospital, where the doctors pronounced her to be in critical condition. She thus avoided further detention.

2. Elderly practitioner Mr. Sun was sentenced to a three-year prison term in 2000. His situation after being released from prison is unknown.

3. Ms. Li Wenjing was sentenced to three years of imprisonment in 2001. Her situation after being released from prison is unknown.

4. Ms. Xu Yongqin was sentenced to five years of imprisonment in 2003. She is still held in the Tianjin Women's Prison.

5. Xu Guoyong was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment, and is still imprisoned.

6. Ms. Dong Guiying was arrested, detained, and locked up in a brainwashing centre about nine times between 2000 and 2006 by officers from the Dongli District Police Department and the Zhangguizhuang Police Station. In January 2002, Dongli District Police Department officers Liu Qiang and Ma Yuqi led officers Han Junsheng, Han Ming and others to break into Ms. Dong's residence for the sixth time. Her residence was searched and personal belongings were confiscated. Ms. Dong was sentenced to forced labour for one year.

Ms. Dong was forced to carry heavy beanbags at the Banqiao Women's Forced Labour Camp in Dagang for over a month. As a result, she developed an abdominal lump and was released for medical treatment in April 2002. When she was home recovering from her illness in August 2002, a group of policemen broke into her residence late at night once again. Zhang Liyong was among them. They dragged and pushed her, and took her to the local police station. The policemen were planning to send her back to the labour camp. Ms. Dong told them about the heavenly law--that good is rewarded with good, and evil meets with evil. However, the policemen beat her to the floor, making her stomach hurt so severely that she was motionless. She was sent to the Dongli Chinese Medicine Hospital, where the doctors did not know what to do. Therefore, Ms. Dong was transferred to the Hedong Hospital in Tianjin, where she had surgery. Following surgery, she was diagnosed with second-stage ovarian cancer.

When Ms. Dong was hospitalised, officials from the district police department and the labour camp sent some labour camp guards to the hospital to interrupt the treatment. The doctors there told the guards that she had only about half a year to live. Hearing this, the guards left. Ms. Dong, however, did not stop practising Falun Gong after leaving the hospital and her physical condition improved.

In 2004, Ms. Dong was arrested for the eighth time. Because she suffered from a terminal illness, she was released. The guards and government authorities persecuted not only her, but also her family members. One day in June 2006, Ms. Dong's son Li Jie (a non-practitioner) was intoxicated on the road on his way home from work. Someone reported this to the police and Zhangguizhuang Police Station sent some officers to take him to the Duzhuangzi Police Station. At about 6:00 p.m. the next evening, they informed Ms. Dong's family and framed her son for assaulting policemen and vandalizing police cars. Duzhuangzi Police Station officials informed the Dongli Police Department to detain Li Jiu for five days. He was held at Xiqing District Caozhuangzi Detention Centre in Tianjin and was also fined 1,000 yuan.

Five days later, Ms. Dong's son returned home. The brutal beatings at the hands of the police left many injuries on his body. The policemen said that they had beaten him because his mother was a Falun Gong practitioner. About ten days later, on June 20th, 2006, officers Liu Qiang, Ma Yuqi, and Cheng Wanxin went to Li Jiu's work unit, took him home, and forced him to open the door. Six practitioners were studying the Falun Dafa books in Ms. Dong's residence and were arrested. The residence was searched again. In addition, the policemen took some pictures to falsify evidence at the scene. Afterwards, three of the practitioners were sentenced to forced labour.

Ms. Dong Guiying was arrested and put in prison, where she held a hunger strike for over 40 days. After that, the cancer recurred and she had a big lump in her stomach. Her husband (a non-practitioner) went to the district police department several times to request her release and he showed them the diagnosis statement about her cancer. Ms. Dong was finally released after more than two months of imprisonment, but her family was extorted of 5,000 yuan as "bail."

7. In March 2000, Ms. Yang Yuting and her mother Ms. Zhang Junying went to Beijing to appeal. They were detained for 15 days. Police officers Han Ming and Han Junsheng, and district police department officers Liu Qiang, Ma Yuqi and Lu Yuyou harassed them several times at their residence. Ms. Yang's husband (a non-practitioner) left home because of the frequent harassment and has not returned.

In June 2000, some local policemen and personnel from the Zhangguizhuang neighbourhood committee arrested Ms. Yang, her mother and her six-year-old daughter Meng Fei, and detained them in a brainwashing centre. Ms. Yang was later sentenced to one year of forced labour because she refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong. Her mother was not sentenced this time because she was the only one who could take care of Meng Fei

In 2001, one month after Ms. Yang returned home, her mother was sentenced to two years of forced labour. Ms. Yang's husband left home, leaving her and her daughter without any income. Officers from the district police department and the police station and personnel from the neighbourhood committee frequently harassed them. One day when the practitioners were out, the officers broke down their metal door and entered their residence. They left when they failed to find anything they wanted.

In 2004, Ms. Yang was arrested for the sixth time and sentenced to two years of forced labour. She was first held in the Dongli Detention Centre, where she held a hunger strike for 22 days. After that, she was transferred to the Banqiao Forced Labour Camp, where she was diagnosed with kidney failure and then uraemia (a toxic condition resulting from renal failure). The doctors said that she had only a few days to live. Banqiao Forced Labour Camp officials would not admit her, so she was released. However, the policemen never stopped harassing Ms. Yang and her family. Her mother sold their house to use the money to treat her illnesses, and they had to move into the home of a relative. The policemen then followed them to that home and threatened the relative, who was then too scared to help them. Ms. Yang's daughter had to withdraw from school and the three of them became destitute and homeless. Their current whereabouts are unknown.

8. Ms. Wang Jingxiang was arrested six times. Her residence has been searched, and she has been detained in forced labour camps three times. In 2000, she was sentenced to forced labour for the first time. In November 2001, she was sentenced to one and a half years of forced labour, which was extended by an extra year. She was released after two and a half years. While she was in the labour camp, her husband sold their house and divorced her. Her daughter became homeless, so her aunt took her in. Ms. Wang often vomited blood in the labour camp due to the torture she suffered. In June 2006, she was sentenced to forced labour again and is still imprisoned in the Banqiao Women's Forced Labour Camp.

9. Ms. Liu Yanping used to work at the Tianjin Airport and was a cadre. Because she refused to stop practising Falun Gong, she was sentenced to forced labour three times by officers from the Dongli District Police Department. She was fired by the work unit and her husband divorced her. She is still imprisoned in the Banqiao Women's Forced Labour Camp.

10. Ms. Zhang Zhihong has been arrested numerous times and her residence has been ransacked several times as well. In January 2004, she was sentenced to forced labour for the second time and detained in the Banqiao Women's Forced Labour Camp. Her 70-year-old, physically weak father missed his youngest daughter. He asked Ms. Zhang's two sisters to take him in his wheelchair to the police station to request her release. However, the policemen there did not respond to their request; instead, they recorded them on video to intimidate them. Ms. Zhang's father was heart broken and passed away a few days later. In addition, her over 60-year-old in-laws were extremely saddened by the fact that she was once again sentenced to forced labour. They passed away consecutively within a year. When Ms. Zhang's term was over in 2006, the guards still would not release her because she refused to give up practising Falun Gong.

11. Mr. Zhang Ziwen, his wife Liu Yuhong, and their son Zhang Ximing are all practitioners. In 2000 they left home and became destitute for two years to avoid being sent to a brainwashing centre. Policemen Liu Qiang, Ma Yuqi and Chang Wenxin issued warrants for their arrest. They monitored cell phone conversations and sent undercover police officers to monitor their neighbourhood. In October 2002, Mr. Zhang and Ms. Liu were shopping for winter clothes. Officers arrested them at a railway station and went to search Mr. Zhang's rented apartment. Their son was arrested at home. All three of them were sentenced to three years of forced labour. Mr. Zhang Ziwen was imprisoned at the Tianjin Forced Labour Camp, Ms. Liu was imprisoned in the Banqiao Forced Labour Camp, and Zhang Ximing was imprisoned at the Tuanbo Forced Labour Camp in Tianjin.

12. Ms. Wu Kexin's residence was ransacked and her personal belongings were confiscated. Afterwards, the same policemen who ransacked her home (Han Junsheng, Lu Yuyou, and others) imprisoned her 19-year-old daughter Ma Weiwei in the Zhangguizhuang Police Station. Ms. Wu was secretly interrogated, and her daughter was thrown out of the police station in the middle of the night and left alone on the street. Ms. Wu was released at noon the next day. The policemen planned to have her working for them as a spy so that they could arrest more practitioners. Ms. Wu did not want to work for the police, so her whole family had to move to Hedong District. Yet, the policemen still found them. On September 2nd, 2002, when Ms. Wu was seeing some visitors off, she was arrested by the policemen who had been hiding around her residence. Led by Lu Yuyou, about five or six policemen arrested her. She was sentenced to two years of forced labour and imprisoned in Banqiao Forced Labour Camp.

13. In July 2006, policemen Ma Yuqi and Liu Qiang from the district police department once again arrested Tan Hongjun and Zhou Lan. They were both sentenced to forced labour, and are currently detained in Banqiao Forced Labour Camp.

Liu Fen, Wang Zongfeng, Sun Yumei, Chen Jinhua, and Xu Guizhen have all been arrested at least twice by officers Liu Qiang, Ma Yuqi, and Chang Wenxin from the district police department.

In the seven years of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, policemen from Dongli District Police Department and the various local police stations have committed unpardonable crimes. They have broken up numerous families and detained many Falun Gong practitioners.

Note

1. "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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/3/25/151488.html