An Entire Family Suffers under the Persecution

Mr. Qiao Yongfu's health used to be very poor. His wife, too, had high blood pressure and often vomited. After they learned Falun Dafa however, they became healthy and enjoyed their lives. After the persecution started in 1999, the Laishui County “610 Office¹” detained the two elderly practitioners, brainwashed them, fined them, and confiscated their belongings. Their son and daughter-in-law, both practitioners, were also persecuted and had to leave their house in order to avoid further persecution. The following is the family's story as told by Mr. Qiao.

On April 7th, 2000, my wife and I went to Laishui County to inform people about the persecution of Falun Gong and dispel the state propaganda attacking the practice. The police from the 610 Office arrested us and took us to the Laishui Party School. Zhang Shiliang, Secretary of the Township, was in charge of our case. Wang Lei, the Township Leader, slapped me until my mouth bled. Wang then struck me with a wooden board until I was severely bruised. They made all of us practitioners kneel down. Cheng Yuhe, a township official, kicked my wife's back. There were practitioners being beaten all the time. In the end, we all had to pay 2300 “yuan²” before we were released.

On December 16th, 2000, my wife went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was arrested by the local police and locked in Fuping Prison in Beijing. The next day Zhang Shiliang and Lu Donghai took her from Beijing back to our local township hall. When she arrived, Zhang Shiliang, Lu Donghai, Zhang Xiuming, and Zhang Jianhua brutally beat her. That same day my wife went to Beijing, Zhang Xiuming and Cui Fengxiang forcibly took me to the township hall and locked me up along with all the other practitioners they had arrested. They didn't let us go home for the Chinese New Year. On February 10th, 2001, they forced me to pay 2500 yuan before releasing me. My wife was released on February 11th, 2001.

In December 2000, my son went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa and was put in Xicheng Detention Centre in Beijing for 11 days. Liu Yaohua, head of the political security division of the Laishui County Public Safety Bureau, took him back to the local detention centre. My son was detained for three months before he was transferred to the Laishui County Party School. Four people from the court tied up my son and others with electric wires and whipped them with plastic wires. My son was wounded from the front to the back. He couldn't lay down or rest. He was tortured for over a month before we were allowed to take him home.

By the end of 2000 and close to New Year's day in 2001, head of the Wangcun Township Liu (first name unknown), Meng Qinghua, Dong Honghao, and village head Zhang Lishen moved all practitioners to the village office to watch us so we wouldn't go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

Around midnight on January 23rd, 2002, Hu Wencheng, the former village head, came to see me and asked me to go with him. I refused. Hu said, “I promise I will not beat you or take money from you. You will be back home in the afternoon.” I told him, “I know why you came here. You came here to arrest me. It's the anniversary of the staged self-immolation at Tiananmen, an incident conducted by the central government to deceive the public about Falun Gong³. You should stop participating in the persecution against Falun Gong; it will not do you any good. You have family and friends; you need to be responsible for them and for your own life. Go back and tell your superior that there is nothing you can do about Falun Gong.” I was very serious and sincere. He left quietly.

On April 25th, 2002, Tian Rong and Zhang Zhenbo brought 15 people to my home at 10:30 a.m. They told me to go the the village office. I refused. They then told me the write a “guarantee statement” renouncing Falun Gong, and I refused. They then started to physically assault me and pressed me down on a table. Zhang Zhenbo was going to write the statement for me. I told him I would not acknowledge it. They yelled and screamed at us and wanted to take pictures of me and my wife. We struggled and refused to cooperate. In the end, they had to leave without getting what they wanted.

In June 2002, one day around 11 p.m., a few plainclothes police came to our house. They surrounded the house and threatened us through the windows, saying that they would take extreme measures if we didn't open the door. They didn't leave until two and a half hours later. The next night they came again around the same time. This time they tried to break down the front iron door by banging on it several times. Eventually they left. On July 18th, 2002, at around 11 p.m., two cars arrived at our house. The village secretary, accompanied by 15 people, told us to open the door. We refused. Five of them climbed over the walls surrounding our house and broke in. They looked around with flashlights and yelled at us for not opening the door for them. All of them jammed into the house and the yard and started to search the house. Two hours later they had found nothing and left. On July 23rd, 20 officials from the police station and the Wangcun Village office, including the office leader and secretary, came to our house to search again. My son and I were working and my wife was at the market. It was in broad daylight that these people broke open the lock and broke into our house and searched it. Bystanders witnessed the incident. However, Village Secretary Tian Rong later denied that anything ever happened.

On February 17th, 2003, I went to work in Liang Township, Beijing. Officials from Wangcun Township came to my house to look for me and learned that I wasn't in town. They sent Lu Donghai and Yang Jinde to Liang Township to look for me.

In the morning on April 25th, 2003, the township sent Dong Honghao, Li Xuepeng, and Wan Qingwen to my house while I wasn't home. Village staff Hu Wensheng, Kang Zhenhe, Hu Chengwen and Hu Yinshui asked my wife to go with them, but she refused. Dong Honghao and Li Xuepeng forcibly took away a Falun Dafa book. With the help of the four village staff members, Dong and Li abducted my wife. Around 11 a.m., a dozen people went to arrest my son and confiscate his property. My daughter-in-law was pregnant at the time. She was so frightened that she fell to the ground with severe cramps in her legs. Bystanders then condemned the criminal actions and the perpetrators left.

I left town to go to work on June 23rd, 2003. On the 28th, the Laishui County 610 Office ordered Zhang Lian, director of the Wangcun Township, to break into my house. Zhang took 20 people, including Kang Zhenhe and Hu Wensheng, from the village and broke into my house at 11 p.m. They arrested my son and confiscated a photocopy machine. They tore down my door and searched everywhere; they even dumped my 150 lbs of cabbage into the well. My pregnant daughter-in-law was so scared that she became mentally disoriented and had serious cramps for a week. She almost lost the baby. They tortured my son until he lost control of his bladder and vomited blood. He had a hard time eating and became very thin. The 610 Office feared that my son would die in their hands and had my family pick him up. My son and daughter-in-law had to leave their home to avoid further persecution. The 610 Office, in order to find them, harassed all their relatives and friends and even tapped their phones.

On September 30th, 2003, Hu Wensheng, Deputy Secretary of the Township Zhang Jiehong, Zhang Jianhua, and Liu (first name unknown) came to our home to harass us and ask my son's whereabouts.

On November 12th, 2003, the Laishui County 610 Office and public safety bureau, in cahoots with the Zhouzhou City Public Safety Bureau, ordered my daughter-in-law to give up her town registration status. They continued to harass her parents. The county government, public safety bureaus, and 610 Office did everything they could to talk to friends and relatives of both my son and daughter-in-law and tapped all their phones in attempts to find my son.

At 9 a.m. on November 27th, 2003, Hu Chengwen, Zhang Lian, and 15 others broke into my home to search for my son.

On February 11th, 2004, Zhang Zhenbo and four others came to my house. Only my wife was home. They couldn't find anything and left.

On February 22nd, 2004, to help with my son's financial situation, my wife and I took our four-and-half-month old grandson home to take care of him. We barely made enough money for ourselves.

On the evening of November 2004, two strangers broke into my house and searched everywhere. They left after finding nothing. The government sent people to harass us during sensitive times.

At 1:30 p.m. on June 23rd, 2006, Hu Wensheng and four 610 Office staff members went to my neighbour's house and kicked their door open. They realised they had gotten the wrong house and became angry. Seeing that my door was locked, they climbed over the wall surrounding my house. They cut open the screen on the window with a knife and got inside. They turned the house upside down, throwing all the child's clothing onto the floor, shattering a whole case of milk for the child's food, and confiscating a tape. They came back again around midnight. They started the routine of coming to my house two to three times a day to harass us. We had to take our grandson and leave the house. We came back to check our house a few times and always found bricks on the beds. My neighbours told me they often came by to check the house.

On December 4th, 2006, police from the Laishui County 610 Office, in broad daylight, demolished two of my homes. According to witnesses, at around 2:10 p.m. on December 4th, 2006, an SUV appeared in Zhaogezhuang Village, Wangcun Township, Laishui County, where one of my houses was located, and parked in front of Zhang Huisen's house. Four people in their 40s got out of the car. They wore plainclothes with nothing in their hands. They headed directly toward my house. Two of them climbed over the wall, and one picked up a brick and threw it at a window. They opened the door and let the other two in. They broke all the windows and doors and destroyed all the glassware and appliances. A dozen bystanders heard the noise and went to see. They used the handles from shovels to break anything they could. In less than 30 minutes, my house was in ruins. After that, they drove to my other house, broke in, and destroyed everything in it as well.

During the past eight years, the 610 Office has persecuted my family repeatedly. The four of us have become homeless. We can't go back to our homes anymore and have had to borrow money from relatives. We've lost about 150,000 yuan because of this persecution and have suffered nearly intolerable mental and physical trauma.

Plaintiffs: Qiao Yongfu, Zhang Xiuling, Qiao Jinghai, Han Yuhong

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

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

3. The "Tiananmen Self-Immolation" [an incident on Tiananmen Square in January 2001 whereby four people set themselves alight and the Chinese Communist claimed they were Falun Gong practitioners, yet there was video evidence to strongly disprove this claim]

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/4/2/151963.html