Persecution of Falun Dafa Practitioners in Shenqiu County of Henan Province

Since July 20th, 1999, when Jiang Zemin started the brutal persecution against Falun Gong, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members in Shenqiu County have helped to commit serious crimes against innocent people. Dozens of Falun Dafa practitioners have had their homes ransacked and were arrested, and have paid a total of 120,000 yuan¹ in fines. Nine were illegally sentenced to forced labour camps, and two have been seriously injured. More details follow below.

Ms. Ma Rui Sentenced to Three Years of Forced Labour Camp

Ms. Ma Rui, 43, is a teacher in the Shenqiu Normal Dance School. After she started practising Falun Gong, she became more generous, forgiving, and kinder. The people around her witnessed the power of Dafa. After the persecution started, she went to Beijing to appeal and was arrested three times.

In October 1999, Ms. Ma went to Beijing for the first time and was arrested by police in Shenqiu. They also ransacked her home. Her family members had to pay 5,000 yuan as guarantee money to secure her release.

At the end of December 2000, when Ma went to Beijing to vappeal for Dafa, she was arrested by police from Beijing, and police from Shenqiu took her back home. She was detained and regained her freedom in May 2001.

In December 2001, the state security department went to the school and arrested her for providing Dafa materials to other practitioners. She was later sentenced to three years of forced labour. She served her term in July 2007 at the Shibalihe Women's Forced Labour Camp in Zhengzhou.

Two principals in her school have also participated in her persecution in the past few years. When Ma Rui went to Beijing, she was extorted out of 15,000 yuan by the state security department. Ms. Ma's husband is also a teacher in the school. When they could not afford the payment, the authorities decided that the payment should be deducted from their salaries each month. With the cooperation of Principal Chen Jianguo, the police went to the school and arrested Ms. Ma. She was subsequently sentenced to three years of forced labour.

Ms. Ma Min Persecuted Repeatedly

Ms. Ma Min started practising in 1997. After she cultivated in Dafa, she became stronger physically and all of her ailments disappeared. Her parents witnessed all the changes in her and were very impressed with Dafa.

In the beginning of the persecution, Ma went to Beijing and was arrested by the county police. Lu Feng, the leader of the security department, put Ma and other Dafa practitioners in a detention centre for four months. The practitioners were not allowed to practise or they would be physically abused. Lu Feng, Hu An, and others extorted 13,000 yuan from Ma's family members.

At noon on Chinese New Year's Eve of 2001, when she was arrested by police, they asked her in the police station, "Is Falun Gong good? What is so good about it?" After she answered their questions, they put her in a detention centre.

She was detained for 11 months. In the detention centre, practitioners were not allowed to talk to each other. If they practised the exercises, they would be beaten. One time, a practitioner had to wear 40-pound shackles for violating that rule. On another occasion, a female practitioner had to wear the shackles for more than 40 days. There are sharp prongs sticking out against the flesh, which caused terrible pain. It was very difficult to hold the chains and moved inch by inch to go to the toilet.

Once, when they were practising the exercises in the cell, the guard put a set of handcuffs on the legs of practitioners Wang Xiangrong and Ma Min, binding them together. As a result, they had to move together. At night it became more difficult to sleep. They were tormented like this for a whole week. Later, Ma was sent to the Shibalihe Women's Forced Labour Camp for two years.

Ma Min spent three Chinese New Years behind bars. Her parents were saddened and worried day and night. They became ill and passed away soon after Ms. Ma was released.

Dafa Practitioner Wang Xiayun Arrested Many Times

Ms. Wang Xiayun, 59, lives in Huaidian Town. She started practising Falun Gong in 1997. All of her ailments disappeared after she started practising Falun Gong, and her home life was harmonious and joyful.

In the second half of December 1999, Wang went to Tiananmen to appeal for Dafa and was arrested. She refused to tell police officers her name and was handcuffed behind her back for more than two hours. She was brought back by the police from Shenqiu County and detained for more than a month. Lu Feng extorted 1,800 yuan from her and did not give her a receipt. In the past eight years, they have extorted more than 14,000 yuan from her on four different occasions.

Afterwards, the police adopted different ways to harass her, and her entire family was living in constant fear and worry. In the middle of April 2000, officers from the Zhanbei Police Station arrested her. When they asked her to sign a guarantee statement not to practise, she refused, so she was detained. When her husband went to the police station to enquire about the situation, they denied that she was there. Finally Lu Feng said, "She is here, but you must pay a fine of 3,000 yuan." After they took the money, they still refused to release her. She was detained for 55 days and was extorted out of 1,500 more yuan before she could return home.

On October 12th, 2000, Lu Feng had her arrested again for reciting Teacher's [Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa] articles with other practitioners. They tried to force her to write a confession to say that she was wrong to practise Falun Gong, but she refused. She was then sent to a detention centre. She was closely watched in the detention centre and once she was not allowed to sleep for three days. On a different occasion, because she studied the Falun Dafa teachings, she had to wear the heavy shackles for more than a month. She had to wear the shackles again in addition to being handcuffed when she talked to another practitioner.

In June 2001, she was sentenced to forced labour. When she served her term in the Shibalihe Women's Forced Labour Camp, she was tortured much more severely. After she returned home, she had difficulty walking, and her vision was damaged so badly that she could not see anything beyond ten feet.

Yang Xiuling Sentenced to Seven Years in Prison

Ms. Yang Xiuling is over fifty years old. She went to Beijing twice and was arrested on both occasions. As a result, she was in prison for two years. One night, when Lu Feng interrogated her, she refused to cooperate. He punched her in the face many times, and pushed her down to the ground and whipped her with a leather belt more than a dozen times. Afterwards, the guards put handcuffs and shackles on her and forced her to walk around and around in the prison.

In October 2002, she was informing people about the true nature of Falun Gong and was reported to the police. Huang Jinqi, the police captain, led other officers to arrest her during the night. She was later persecuted in the detention centre.

After she returned home, her husband Liu Guopu divorced her because of her practising Dafa. After that, Ms. Yang had no means to make a living. In addition, she had a young daughter and an eighty-some year old mother. Her life was indeed very difficult. As a result, she looked for work anywhere to support her family. Even in that kind of condition, she had a material production centre at home. She was reported by Zhao Zhiqiang, the Director of the State Security Department. On May 4th, 2006, police officers, Han Yong, Li Hui, Yan Ransheng, and others arrested her and ransacked her home. They confiscated a computer, a printer and Dafa materials. Yu Yiyun from the 610 Office² shouted, "Yang Xiuling and Gu Xuemin (detained already) must be severely punished, no matter what!" She was sentenced to ten years in prison. Her family appealed her case, and her sentence was later changed to seven years. However, the people in the 610 Office and State Security Department still managed to find excuses to persecute her.

Dafa Practitioner Ms. Wang Cui Detained and Her Home Ransacked

Ms. Wang Cui was an elementary school teacher. Everyone thought that she was a good person after she practised Falun Gong. Because she did not want to give up her beliefs, she was persecuted.

She taught at the Beiguan Elementary School. When her husband passed away, her son was only 13 years old. Wang Shijian, the school principal, cooperated with local party members in the education department and transferred her to another school very far from her home. In this way, mother and son were forced to separate.

One time, Ms. Wang explained the facts about Falun Dafa to Principal Zhang, who reported her to the police. Ms. Wang was subsequently arrested. Her home was ransacked and the police confiscated 3,000 yuan and a mobile phone. They also extorted 700 yuan from her before they released her.

Note

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

2. "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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/6/27/157699.html