Police Unlawfully Arrest Mr. Tang Yiqing and His Wife Ms. Zhao Honge in Dandong City, Liaoning Province

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Tang Yiqing was on his way to work on the morning of September 25th, 2007 when officers and others from the Dandong Police Department stopped him and forcibly seized him. Finding his house key they broke into his home. Abetting this crime were the Maokuishan Police Station head Wang Kaichun and deputy head Cong Shulong in the Zhenshan District, and people from the Hongfang Community property and security. They took away his wife, Falun Gong practitioner Zhao Honge. They ransacked his home afterwards and confiscated several items.

The couple is now held at the Baifang Detention Centre in Dandong City. Ms. Zhao Honge's family members demanded her release by making personal visits to the Maokuishan Police Station, but their requests were rejected.

Mr. Tang Yiqing is a worker at the school-affiliated factory at Fuchun Elementary School where Ms. Zhao Honge is a well-respected schoolteacher. Since the onset of the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, the couple have been subjected to persecution several times.

Mr. Tang Yiqing had already been unlawfully arrested in September 1999 for doing the Falun Gong exercises outdoors and was detained for a month.

Mr. Tang Yiqing went to Beijing in November 1999 to appeal for Falun Gong, but police officers arrested and incarcerated him in a detention centre and later sentenced him to one year of forced labour.

On July 13th, 2002, officers from the Dandong City National Security Bureau tricked Mr. Tang Yiqing, claiming that they needed his help to help fix a TV and abducted him near the Dandong City Dental Hospital. They brutally beat and tortured him following the abduction and tried to force him to confess to a certain act, but Mr. Tang refused to comply. His family members did not know his whereabouts until after they devoted much time and effort seeking information from every possible source. Later on, the police sentenced Mr. Tang to four years of prison without going through any legal procedures and sent him to the Dongling Prison in Shenyang City, the capital of Liaoning Province.

Ms. Zhao Honge went to Beijing with Mr. Tang Yiqing in November 1999, and was also seized, taken back to Dandong City, and detained for a month.

In 2000, while Ms. Zhao Honge was informing people about the true nature of Falun Gong, someone reported her. She was sentenced to two years of forced labour in the notorious Masanjia Labour Camp.

In May 2004, Ms. Zhao Honge explain the truth of Falun Gong to her students, but one student's parents reported her. While the authorities were conspiring to detain her, she decided to abandon her home to avoid further persecution.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/10/2/163733.html