A Child Dies While Both Parents Are Detained; Police Refuse to Release the Parents for the Funeral

On March 13th, 2008, Xu Dingguo, a 12 year-old boy from Pan County, Guizhou Province, suffered a severe case of food poisoning and was rushed to the hospital. On the way, he cried out "I want my mum and dad," until he passed away. He was not able to see his parents at his last moment of life. His mother, Ms. Chen Yumei was arrested in February 2007, and is being detained at the Guizhou Province Women's Forced Labour Camp in Guizhou Province. His father, Mr. Xu Qihua was forced to leave home to try to prevent the persecution of him and his family. However, in September 2007, State Security agents arrested him in Guiyang City, Guizhou Province. On April 10th, 2008, Mr. Xu was tried in a secret court at the Guiyan City Judicial Police Hospital, and no family members were allowed to attend.

Officials at the Guizhou Province Women's Forced Labour Camp refused to let Ms. Chen attend her son's funeral. Officials from the Guiyang City State Security Department, the Guiyang City Police Department, the Yunyang District Procuratorate, and the Baihuashan Forced Labour Camp also refused to allow Mr. Xu Qihua to attend his son's funeral. They plotted to sentence Mr. Xu Qihua, Mr. Li Donghong and Mr. Jia Lian after they had been detained for more than six months.

Xu Dingguo lived in fear of the police due to their violent actions toward his parents. Xu, his little sister, and his three cousins had been living with their grandparents. In January 2000, Xu Dingguo's parents and seven other practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. Xu Dingguo's uncle, Mr. Xu Guangdao, was beaten to death by Beijing police. His wife was forced to leave home to avoid being implicated, leaving three children behind, a five-year-old boy, a three-year-old daughter and a one-year-old daughter. After that Xu Dingguo's grandparents were both detained, and his parents were arrested. His uncle-in-law was arrested and sent to the Guizhou Province Men's Forced Labour Camp. The surprise visits and harassment, monitoring, ransacking of their home and insults struck fear in the hearts of Xing Dingguo and the four other children. The family also struggled to make ends meet. Their family's farm land was confiscated by the local government to build a new train station, and they received no compensation. Although the two older children are old enough to receive the government's low-income compensation, they were denied this income because their parents are Falun Gong practitioners. They could only exchange the corn that their grandparents planted for some rice to maintain their living. At the same time, their grandparents had to struggle to pay for their tuition.

The five children suffered greatly from their parents' absence. Whenever others asked them, "Do you miss your parents?" they cried out, "We even dream about them." The difficult environment these children lived tempered them. They could endure hardships, were thrifty, respected their elders, and helped with the smaller children. At school, when Xu Dingguo saw that his classmate did not have money to buy lunch, he gave his lunch money to his classmate without hesitation, and went hungry himself. Sometimes he gave away his allowance, given to him by his aunt, to help other classmates who had financial difficulty. After he finished his homework, he helped cook the rice, get the vegetables from the garden and also cooked them, if his grandparents were not home yet. All of his relatives, neighbours, teachers and classmates knew him to be a good boy.

On March 11th, 2008, two days after the winter break, he went to buy a meal outside of school to save money. However, after he ate it, he started vomiting and had a fever. The next day, he still managed to come to school but he was not able to stand up without assistance and had a rash all over his body. On the way to the hospital, he kept crying, "I want my mum and dad," until he passed away.

The grief-stricken family requested to have Xu's parents come home for his funeral, but the police refused. The police never even passed the news on to them.

We call for all kind people to stand up and stop the Chinese Communist Party's brutal persecution of good people who believe in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance."

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/4/29/177488.html