Practitioners Hu Ruirong and Lei Yunqun, Husband and Wife from Hengyang City, Hunan Province, Repeatedly Arrested

Falun Gong practitioners Mr. Wu Ruirong and Ms. Lei Yingqun, husband and wife, were arrested by the police at 11:30 a.m. on May 24th, 2008 as they were working in a bridal studio in Hengyang City. The police ransacked their residence and used the pretext of "having found six pieces of evidence" as reason to hold them.

Wu Ruirong and Lei Yingqun are both fifty-five years old, and they began practising Falun Gong in 1997. They had each once won the "model worker" title for their 30 years of work for the country. After the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, for the past nine years they have persevered in their belief in Falun Gong. They have been persecuted and suffered inhumane tortures. In 2000, Lei Yingqun was sent to forced labour for four years. Zhou Zhiwen, from the Chengnan District Police Department in Hengyang City, beat her ruthlessly, injuring her head and chest before sending her to forced labour, and the scars from the injuries are still pronounced. In 2000, Wu Ruirong was brutally beaten by criminal inmates incited by the guards. His head was bleeding and he nearly died from the beating. Afterwards, Mr. Wu was incarcerated for two years.

While the ruling regime is persecuting Falun Gong, Wu Ruirong and Lei Yingqun, together with many other practitioners, have upheld their belief and went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. However, lawless officials repeatedly persecuted them. On December 8th, 1999, Lei Yingqun was dismissed by the Hengyang Metal Materials Company (now out of business). On April 25th, 2000 Northern China Airlines' Hunan Branch dismissed Wu Ruirong. The whole family lost their financial means.

The couple looked for work to make a living and for the sake of sending their daughter to school. However, the persecutors tried all means to create problems for them. Finally, the couple decided to go into exile to avoid further persecution. This separated the family, leaving their daughter alone at home.

During this period, the police once kept their sixteen-year-old daughter as hostage in an attempt to threaten the couple into giving up Falun Gong. Hengyang County First Secondary School and Chengnan Police Department agents in Hengyang City deceived the teenager into going to the police department. Once there, the persecutors detained her for twenty-six hours. The girl went on a hunger strike to protest the detention, and the officials had no choice but to release her. Her teachers and fellow classmates were unaware of her ordeal. The girl could only smile and pretend that nothing had happened. At the end of the day she went home to an empty house and cried alone.

Sixteen should be a wonderful age. Other teens of her age will enjoy the care and concern of their parents. Yet this poor girl is living in the shadow of persecution.

The days of living apart were tough, but the family had some comfort in knowing that one another was safe. But even this sense of temporary stability soon came to an end, because Lei Yingqun was arrested on June 4th, 2001. On June 16th, 2002, agents from the Zhuhui District Procuratorate in Hengyang City tried to charge them with the so-called crime of "breaking the law by using an illegal organization," and sentence Lei Yingqun and six other Falun Gong practitioners to three to seven years of imprisonment. They forbade the practitioners from appealing and did not allow a lawyer to represent them. The court sent them directly to the Changsha Women's Prison.

On March 13th, 2002, Hengyang City Police Department agents detained Wu Ruirong for an unnamed crime and later incarcerated him at the Kaipu Forced Labour Camp in Changsha for two years.

In 2004, the whole family finally reunited. However, in early 2008, under the pretext of protecting the Olympics, the Communist regime carried out another mass arrest of Falun Gong practitioners. During this time, many practitioners were arrested, and the whereabouts of some are unknown. Some were beaten and suffered serious injuries.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.cc/mh/articles/2008/5/27/179225.html