Older Ms. Chai Shuzhen Arrested Again for Telling People about the Persecution of Falun Gong

On July 21st, 2008, Chai Shuzhen was arrested and her home was ransacked because a plain clothes police officer saw her distributing leaflets exposing the persecution and telling people the facts about Falun Gong.

Chai Shuzhen lived in Qianxi County, Hebei Province. She is now over sixty years old. When she was in her forties, both of her daughters died of illness, which was such a heavy blow to her that she decided to seek spiritual help from Buddhism. She visited many temples, but the religious rituals did not provide the answers she was seeking.

In 1997, her younger sister introduced her to Falun Gong. This sister had had asthma all her life until she was cured by practising Falun Gong. Ms. Chai was hesitant at the beginning, but after she read the Falun Gong book "Zhuan Falun", she was convinced that she had found the path to enlightenment.

After practising the Falun Gong exercises, all her illnesses disappeared. Her husband commented happily, " You look like a different person." Since then she had been telling people, " Falun Gong is good. Falun Gong is a truly righteous way."

The Chinese Communist government started the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999. Chai Shuzhen was shocked and distressed by this. She wanted to let more people know about Falun Gong.

By the end of 2000, she and 30 others were arrested for distributing leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. The head of the 610 Office¹, Wu Xiang and the chief of the Domestic Security Division, Zhu Zhengang, required them to write Guarantee Statements², or they would be kept in prison. Ms. Chai was kept in prison for 18 months and suffered many hardships.

On the second day of her arrest, she and twenty other practitioners were handcuffed and paraded through the streets in a truck. They arrived at Li Xiang Square, where the practitioners and some criminals were to be judged by the public. Ms. Chai was sentenced to imprisonment in a detention centre.

One day a guard found her practising Falun Gong. The head of the detention centre, Liu Chun, had her handcuffed to a chair and ordered two guards to insert a tube into her through her nose to force feed her with an unknown drug. Liu said, "The reason you do the exercises is because you want to heal yourself. So we are going to give you medicine." After this torture, her stomach hurt and she could not eat more than half of a bowl of rice at each meal.

Her husband was a worker in a carpet factory, earning only 200 yuan³ a month. He had to earn extra money by selling eggs and firewood in order to support himself. One day he made 10 yuan from selling eggs and he bought two packs of cigarettes. He planned to give them to the guards as a "gift," hoping that they would let him see his wife. The guard on duty, Gao Yinsong, went to check on her the next day and found her doing the exercises. He was so mad that he beat her with a broom until the broom broke. Ms. Chai had injuries all over her body.

She was ordered to wear a prison uniform like the other criminals and she refused, saying that she was not a criminal. For this they did not let her out of her cell.

While Chai Shuzhen was held captive, a guard told her that someone mentioned to the Domestic Security Division that her husband also practised Falun Gong and her husband was jailed for a month.

Sometime between 2003 and 2004, she went to see her grandparents in Dongbei and she was arrested by the local police for distributing leaflets exposing the persecution. She was sent back to Qianxi County and jailed for 15 days.

In 2007, Ms. Chai's husband passed away. She was living alone, but she was under constant surveillance, threats and harassment.

Recently, we learned that on July 21st, 2008 Chai Shuzhen and Gao Fungchi were arrested again and were sent to the Tangshan Labour Camp on the 26th for a two-year term. Ms. Chai failed her physical exam and was forced to pay 400 yuan before she was sent home. Ms. Gao remained in the camp. (During the period of January 1st, 2001 to June 2002, Ms. Gao was held in the Qianxi Detention Centre with Ms. Chai and eight other practitioners for 18 months. During that time she experienced many types of torture.)

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. "Guarantee Statement": A statement to declare that one is remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practise Falun Gong again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate with any Falun Gong practitioners.

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

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/8/1/183185.html