Recent Situations of Falun Gong Practitioners Persecuted in Jidong County, Heilongjiang Province

The following are situations describing the detention and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners from Jidong County, Heilongjiang Province.

1. Mr. Xie Yunhuan is from Jidong County, Heilongjiang Province. In 1996 while he was 21, Xie started practising Falun Gong. He went to Japan to study in April 1999. He had been in Japan for less than one year when he learned of the severe persecution in China. He returned to China to appeal for Falun Gong in February 2000, and was subsequently sentenced to ten years in jail.

2. Mr. Zhang Yuezeng, 52, is from Yongan Village, Jidong County. On October 27th, 2004, he was arrested and detained for setting up a Falun Gong materials production centre at home and distributing hundreds of copies of Falun Gong materials with his wife. He was arrested on December 2nd. His computer and a photocopier were confiscated. He was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment and his wife Wang Lianqin was sentenced to six years.

3.Ms. Wang Wencheng is 27 years old, and she learned the practice of Falun Gong in 1998. She lives in the mine's residential compound in Jidong County, Jixi City. On March 19th, 2003, she was arrested and detained at the Jixi Second Detention Centre. She was sentenced to eight years in jail.

4. Mr. Lu Zhengyi is 37 years old. He was a taxi driver and lived in Zhengdong Village, Xingnong Town, of Jidong County. He was charged with transporting practitioners who intended to hand out information exposing the persecution. His personal van, worth 30,000 yuan¹, was confiscated, and he was sentenced to five years in jail by the Mashan District Court in Jixi City.

5. Mr. Qu Dehong was in his forties. After CCTV broadcast the illegal ban on Falun Gong, he and another eleven practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. On October 28th, 1999, Qu Dehong took part in a press conference attended by journalists from Reuters, AP, and other Western media outlets. Shortly afterwards, he was arrested and sentenced to three years and six months in jail, and was detained in the Harbin City Third Prison. At about 7:00 p.m. on October 27th, 2004, Qu Dehong was reported to police when he was distributing materials about the persecution of Falun Gong. He was arrested and severely tortured many times by guards from the Domestic Security Division in Jidong County and police from the detention centre. He was force-fed large quantities of drugs that damage the central nervous system. The Domestic Security Division in Jidong County tried to extort ten thousand yuan from his family, but his family was unable to pay it. As a result, he was sentenced to six years in jail by the Jidong Court. He is currently detained in Jiamusi Prison.

6. Mr. Zhang Minghui is 36 years old, and he was a teacher at Yonghe Town Middle School in Jidong County. He started practising Falun Gong in 1995. At 7:00 a.m. on January 25th, 2008, officers from the Domestic Security Division of the Jidong County Police Department and Dongfeng Police Station arrested Zhang Minghui at his home. They confiscated a lot of his personal property and violently beat him, trying to extort confessions from him by torture. At 8:30 a.m. on May 30th, 2008, the trial of Zhang Minghui began at the Jidong County Court, and his family hired a lawyer to represent him. The court was adjourned due to insufficient evidence, but later the Jidong Court sentenced him to seven years in jail without further proceedings. He is currently detained in Jiamusi Prison.

7. Mr. Shi Xiaochun is 48 years old. In June 2005, he was arrested in Guangzhou and sentenced to two years of forced labour. At 9 p.m. on April 10th, 2008, two officers from the Qianjin Police Station in Jidong County arrested Mr. Shi and ransacked his home. On May 16th, 2008, the Jidong County Police Department again put Shi Xiaochun into forced labour. On May 21st, 2008, his family barely received the notice of his sentence to forced labor before the police department took him away.

8. Ms. Zhang Huiling is 55 years old. On October 2nd, 2007, she was arrested when she was telling people about Falun Gong. On December 15th, 2007, she was sentenced to one and a half years of forced labour in the Harbin Women's Forced Labour Camp.

9. Ms. Qu Xiuqin is in her thirties. On July 3rd, 2008, she was arrested in Jidong, where she worked. It was later learned that the Mudanjiang City Police Department colluded with the Domestic Security Division of the Jidong County Police Department in arresting Qu Xiuqin. They took her back to Mudanjiang. She is currently detained at the Harbin Women's Forced Labour Camp.

10. Ms. Wang Xiuzhen is 51 years old, and she is a worker in the 21st Team of the 8510 Farm. In August 1999, officers from the 8510 Farm Police Department ransacked her home using the excuse that she was selling Falun Gong books. They arrested her and sent her to the 8510 Detention Centre. She was detained there for 20 days and extorted out of 1,000 yuan. In November 2000, she was reported to the police when she was reading Falun Gong articles. Jing Lihong, an officer from the 8510 Farm Police Department, arrested Wang Xiuzhen and secretly detained her at Lianzhushan Town Detention Centre in Mishan City for over three months. They also extorted her out of 8,000 yuan.

11. On June 3rd, 2008, Zhao Caishan and Jiang Yunpeng from the Jixi City Domestic Security Division, Lu Weibin from the local 610 Office², and some other patrolling officers broke into Wang Xiuzhen's house and searched it. They found information and fliers pertaining to Falun Gong and the persecution, so Wang Xiuzhen was arrested again.

12. Mr. Wang Zhi is 31 years old and unemployed. He lives at the residential compound of the Fertilizer Factory affiliated with the 8510 Farm. In 2002, he was arrested by the Mishan City Domestic Security Division and was sentenced to two years of forced labour. In June 2008, Zhao Caishan and Jiang Yunpeng from the Jixi City Domestic Security Division and Lu Weibin from the local 610 Office arrested Mr. Wang Zhi at his neighbour Wang Xiuzhen's home. They tried to extort a confession from him by torturing him.

13. Ms. Liang Yugui is in her fifties and lives near the Jidong County Glass Factory. On the afternoon of July 2nd, 2008, practitioner Zhang Fengkuan from Changshan Village, Hada Town was visiting his relative Liang Yugui in Jidong County, when both were arrested.

On September 15th, 2008, Liang Yugui was clarifying the truth about Falun Gong when on her way home. Officer Cui Dayu from Qianjin Police Station in Jidong County stopped Liang, searched her bags and found items related to Falun Gong. She was arrested, and officials from the Jidong County Police Department tried to extort money from Liang's family, but they failed. Ms. Liang was then taken to a forced labour camp.

14. Mr. Li Congjun, 44, is from the 8510 Farm in Jidong City. He learned Falun Gong in March 1999. In August 1999, policeman Lu Weibin from the local police department arrested him for distributing Falun Gong materials, and he was detained for two months. In November 2000, he went to Beijing to appeal and was arrested and sentenced to two years of forced labour in the Jixi Forced Labour Camp. After he served the term, he was sent directly to a brainwashing centre. One month later, he managed to walk free after overcoming the attempted brainwashing. At 6:30 p.m. on November 16th, 2004, officer Lu Weibin and five or six other policemen came to arrest Li Congjun and ransack his home, and they confiscated three mobile phones. Li was detained at the Jidong Police Department. The police beat him, tortured him, and shocked him with electric batons for a long time. Mr. Li was then taken to the Jixi Police Department. In January 2006, Jixi Police Department notified Li's family that he had been sentenced to three and a half years in jail.

15. Mr. Wang Xueshi is 40 years old. He is currently detained at the Mudanjiang Prison. On November 18th, 2007, it was reported to police that he had an MP4 containing Falun Gong-related material. Xue Shicheng, leader of the third squadron in Area Five, locked him in solitary confinement. His current situation is unknown.

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/2008/12/12/191515.html