Connections between the Persecution of Yu Zhou, Cao Dong and Yang Xiaojing

According to reports on the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net), Beijing Falun Gong practitioner Cao Dong met with the Vice President of the European Parliament Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott on May 21st, 2006 to rescue his imprisoned wife Yang Xiaojing. He told Mr. McMillan-Scott of the severe persecution that he, his wife and other Falun Gong practitioners he knew had experienced. Two hours after the meeting, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents from the State Security Bureau arrested Cao Dong. He was sentenced to five years of imprisonment on February 8th, 2007, and is currently detained in Tianshui Prison in Gansu Province.

At the end of August 2006, Mr. Cao's wife, Ms. Yang Xiaojing was released from the Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp. She went to various places in an attempt to rescue Cao Dong. In August 2007, she and Cao Dong's friend, musician Yu Zhou, contacted lawyers for help. Soon afterwards Yu Zhou was arrested. Yang Xiaojing became homeless and had to move from place to place to avoid persecution.

In December 2007, Yang Xiaojing went back to Beijing and experienced many problems. On December 27th, she went back home to pay the rent. Employees from the local Community Centre who had been stationed outside her home reported her to the police. Policemen Liu Jiang and Liu Tao from the Jianguomen Police Station , Yang Zhongwen, Director of the local 610 Office¹ and another two policemen from the Dongcheng Police Station broke into her home, forcibly carried her downstairs and pushed her into a car. They drove her to the Dongzhimen Police Station. Section Chief Liu Yugang said wickedly, "We insisted on putting Cao Dong in a prison in Northwestern China while leaving you in Beijing." Afterwards, several plainclothes police carried Yang Xiaojing to a black car and took her to a hotel in the Liuliqiao, Feng Tai District.

In March 2008 Yu Zhou (Cao Dong's friend) was persecuted to death. Yang Xiaojing felt so sad that she cried and was traumatized. Soon her health deteriorated. A medical examination at the Xijin Hospital in Xian in August 2008 showed that she suffered from lymphoma. She was unable to lie down in bed or eat due to the severe pain.

This much has been reported by Clearwisdom.net on September 9th, 2009. (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2009/9/9/110683.html)

The information in this one report is limited. If we connect this report to information about other related people, we would see that many Falun Gong practitioners are being persecuted, and we could also see the basic nature of this extensive persecution.

Another practitioner interviewed by Mr. McMillan-Scott with Cao Dong was Niu Jinping, who brought his two-year-old daughter with him to the interview. At the time, his wife Zhang Lianying was being held in a forced labour camp. She was a chartered accountant and a senior official previously employed by the Beijing Guangda Group Ltd. Since 1999 she has been arrested seven or eight times and was sent to forced labor camps on three occasions. At one time she went on a hunger strike for 80 days and on another occasion for over a year, to protest the persecution.

On June 14th, 2005 police arrested Zhang Lianying, disregarding the fact that she was still breast feeding her baby. She was severely persecuted for 10 months while in the Beijing Labour and Education Dispatch. Policewoman Zhang Dongmei instigated eight inmates to hit Zhang Lianying in turn with flyswatters for more than 10 hours every day, during which time she was not allowed to wash or go to the toilet. She had to pass urine and stools in her trousers. Even when she had her menstrual period, she was not allowed to go to the toilet. Ms. Zhang was deprived of sleep and was hung up with one end of a rope connected to her neck and the other end to a ceiling with the tip of her toes just touching the ground. Her body was twisted and tied to a stool for a long period of time on a long term basis. She was beaten continuously for 24 hours and her body was bruised all over. There were various cuts of three centimeters long on her head and face. Her eyes were bleeding, she lost her hearing, and her face became disfigured. People could hardly recognize her. She had difficulty walking and was listless. Her life was in danger.

Niu Jinping had been detained in a mental hospital and inhumanely tortured in a forced labour camp. He said to Mr. McMillan-Scott that during his detention in the prison, more than 30 Falun Gong practitioners he knew were tortured to death. After he met with Mr. McMillan-Scott, his whole family was put under surveillance for over a year. On April 20th, 2008, he and his wife were arrested again and were sentenced to two years of forced labour. Their four-year-old daughter had to be taken care of by his 78-year-old mother.

An American businessman who helped arrange the meeting between Cao Dong and Niu Jinping with Mr. McMillan-Scott was detained and interrogated by plainclothes police for 24 hours and then deported to the U.S.

Since the couple Cao Dong and Yang Xiaojing were married on November 12th, 2000, they were only together for nine days. For the rest of the time they were either in prison, in forced labour camps or visiting each other in detention.

Cao Dong's friend Yu Zhou was also a Falun Gong practitioner. He graduated from Beijing University. He and his friends started a folk band called "Xiaojuan and the Valley Residents" which was regarded as the top folk music band by the musical industry in 2007. Some of their original songs were broadcast to other Asian countries through Channel V. Yu Zhou's song "Love Maxim" was very popular in China. He was a gifted musician and was arrested on January 26th, 2008 for merely practising Falun Gong. He was persecuted to death on Chinese New Year Eve, February 6th, 2008.

When the news of his death reached the outside world, the communication of his wife and his family to the outside world was abruptly stopped.

His wife Xu Na was arrested at the same time. She was once sentenced to five years in prison for practising Falun Gong. This time she was not allowed to take care of the matter of her husband's death and was then sentenced to three years in prison.

This is only one aspect of the story. Further details will reveal that there are many more people and events related to this issue. Through just this one series of related stories, we can see a tragic, heart-breaking situation, and by exploring the situation further, we would see even more the extensive persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/9/4/207570.html