Mr. Gao Yuguang from Shenma Corporation in Henan Province Persecuted

Name: Gao Yuguang
Gender: Male
Age: 38
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 23rd, 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: No.1 Detention Centre in Pingdingshan City
City: Pingdingshan
Province: Henan
Persecution Suffered: Detention, home ransacked, extortion, re-education (brainwashing) through labour, fired from workplace

Mr. Gao Yuguang was arrested again on July 23rd, 2008 and officials from the Ministry of National Security charged him with distributing emails with Falun Gong contents on the Internet. Police officers from the Weidong District Police Department in Pingdingshan City, Henan Province arrested him. On January 16th, 2009, he was tried at the Zhanhe District Courthouse in Pingdingshan City but was not allowed to have any lawyers present to appeal for him nor were any visitors allowed in the courtroom. Currently, the whereabouts of Mr. Gao Yuguang are unknown.

Arrested Before the Beijing Summer Olympic Games

Before the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games, the communist regime strengthened its persecution of Falun Gong practitioners with the excuse of "safeguarding the Olympic Games." The police and government officials of Pingdingshan City, including the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), the police department and its branches, and all police stations, closely followed orders from higher authorities, and applied special efforts to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. They also followed practitioners, searched their homes, tapped into their phones, monitored their activities on the Internet, sent them to forced labour camps, sentenced them to jail, and much more.

Just before the Olympic Games, when Mr. Gao Yuguang was on the Internet at home, more than 20 police officers and Internet police officers from the Pingdingshan Police Department, the Weidong District Police Department, and the Henan Province Police Department broke into his home. His computer and three Falun Gong books were confiscated and he was taken to the No.1 Detention Centre of Pingdingshan City.

When his family members came to visit him at the detention centre, they were told to pay 500 yuan¹ per month; otherwise, he would have to work at the detention centre and be beaten. They refused to comply. Later, his family managed to find out that Gao Yuguang was very weak but had not received any medical treatment. Four days after his arrest, Gao's father passed away; he could not bear the pain of being separated from his son.

Why Gao Yuguang Practised Falun Gong

Mr. Gao Yuguang, 38, is a former employee of the Shenma Corporation in Pingdingshan City. Before he started to practise Falun Gong, he had a bad temper and was often in a terrible mood. He had been diagnosed with depression when he was very young. He used to be depressed all day long, refused to be among people, and was also scared being in a crowd. Mr. Gao could not even bear the sound of fireworks, and was always negative toward everything in his daily life. For years, no one was able to help or find a solution for his disease.

In 1998, he started to practise Falun Gong. The universal principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance helped him to understand the meaning of life. His symptoms dramatically disappeared and he did not need any expensive medical treatments. He simply followed the principles of Falun Gong, to be a good person and to cultivate oneself toward higher levels.

Arrested Four Times for His Belief

When the communist regime started to persecute Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, Mr. Gao Yuguang was very confused. Due to the persecution policy of "destroy them physically; defame their reputation and bankrupt them financially," police officer Han Haishen from the Weidong District Police Department threatened Mr. Gao. Under the constant pressure from the officials in his work place--Shenma Corporation--as well as the above incident, Mr. Gao wrote a statement that he would not practise any more. However, he quickly realised that it was not wrong to be a good person and it was necessary to let people know how the regime had framed Falun Gong.

In 2001, Gao Yuguang publicly posted a statement explaining why he wrote a repentance statement and claimed that it was null and void. He was reported to the police by security guards of the company in November and was immediately subjected to six months of forced labour.

The party committee members in the Shenma Corporation had been closely following the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Every year, they held several conferences to advocate the upper authorities' policies toward Falun Gong, to arouse hatred toward Falun Gong, and to take certain measurements. They investigated the employees who practised Falun Gong and arranged for people to monitor them all day long. They also provided a "black list" to the local police.

On April 29th, 2002, the police from the Weidong District Police Department searched Mr. Gao's home and arrested him with the excuse that they had found two Falun Gong books. He was released on May 23rd, 2002 and his workplace fired him on October 17th, 2002.

In 2003, when Mr. Gao distributed fliers about the persecution of Falun Gong in the No.16 middle and high schools of Jiandong District, he was reported to the police by a teacher and was once again arrested. Later, he was sentenced to three years in jail at the Zhenhe District Court and then taken to Zhenzhou Prison.

On July 23rd, 2008, Gao Yuguang was arrested again by police officers in Weidong District. His family members were implicated as well. His mother was very worried about her son.

Note

1. "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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/12/10/214166.html