Officials from the Jilin City Department of Education and 610 Office Persecute Falun Gong Practitioners

In 2006, officials from the 610 office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) in Jilin City and the Jilin Department of Education send out a notice stating that teachers who are Falun Gong practitioners are not allowed to teach and work as lead teachers.

Ms. Li Liwen from Huanxi Village of Chuanying District in Jilin City was detained twice in 2000, because she firmly believed in Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She was once sentenced to three years in a forced labour camp. On July 19th, 2006, Gao, the Huanxi Central School principal, obeyed orders from the 610 Office and Education Department in Chuanying District, and tried to drag Ms. Li from the school to a brainwashing centre. Ms. Li resisted and was thus locked in the principal's office. The only choice she had was to leave the school. The day before final exams, Ms. Li was unable to go to work and her students were not able to find their lead teacher.

At the beginning of the new school year in August of that year, the local Education Department sent Ms. Li to a very poorly equipped elementary school in the most rural part of Huanxi Village. She was monitored by another teacher when she taught classes, and after a few days, the school's teachers protested against the monitoring, so it stopped. Later, a lead teacher was out on sick leave, and in order to help the school, Ms. Li volunteered to lead the class. She always followed the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and never accepted gifts from students nor money for tutoring them. She cared for her students down to the smallest details. She also used her own money every term to buy awards for her students. In her class was a motherless boy whose father had been injured during a fall. The father had to undergo a major operation and no one was available to care for the boy. The family was very poor, so Ms. Li took the boy to her home and cared for him. In that rural mountainous area, her class had the most students, but her students had the best grades. Everyone knew about Ms. Li, and she was well liked by the students and their parents.

Nevertheless, officials from the Chuanying District 610 Office of Jilin City still harassed Ms. Li. On September 16th, 2009, while she was in class, officials from the 610 Office, the Huanxi Village Police Station, and the Huanxi Village central government broke into the school with the intention of arresting Ms. Li. When they got there, however, they were blocked by students and their parents. Village officials threatened to fire Ms. Li if she refused to write a guarantee statement to renounce Falun Gong. The next day, officials from the Huanxi Village Police Station sent policemen to the school again, threatening to arrest her. School officials did not allow them to enter and the local 610 Office leader said that he would punish these school officials and would not allow Ms. Li to teach anymore. They transferred her to another school and no longer allowed her to be a substitute teacher. Ms. Li had to leave again, and her students lost their beloved teacher.

In addition, because of practising Falun Gong, elementary school teacher Ms. Zhuo Yuzhen, who taught at the Donghua Elementary School of Changyi District in Jilin City, was demoted and had to perform janitorial duties over these past few years. She has been treated like a labour camp prisoner instead of a teacher. On June 13th, 2005, Ms. Zhuo was put on suspension by school principal Li Tingsheng, and officials from the Changyi District 610 Office forced her to attend a brainwashing session. Li Tingsheng threatened Ms. Zhuo by saying, "Refusing to be 'transformed' [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] means giving up your job." Li Tingsheng had planned a three step process. The first step was to brainwash Ms. Zhuo. The second step was to forcibly "transform" her in isolation, and the third step meant that she was to be terminated from her job if she still had not been "transformed."

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/2/8/217766.html