Wife Arrested after Husband Detained Twice in a Forced Labour Camp

Mr. Shen Lianghua and Ms. Zhao Yueyun, a married couple, have been persecuted by the Chinese Communist regime since the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong. Mr. Shen was sent to a labour camp twice and Ms. Zhao was forced to become homeless. When Ms. Zhao returned home in the summer of 2011 to harvest crops, officials from the Guan County Police Department arrested her.

The couple, in their 40s, is from Shenxiaotun Village, Sang'a Town, Guan County. Before learning Falun Gong, Mr. Shen used to get drunk often and caused lots of trouble. After starting to practise in February 1999, he began to control himself and lived according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Due to his improvement and hard work, he earned the respect of other villagers who mentioned that he was like a new person.

The couple did not give up their belief after the persecution began, and police officers from Guan County often went to their home and harassed them. When Mr. Shen was working in the fields on July 19th, 2001, officers from Baiji Town arrested him and took him to the local 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong).

Later that year, Mr. Shen went to Beijing to appeal and was brutally beaten at Tiananmen Square. Several police officers from Guan County (Wang Junchao, Wang Yong, and Chen Yuezhi) took him to the county liaison office in Beijing. Wang was angry and held Mr. Shen down on the floor and tortured him. Two detained female practitioners tried to stop him. As a result, Wang beat them, too.

Mr. Shen was taken to Wangcun Forced Labour Camp in February 2002. Because he refused to give up his belief, guards tortured him in many ways, including depriving him of sleep, and assigned inmates to watch him 24 hours a day. Whenever Mr. Shen closed his eyes, inmates used feathers on his eyelids or nostrils in order to harass him. This lasted more than a month, but Mr. Shen did not give in. Guards then put him in solitary confinement, removed his shoes, poured water on the floor, and shocked him with electric batons for a week. After failing to make him give in, the guards stretched his arms apart and handcuffed him to the top level of a bunk bed, a torture method known as “Shackled to a Cross.” This is a very brutal torture. When guards did this to regular inmates, no one could tolerate it longer than an hour.

Mr. Shen was released in September 2004.

On the night of February 25th, 2008, seven officers from the Guan County Police Department forced village officials to break into Mr. Shen’s home. They held him down on the floor and beat him brutally. One officer hit him hard with a torch and two of his front teeth fell out. They took him to a detention centre and then to Wangcun Forced Labour Camp without providing any evidence of a crime or notifying his family.

After Mr. Shen was sent to the labour camp, his wife, Ms. Zhao Yueyun, had to take care of the family and their two 10-year-old children by herself. But agents from the 610 Office continued to harass them. As a result, Ms. Zhao was forced to stay away from home.

When Mr. Shen’s forced labour term expired on May 28th, 2009, police officer Zhang Zebo from Sanga Town extended his term by one month. When Mr. Shen’s daughter came and requested his release, labour camp officials did not allow them to meet. His daughter then asked the officials to pass on some clothes to him, which she had brought, but she was told to mail them through the post office.

Ms. Zhao returned home on June 15th, 2011, to help with the harvest. Three plainclothes agents from the Domestic Security Division of Guan County arrived in a car without a licence plate and broke into the couple’s home. They confiscated two computers, one printer, and other personal belongings. Mr. Shen was harvesting wheat in the field and Ms. Zhao was at home alone. The agents arrested her and took her to the Liaocheng Detention Centre.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/7/1/43274.html