Mr. Lu Lianglin from Chenzhou City Persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party

Name: Lu Lianglin
Gender: Male
Age: In his 50s
Address: Anren County, Chenzhou City, Hunan Province
Occupation: Worker

Date of Most Recent Arrest: February, 2004
Most recent place of detention: Xinkaipu Forced Labour Camp
City: Changsha
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Harassment, living under surveillance, interrogation, detention, forced labour, extortion, home ransacked, brainwashing, solitary confinement, sleep deprivation, forced feeding, torture

Mr. Lu Lianglin is a former employee of the Anping Rice manufacturer in Anren County, Chenzhou, Hunan. He recovered from incurable Hepatitis B after he started to practise Falun Gong.

After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong in July 1999, Mr. Lu was arrested many times. The following is an account of the persecution that Mr. Lu has suffered to date.

1. Appealing for Justice for Falun Gong

Chinese Central Television began to air the CCP’s slanderous propaganda defaming Falun Gong and its founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, around the clock after July 22nd, 1999. Mr. Lu Lianglin felt that he should explain the facts about Falun Gong to people, so on May 10th, 2000, he went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong.

Mr. Lu arrived at the Ministry office of Public Security at around 8:30 a.m. The guard at the front door asked him why he had come, and he answered that he came to appeal for Falun Gong. The guard led him into the reception room, where staff gave him a form that asked for his address, ID number, the issues he was appealing for, etc. Mr. Lu wrote down his ID number and address, but when he started to write about Falun Gong, the guard stopped him and said that it was useless to write about it.

The guard told Mr. Lu to remain sitting and not to leave. He sat there from 8:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Nobody answered any of his questions; instead, they just told him to stay there and not to leave. Two guards were on duty for each shift, and they watched him closely. Several shifts and guard changes passed during this period.

At 5:00 p.m., staff from the Chenzhou City Government Beijing Office came in a car, with the section chief of the Chenzhou Public Security Bureau among them. They took Mr. Lu to the Beijing Office. He was watched around the clock for three days, and was not allowed to walk around.

On the third day, officers from the Anren Public Security Bureau came and took Mr. Lu to the Anren Detention Centre. These officers included Chen Yunqing, previous head of Domestic Security Division of the Anren Public Security Bureau; Zhou Jianjun, previous director of Anping Police Station; Tan Chungou, political instructor; and a female criminal police officer.

Prior to their trip to Beijing to take Mr. Lu to the detention centre, Chen Yunqing, Zhou Jianjun, Tan Chungou, agents from the Anren 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) and personnel from the Anping town government went to Mr. Lu's home and extorted 8,000 yuan¹ from his wife under the premise of covering the cost of bringing Mr. Lu back. There was no paperwork or receipt given for the transaction.

After Mr. Lu had been held in the detention centre for one month, Chen Yunqing again extorted 3,000 yuan from Mr. Lu's family without giving a receipt. Mr. Lu was only released after Chen got the money.

2. Detained for Distributing Information about Falun Gong

Chen Yunqing went to Mr. Lu's workplace on July 20th, 2000, and asked whether Mr. Lu had given out informational materials about Falun Gong. He then took a blank detaining warrant from his briefcase, filled it out for a 15-day detention and took Mr. Lu to the Anren Detention Centre. Chen also ransacked Mr. Lu's home.

The next day, agents took another practitioner, Mr. Peng Anlin, to the same detention centre. They forced Mr. Lu and Mr. Peng to perform labour.

Chen Qiangwen, director of the Anren 610 Office; Li Yongcai, deputy political and legal secretary of the county committee who was in charge of persecuting Falun Gong; Tan Siwen, agent from the 610 Office; Chen Yunqing, agent from the 610 Office and head of Domestic Security Division; Ouyang De from the detention centre; and others subjected Mr. Lu, Mr. Peng and Ms. Chen Yanfang (another practitioner) to brainwashing and forced them to study articles that slandered Falun Gong and its founder. They also put Mr. Lu into solitary confinement.

Officials did not release Mr. Lu and Mr. Peng after their 15-day term and instead held them for another 15 days, after which they still would not release them. Mr. Lu and Mr. Peng then started a hunger strike to protest the unlawful detention. They were released on the sixth day of the hunger strike, as officials feared being held responsible for Mr. Lu's and Mr. Peng's deteriorating condition.

Between July 20th, 1999, and 2002, the Anren 610 Office, along with the Domestic Security Division and judicial branches subjected all Falun Gong practitioners from Anren County to two brainwashing sessions, one held in a conference room at Anren Vegetation Protection Company and another held at a conference room at the County Education Committee facility. Officials also ransacked practitioners' homes many times without any documentation. Additionally, CCP agents harassed, followed and monitored Falun Gong practitioners during the so-called sensitive dates.

Mr. Lu's home was ransacked at least five times during this period; no legal procedure was ever followed. Mr. Lu was also followed by officers and staff from the Domestic Security Division, 610 Office, Joint Prevention Team, Security Patrolling Team, and other CCP agencies. Some of the agents following him included Tan Chungou, previous political instructor of the police station; Kuang Siqing, head of the township Comprehensive Management Office; Li Renkai, Town Political and Legislative Committee deputy director; and Peng Guangzhu, cadre from Anping Residential Committee.

3. Persecuted for Posting the Facts about Falun Gong

Mr. Lu pasted over 20 posters about Falun Gong on poles in several villages in Anping Township and Pailou Township. A villager in Pailou Township reported him, and agents from the Anren 610 Office and the Domestic Security Division arrested him. Mr. Lu was taken to the Anren Detention Centre, where he was forced to do labour, stringing together plastic beads. After detaining him for approximately seven months, they still had not released him.

While Mr. Lu was in detention for over seven months, his family also suffered from the stress of the persecution. His mother suddenly lost her vision; his son, who was attending high school, fell ill due to worry about his father; and his wife was under tremendous pressure mentally and financially.

Chen Yunqing from the Public Security Bureau told Mr. Lu's wife that if she paid 7,000 yuan, they would not send Mr. Lu to a forced labour camp and would release him immediately. Mr. Lu's wife didn't have such money, as CCP agents had already extorted money from her many times previously. Mr. Lu was not released and Public Security Bureau authorities extended his term of forced labour in the Anren Detention Centre for another year.

4. Repeatedly Persecuted for Spiritual Belief

On an evening of December 2003, many Falun Gong flyers were distributed in Anping Farmers' Market. Agents from the Anren 610 Office, along with officers from the Domestic Security Division, went to Anping the next day to investigate. They believed that Mr. Lu had done it and deployed staff from Anping town government, headed by former Anping Town Political and Legislative Committee deputy secretary, to follow Mr. Lu around the clock. They surrounded Mr. Lu's home and took turns watching him 24 hours a day. On the fourth day, agents and officers from the 610 Office, Domestic Security Division, police station and town government arrested Mr. Lu and took him to the Public Security Bureau.

Officers participating in this arrest included Chen Yunqing, Anping Police Station director Hou Zijian, Chen Angen, Domestic Security Division deputy director Zhang Waifeng, and others. They pushed Mr. Lu into a car and took him to the Lingguan Police Station in Anren, where they forcefully squeezed Mr. Lu's head and hands before handcuffing him. They then drove to the Public Security Bureau and pushed Mr. Lu into the interrogation room, where they put shackles on his feet. No officer presented any documentation throughout the whole process leading up to and including interrogation.

Mr. Lu's mother and young sister went to the Public Security Bureau the same afternoon. They found Chen Yunqing and demanded him to release Mr. Lu, who had not done anything illegal. When Mr. Lu's mother saw her son wearing handcuffs and shackles, she was very worried for him and scolded Chen Yunqing for persecuting her son. Chen became very angry; he pinched her neck and pressed her so hard against a wall that her face turned blue and she could not breathe. Other officers then came over and stopped Chen from further abuse. Chen handcuffed Mr. Lu to a window that night and would not allow him to sleep.

The next morning, Chen Yunqing and former Anren Public Security Bureau director Deng Guangtan interrogated Mr. Lu in turn. When they did not get any information, they ordered Mr. Lu to write something and then had his handwriting examined in Chenzhu. The result brought back in the afternoon verified that Mr. Lu did not write the Falun Gong materials that had been distributed in the farmers' market, and he was then released.

5. Sentenced to Forced Labour

Agents from the Public Security Bureau and the 610 Office ransacked Mr. Lu's home in February 2004 and confiscated nearly a dozen Falun Gong books and materials reporting the facts about Falun Gong. They took Mr. Lu to a detention centre, where he started a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Detention centre director Liu Yuhu, deputy director Hou Nengsheng, Long Qingsheng and a political instructor tied Mr. Lu against wooden stairs and attempted to force-feed him.

Mr. Lu was sentenced to a year and six months of forced labour. After being held in the detention centre for three months, he was taken to the Xinkaipu Forced Labour Camp in Changsha. He was released upon completion of the term.

When the Beijing Olympics were approaching in 2008, Anren County, per orders from higher CCP leaders, formed a special agency to further persecute Falun Gong practitioners under the pretence of maintaining social stability. Agents from the 610 Office, the Domestic Security Division and other government entities repeatedly visited, harassed and interrogated practitioners. The agents took photos of practitioners and attempted to force them to sign incriminating statements or guarantee statements promising to give up practising Falun Gong. Mr. Lu was listening to his MP3 player in his own shop when agents from the 610 Office, Public Security Bureau and Domestic Security Division came to interrogate him and confiscate his MP3 player.

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/2011/7/14/243906.html