Mr. Wu Zhiqian Arrested Again for His Belief

Mr. Wu Zhiqian, a Falun Gong practitioner from Wuhan City in Hubei Province, was arrested in the area of Baofeng Street, Qiaokou District in Wuhan as he was returning home from work at around 5 p.m. on May 10th, 2012. His mother, a seventy-year-old retired teacher, is extremely worried about his safety. She can't walk by herself and relies on her son and daughter-in-law to take care of her.

Mr. Wu was born in 1964 and lives at Youyixi Village in Qiaokou. He was a worker for the Mengde Company in Wuhan, but lost his job after the company went bankrupt. He benefited both physically and mentally after starting to practise Falun Gong in 1994. After the persecution of Falun Gong began, Mr. Wu and his family have been persecuted several times for their belief. Some of his experiences are listed below.

Systematically persecuted in a forced labour camp, prison and brainwashing centre

Mr. Wu was arrested while handing out materials exposing the persecution of Falun Gong in the Hanyang District on February 4th, 2003, and was sentenced to 15 months in a forced labour camp. When his sentence was close to ending, he was arrested again on March 5th, 2004 in the labour camp. Officials from Hanyang District Court sentenced him of three and a half years in prison on March 31st. Mr. Wu's family were not informed of the trial date. He was then taken to Qinduankou Prison in Hanyang to serve his sentence. At the end of his prison term, on August 3rd, 2006, he was transferred to a brainwashing centre in the Jianghan District for further persecution.

In the prison, Mr. Wu were severely beaten many times. On August 8th, 2004, he refused to comply with an order given by guard Liu Wesheng. As a result, another guard, Hu Yilai, started to kick Mr. Wu's leg and told him to follow the order. Mr. Wu said, “No!” Guard Hu became irritated and kept kicking him. Several other Falun Gong practitioners then told Hu to stop the violence immediately. Mr. Wu also shouted, “Falun Gong is good!” At that moment Hu stopped kicking him. Then, guard Liu Wensheng told Mr. Wu to “admit his mistake,” but he refused to do it. Liu summoned more guards and took him to the strict monitoring team of the prison. Mr. Wu was denied visitation rights for the three-month period that he was there.

In July 2006, 22 practitioners wrote a letter to the prison guards, to tell them that they must treat Falun Gong practitioners with respect and asked them to resign from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Mr. Wu then handed the letter to the guards. As a result, the guards started another round of persecution. Mr. Wu was transferred to the 12th Division several days later.

Mr. Wu's mother went to Qinduankou Prison on every family visitation day for three years in an attempt to see her son. She arrived at the prison in the early morning and ask to meet with her son, but was refused every time. Also, when she appealed to the local authorities for help, she never got a reply.

On August 3rd, 2006, Mr. Wu's mother arrived at the prison in the early morning to pick up her son, but was told that he had already left with the head of the local 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) Xie Guanchang and others, and he had been taken to a brainwashing center. When Mr. Wu's mother was able to find Xie, she demanded that he release her son. Xie told her that he was just following orders, and had been informed by the provincial government that if a Falun Gong practitioner did not renounce their belief within their detention period, they must be directly taken to a brainwashing centre. When she asked him where the brainwashing centre was, he told her to go to the provincial government and ask them.

Every day, Mr. Wu's mother tried to find out where her son was. She went to the provincial 610 Office, the district 610 Office, the Street and Neighbourhood Committee, the provincial brainwashing centre, the city's brainwashing centre, and the district's brainwashing centre. Finally, she arrived at Erdaopeng Brainwashing Centre in the Jianghan District. A worker there told her that Mr. Wu was inside and accepted the clothes that she had brought for her son. However, she has still not been allowed to meet with him.