Mr. Huo Jinping from Jiamusi City Arrested over 3 Months Ago; His Whereabouts Unknown

Mr. Huo Jinping from Jiamusi City was arrested by officers from the Jiamusi Police Department on March 14th, 2012. It has been more than 3 months since his arrest and his whereabouts are still unknown. According to sources, he was secretly transferred to an unknown location after he went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution.

Mr. Huo went to the home of another Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Guo Jingfen, on the evening of March 13th. Sources have indicated that officers from the Heilongjiang Province Police Department, Jiamusi Police Department and Domestic Security Division had monitored him for nearly a month prior his arrest. Police from Jiamusi used four vehicles to track him to Ms. Guo's residence in the Xiangyang District of Jiamusi. They surrounded Ms. Guo's house but didn't enter the premises until 3 a.m. on March 14th. Upon entry, they arrested Mr. Huo, Ms. Guo and her son and took them to the Xiangyang Police Station. They also confiscated the computer of Ms. Guo's son, who is a junior in high school.

When Mr. Huo's family members and five local Falun Gong practitioners went to the police bureau on April 5th, to inquire about Mr. Huo's whereabouts, they were arrested as well.

Those responsible for the arrests include Yang Bo from the Heilongjiang Province Police Department, Zhang Hongyu and Chen Wanyou from the Jiamusi Police Department, and Wang Lianmin, head of the Domestic Security Division. The Jiamusi Police Department finally released some of the practitioners held in custody 50 days later, but only after blackmailing them.

Among those arrested was Ms. Wang Yanxin, who had been honoured in the Sanjiang News newspaper as “pride of this land” for her contributions to the community. She was detained for 71 days, leaving her brother, Mr. Wang Yansui, who couldn't take care of himself due to an illness, by himself. During Ms. Wang's detention, her brother managed to visit her a few times, with the help of others. He also went to the Procuratorate to appeal for her release several times, but his request was denied each time. It wasn’t until his last moments of life, and under strong demands from the family, that Ms. Wang was finally released and able to visit her brother in the hospital. He was already in a coma when she arrived and soon passed away.