From late last December through mid January, some practitioners from Xiangtan city, Hunan province were illegally jailed in the Sanjiaoping Criminal Detention Center and the Jintangwan Detention Center of Public Security. The police took one female practitioner from her self-run shop in Yuetang district and illegally ransacked her house. Another female practitioner was also taken away by the security officers, when washing vegetables, near the entrance of her house. A family of five was illegally detained due to their determination in continuing to practice Falun Dafa. Among the five, was a pregnant woman and her husband's parents who were all jailed for over a month in the Jintangwan Detention Center. Another young practitioner was arrested, labeled as a "criminal" and is presently still being held in jail.

At the end of last year, two retired professors in Xiangtan University went to appeal in Beijing. The University security brought them back from Beijing and put them directly into the Jintangwan Detention Center. They arrested allegedly for "disturbing social order". Today, 20 days after their term expired, they are still being detained and there is no sign of their release. Plain-clothes police officers followed a practitioner that was over 60 years old and confiscated his truth revealing Falun Dafa material. In the face of those malicious police officers, this elderly practitioner wasn't afraid, he bravely tried to reason with them. Later, the police stole all of the truth revealing materials from his home and sentenced him to forced-labor education in a camp for one year. The General Secretary (of the XX Party branch) from Xiangtan University, was pressured by higher authorities to gather and monitor the steadfast practitioners in the "transformation class". The secretary was to not let them go home, but instead was to force them to write pledges and "confess their faults". A 50-year-old practitioner was suspected of intending to travel to Beijing, and therefore was repeatedly questioned for several days by the police and by the University Security in Xiangtan city. They handcuffed her to a chair in the security office for an entire night without heat on in the winter cold. Meanwhile they also illegally searched her home. Also, these wicked officers arrested her in public before sending her to jail and the university illegally, postponed her salary. One deputy president of the university spoke at the "transformation class": "If you oppose XX party, XX party's dictatorship will punish you ... Your pay cheques have been postponed and may soon be stopped all together." Those ruthless officers even captured a Dafa volunteer assistant while he was visiting his relatives in Shanghai city, they brought him back to Xiangtan city to serve a criminal detention.

Recently, in a female cell, all 12 feamle practitioners (except for one that wrote a guarantee letter), staged a hunger strike in order to protest the illegal detention. This has been happening for three days now.

Additionally, on Chinese New Years Eve, the Falun Dafa radio program was played outside of the Jintangwan Detention Center for one hour. Naturally, this made the practitioners inside very excited. The next day, the Falun Dafa slogan "The Fa Is Rectifying the Universe" was posted everywhere along the streets leading to the detention center.

Qi Hanqiu, the security director of Xiangtan University, came down with meningitis, causing him to die two months later. Last summer, it was this person that had led the vile interrogation of the eight practitioners who went to Beijing to appeal.

The responsible units and persons accountable for the above are:

Xiangtan Public Security Bureau

Yuetang branch of Xiangtan Public Security Bureau

Shuangma Town Police Station, Yuetang branch of Xiangtan Public Security Bureau

Tian Yinhua, deputy president of Xiangtan University (Tel: 86-732-8292277)

Liang Yibin, general secretary of Retirement Office, Xiangtan University (Tel: 86-732-8292767)

Fan Liangjia, deputy director of public security of Xiangtan University (Tel: 86-732-8292745)