Persecution of Practitioners in Leiyang City, Hunan Province

By Practitioners in Leiyang City, China

(Clearwisdom.net) We are practitioners in Leiyang City, Hunan Province. On April 8, 2000, we were illegally arrested because we went to Beijing to appeal for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong. Since then we have been treated unjustly with imprisonment and beatings. We were illegally put in jail by Leiyang City Police from April 10 to 15. Then we were fined individually, ranging from 4800 to 7000 Yuan (a typical Chinese monthly salary is 500 Yuan). Subsequently, the practitioners who were government officials were removed from their positions. As citizens, we were deprived of our freedom of belief and the freedom to appeal that the Chinese constitution has granted us.

From May to August 2000, many practitioners were illegally detained for going to Beijing to appeal. They held hunger strikes to protest against their unlawful incarceration by police, and as a result they were tortured with incredible cruelty. The inmates in the labor camp where they stayed were ordered to forcibly infuse highly concentrated salt water into them. The inmates would pin practitioners to the ground with their feet and force the feeding tubes in through their nostrils. Some practitioners almost died as a result. In August 2000, the city's "610 Office"(a bureau, specifically created by Jiang Zemin to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party, as well as over the political and judiciary branches) held brainwashing classes. The practitioners' work units were asked to send some people to the classes to supervise them. The supervision was especially tough for practitioners who had previously been to Beijing to appeal--they were followed everywhere. They forced each practitioner to declare if he or she would continue to practice. If their answer was "yes," the practitioner would be handcuffed on the spot and sent to jail. All that was required was a verbal order from the city's political secretary; there was no due process whatsoever. Three practitioners were jailed this way. They were not released until 22 days later, only after their families had spent tremendous efforts to rescue them.

"Punches and kicks do little to change people's hearts" ("The Chill of Autumn's Winds"). In late December 2000, despite the fact that their human rights had been violated and that they had been ill-treated, practitioners continued to approach the matter from the positive side. They continued to go to Beijing to appeal and hoped to find a government office that was willing to listen. But they were only met with increasing violence. Even practitioners who were not directly participating at the time, such as an old man who stayed home to prepare for the new years celebration and a practitioner who wasn't home just because she went out of her house on an emergency errand, were ensnared into the police station for questioning and then detained for three to five months. The police also put out all-points bulletins to capture the practitioners who had been forced to leave their homes to avoid further persecution. All practitioners who went to Beijing to appeal were fined 10,000 Yuan. Those who appealed multiple times were sentenced to 1-2 years in a labor camp.

The following are some examples of how practitioners' were illegally detained:

1. Practitioner Ouyang Cuilan, female, 58. She was fined 1000 Yuan and forced to sign a document promising to give up practicing Falun Gong. She was accused of trying to uphold Falun Gong because she had written a letter to the city's political chief to share her practice experiences. In August 2000, she was forced to attend a brainwashing class. When they tried to brainwash her, she insisted that she would continue with her practice. Because of this she was sent to jail for 22 days. In September 2000, someone reported her to police when she was distributing materials that explained the truth about Falun Dafa, and they arrested her and sentenced her to Zhuzhou Baimalong Female Labor Camp for one-and-a-half years. When she was being transferred to the labor camp, they found that she had hypertension and sent her back to Leiyang Jail. In February 2001, the police extorted 3000 Yuan from her family as a condition for her release. But she was arrested again only eight days later because she went out to get a haircut and do shopping for the New Year's Day celebrations without reporting to a parole officer (she was not aware that there was a parole officer). She was accused of trying to go to the capital to appeal again and was detained until June 2001.

2. Practitioner Lian Fengying, female, 74. At the end of 2000, she was preparing for the coming New Year's Festival. For no apparent reason other than that she is a Dafa practitioner, she was summoned to the police station for questioning and then put in jail for five months.

3. Practitioners Luo Xumeng and Duan Xiying, husband and wife, were both more than 60 years old. They were illegally arrested on New Year's Eve 2000. The wife was jailed for four months, and the husband was sent to a labor camp for one year.

4. Practitioner Liang Suxian, female. In late December 2000, she was lured to a police station for questioning and was arrested. In detention, they found that she was two months pregnant. But the police still jailed her for 81 days because she had gone to Beijing to appeal in April. They also forced her to sign a document declaring that she would give up the practice before they would release her.

5. Practitioner Zi Ying, female, 57. She was lured to a police station for questioning on New Year's Eve 2000 and was then jailed for four months.

6. Practitioner Chen Manying, female, 42. She was lured to the police station for questioning on New Year's Eve 2000 and was then jailed for four months.

There are many practitioners with similar experiences whose names we do not know. Most practitioners have experienced cruel or unjust treatment of one kind or another. All their sufferings will become testaments of history in the future.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2002/7/29/34004.html

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