Ms. Xu Tongyan of Dingzhou City, Hebei Province, Arrested Twice Within One Month

(Clearwisdom.net) Xu Tongyan, a Falun Gong practitioner in Liqingu Town (of Dingzhou City, Hebei Province), has been arrested twice in one month. She is currently being held at a detention center in Dingzhou City.

On October 1, 2007, four individuals from Liqingu Town Government took officers from the Liqingu Town Police Station to ransack Ms. Xu's home. They forced her husband to open their locked cabinets and took two copy machines.

The police took Ms. Xu to the police station the next day. There they handcuffed her to a heating pipe for a day and a night without allowing her to sleep. Ms. Xu walked away during their lunch break. Personnel from the government and police station looked all over but could not find her. Then they ransacked her home again and took the TV set and DVD players.

Ten days later, the government officers and police still could not find her and seemed to fear that she had gone to Beijing. They talked to the Party secretary and head of the village committee and threatened to remove them from office. The secretary and head were forced to find her through their family relationships. They lied to her, saying, "Please come home. (We) have talked to the police (authorities) of the town, and everything is over." Ms. Xu thought they wouldn't deceive her since they were relatives. However, officers from the town police station and the Internal Security Team of Dingzhou City Police Department illegally arrested her again at 10:00 a.m. on October 24, as she was on her way home.

Ms. Xu wasn't allowed to wear the heavier clothes that her husband had left for her during the first arrest. After the second arrest, her family went to ask for the clothes. Police officers lied to them, saying that they had sent them to the detention center. Her family discovered two weeks later when they went to visit her that the clothes were still at the police station. Ms. Xu, almost 60 years old, was so cold from not having appropriate, warmer clothes that she was half numb.

According to sources, three practitioners from Liqingu Town were transferred from Dingzhou Detention Center to Shijiazhuang in December 2007. One was tortured to the point of losing consciousness on the way there, so they brought that practitioner back to the detention center. Further details are not known.

Ma Tiezhu, head of the Internal Security Team of the Dingzhou City Police Department: 86-13333127197 (Cell), 86-312-2339986

Kou Xijun, head of the Liqingu Town Police Station: 86-13582271198 (Cell), 86-312-2602213

Zhang Gengshen, head of Dingzhou City Detention Center: 86-13933201565 (Cell)

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