While practitioner Zhang Xiaoyun was preparing lunch at home on September 18, 1999, three policemen knocked on her door. The police demanded that she and her husband sign an affidavit that stated they would cease practicing Falun Gong. The police booked and detained Xiaoyun after she told them there was no way she would drop her practice. She was put in the local police station jail for the night. The next day she still refused to sign the statement. Xiaoyun was then transferred to the city police headquarters and remain in custody for 15 days. What was the charge? Disturbing public order.

Bystanders wondered, "How could a practitioner disturb order while cooking at home?"

After she was released in October 1999, the local Communist party commissioner and office manager met with her. They indicated to her that further practice of Falun Gong would result in expulsion from the Party. Xiaoyun solemnly stated that a Falun Dafa practitioner must constantly heed the principle of "Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance." He or she must be a good citizen, a model citizen. This was not in any conflict with the principles followed by a Party member. Yet, Xiaoyun was discharged from the Party in November that year.

On November 13, Xiaoyun was again taken into police custody.

They asked the same question, "Will you still practice Falun Gong?

She said, "Yes."

Once more, she was sent to the city police jail. She refused to sign the arrest charge slip and threatened to appeal to higher authorities. Faced with such illegal tactics, Xiaoyun had no choice but to go on a hunger strike at the jail. She was released after three days. While in jail she could hear the screaming of fellow practitioners being torture and force-fed (nasally) by police.

Like other Dafa practitioners living without any safeguard of personal freedom, Xiaoyun decided to petition her case all the way to Beijing. Even though petitioning is a fundamental right guaranteed by the constitution, in reality even it is stripped away from citizens. Public security guards have surrounded the Appeal and Petition Office, in order to block petitions by Dafa practitioners. Xiaoyun had no choice but to take her practice to the center of the capital city Tiananmen Square. She was arrested there and sent back to her hometown. The police put her through another 15-day detention. They went through the same process of asking her to sign the arrest charge docket. This time the case took a different turn. Another female practitioner died within two hours after being taken into police custody. Concerned about bad publicity the police required her to undergo a physical checkup. After finding her blood pressure much higher than normal, they released her after obtaining authorization from the police headquarters in the city. Police told her family to pick her up. Her workplace penalized and fined her 4,000 RMB dollars afterwards.

Xiaoyun has a son named Lin Nan. He also went to appeal in September 1999. He was arrested without even getting a chance to talk with officials at the Appeal and Petition Office. The public security people in Beijing also seized 1,300 RMB dollars from him. After he was sent back to his hometown his personal identification card was confiscated. He hasn't gotten it back to this day. He was put in jail for 15 days and charged with disturbing public order. His workplace also fined him 2,250 RMB dollars.

In October Lin Nan was arrested for the second time while working at his office. The charge again was disturbing public order. The police detained him for more than 20 days even after his mother repeatedly demanded his release.

The politically oriented persecution and suppression of Falun Gong has seriously undermined the image of the Chinese government. It also has disrupted social stability and development. To stop this mindless persecution against Falun Gong and restore the sacred stance of the constitution, Lin Nan went to Beijing to appeal for the second time on May 11 this year. The Public Security officers at the Appeal and Petition Office received him. After filling out the forms he was sent to the local government's branch office in Beijing. The security people arrested him for the third time and confiscated his money, which amounted to several hundred dollars. Charged for disturbing public order, he was detained for more than 20 days. Upon his release, his workplace fined him another 4,200 RMB dollars.

Just how long can this blatant violation of the law continue? On June 23, Lin Nan returned to Beijing, as he had so much to report to the government. When he arrived at the Appeal and Petition Office he found the door was closed and locked. He could sense that there was yet another invisible door behind the locked one. Facing the closed door, he changed his mind about the petition and returned home. On June 30 this year, he was taken into custody again by the police, charged with disturbing public order and put into the city jail. After more than a month of imprisonment he was finally sentenced to two years hard labor.

At the end of June, both Xiaoyun and her husband were summoned to the police station. The police, thinking nobody would be home, sent two officers to check her house. Unexpectedly Xiaoyun's daughter was in. One policeman kept talking with her in the living room while the other checked the rest of the house. Her daughter expressed strong resentment to the repetitive arrest and detention of her mom and brother.

On July 9, Xiaoyun's daughter called her friend (not a practitioner) in Beijing before her trip to the city. She told her friend about her itinerary. After arriving in Beijing the next day she went to tour the Forbidden City.

While having dinner that evening with her friend in a restaurant, three strangers came up to them and asked her, "Are you xxx from the city of xx?"

She was arrested on the spot. Later during interrogation, Xiaoyun's daughter found out one of the three strangers was a police officer from her hometown. The three had been trailing her all the way to Beijing. To her surprise many things mentioned by that officer were from personal conversations with her parents, never mentioned to anyone outside her family. She finally realized that her home had been bugged and was under surveillance by the police. She also recalled a curious incident back in early June. That day two practitioner friends visited her. The police were waiting for them downstairs and arrested them right then and there. The two practitioner friends were detained for 15 days and never found out why.

Bystanders wonder, "If one cannot even speak freely in one's own home, where can one find true refuge of one's human rights? Who is compassionate, and who is callous? Who is righteous and who is evil? Isn't it crystal clear?"

Practitioners in Mainland China

September, 2000