[Changchun City, Jilin Province] Practitioner Wang Yan dies in the hands of Beijing police
Changchun practitioner Wang Yan went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong shortly before the Chinese New Year (January 24th). While in Beijing, he was arrested and died while in police custody. His family suspects that he was beaten to death, and we are asking international human rights organizations to investigate the circumstances around his death and give justice to the dead.
[Beijing] Plainclothes agents secretly follow out-of-town practitioners and arrest them once they return home from Beijing
A few practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong right before January 1st of 2001. After they were arrested in Beijing, they refused to tell the police their names and addresses, even after suffering a great deal of abuse. In the end, the police simply released them, so they went back home. They were surprised when they found the local police waiting outside of their homes to arrest them. Furthermore, the local police had already known everything they did in Beijing. In a separate incident, the local police secretly followed a practitioner around after he got back from Beijing. They found out where he went and whom he made contact with. The police then went in and arrested him along with all the practitioners that he had contacted, which caused substantial damage to the local Dafa activities.
Afterwards we figured out how this happened. After the practitioners were released, they let their guards down and felt that they were safe. In reality, the Beijing plainclothes agents had secretly followed them to the train station and found out where the practitioners came from when they bought the return tickets. These agents then simply notified the railroad police on the train, who then notified the local police shortly before the train was about to arrive. Once they got off the train, the local police would start to secretly follow them around and find out exactly where they were going.
[Mainland] Many police cars are equipped with listening devices
The local authorities in a number of places in Mainland China have begun to question all known Falun Gong practitioners and force them to talk about their opinions on the "Self-Immolation" episode on Tiananmen Square. The Mainland practitioners are asked to note that many police cars are equipped with listening devices, which can record conversations taking place within a distance of 100 meters (or 330 ft).
[Beijing] A correction on the whereabouts of those injured from the "self-immolation" episode
With the exception of Wang Jindong (who has been moved to the Beijing Police Hospital), all the people who were injured in the "self-immolation" episode were placed in isolation and allowed no contact with the outside world. Even their families have not been allowed to see them.
[Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province] The authorities persecute practitioner Dang Lanfeng and her daughter
The Shijiazhuang authorities continue to persecute practitioner Dang Lanfeng (on January 8th, the Minghui net published a personal statement from her nullifying her previous pledges promising to give up Falun Gong). She was forced to flee from her home before the Chinese New Year (January 24th), and her whereabouts are unknown at this time. The police then took her daughter Wang Hua (a 24-years-old practitioner who graduated from the Chinese Medicine Department of the Hebei Chinese Medicine College in 1999) from her home on January 27th for no apparent reason. She was sent to the Qiaodong Detention Center for "forced transformation" and remains in the police custody as of February 6th. The authorities are supposedly planning to take further action against her, and her life is in danger. We urgently ask kind-hearted people to please help her!
[Lanzhou City, Shanxi Province] The Lanzhou authorities persecute Falun Gong practitioners
Right around January 1st of 2001, a large group of Lanzhou practitioner went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. Practitioner Wu Yinhua, Duan Xiaoliang, Wang Mei, Ren Canru, Ou Yan, among others, are being detained at one of the three Lanzhou detention centers (the Xiguoyuan Detention Center, the Taoshuping Detention Center, and the Dashaping Detention Center). They have received official notifications of their sentencing to labor camps. Fu Yanbiao, Li Yuanqing, Wang Shukun and many others practitioners were also arrested in Beijing. The local police recognized practitioner He Yingguo, his wife, and their 2-months-old baby while they were onboard a train to Beijing and found 27 Falun Gong banners in their luggage. Han Ming, the head of the Anning Political Security Squadron, then arrested He Yingguo and sent him to the Xiguoyuan Detention Center. Jing Dong, a professor at the Lanzhou Railroad College, his wife and their child were arrested at a Beijing hotel. They were first held at a police station in Lanzhou and then moved to an unknown location on January 18th.
The Beijing police used an electronic baton to hit the waist of another female practitioner, who is in her 60's, while she was holding an appeal for Falun Gong on Tiananmen Square. As a result, she still can't walk on her own to this day. Practitioner Zheng Fengru is being detained at a drug-rehab center for refusing to report to the security department of her employer everyday to "study" material attacking Falun Gong. More other 30 other practitioners are being detained at the same drug-rehab center.
At around 10 PM on January 18th, 2001, the police arrested practitioners Liu Zhu and Shao Saiyue, among others, and detained them at the local police stations. The practitioners were told that if they did not write pledges promising to give up Falun Gong, they would be held them indefinitely. Shao Saiyue and other practitioners held hunger strikes to protest their illegal detention. Four days later, the police placed IV's on them to sustain them and then moved them to the Qiguoyuan Detention Center.
The Chinese constitution states that the personal freedom of a Chinese citizen is strictly protected, and an arrest should only take place after the local courts have approved it. It is against the law to detain or use any other methods to take away the personal freedom of a citizen without cause, and it is illegal to conduct a body search without a search warrant. The Lanzhou law enforcement officials have knowingly violated numerous Chinese laws in their efforts to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. We demand that the authorities stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners and violating our most basic human rights!
[Lanzhou City, Shanxi Province] The Lanzhou authorities step up persecution on Falun Gong practitioners
Before the Chinese New Year, all the local detention centers received orders from their superiors, which ordering them to stop allowing the families of Falun Gong practitioners being detained at the detention centers to bring any clothes, food or any personal items to them. The orders understandably angered the families of these practitioners. While the innocent practitioners are not allowed to get even letters from their loved ones, all the criminals being held at the detention centers, including murders and drug dealers, are still allowed to receive things from their families. People can't help but ask Jiang Zemin and his followers, "What are you afraid of?"
[Dalian City, Liaoning Province] Please help Dalian practitioner Sun Xiujun
The Dalian City Development Zone police arrested practitioner Sun Xiujun (male, 31) without cause on November 2nd, 2000. He was held at the Development Zone 3rd Police Station Prison until the end of January 2001. The police then sent him to the labor camps (the term of his sentence, the name of the labor camp where he is being held, and the reason for his sentence are not known at this time). His wife is also a Falun Gong practitioner. She has been forced to flee from their home and now lives on the streets. We are asking the people who know what happened to Sun Xiujun and the kind-hearted people everywhere to please help him and his family!
[Shenyang City, Liaoning Province] Shenyang labor camp openly blackmails the families of Falun Gong practitioners
The Longshan Labor Camp in the city of Shenyang has a rule: the families of the Falun Gong practitioner who are being held at the labor camp have to pay 500 Yuan (half a month of an average salary) if they want to see their loved ones. The fee is charge for every visit, with a maximum of 4 visits or 2000 Yuan per month. The families of many practitioners are poor, and the astronomical charges bring a tremendous amount of hardship to them. Even though the charges are classified as "living expenses" for the practitioners, most of the money ends up in the pockets of the guards at the labor camp. One guard openly said, "I really like the way things are. We should lock up more and more Falun Gong practitioners. This way, we not only get to keep our jobs, but we also make more money than we did before."
[Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province] Scenes from a Shijiazhuang labor camp during a scheduled visitation day
According to the official rules, the families of those who are being held at the Shijiazhuang labor camps are allowed to visit them once at the end of every month. Monday January 29th, 2001 was such an official visitation day. Shortly after 8 AM, the families of many Falun Gong practitioners began to gather at the front gate of the Shijiazhuang 4th Female Labor Camp, and they were understandably eager to see their loved ones on the sixth day of the Chinese New Year celebration. Many of them came from distant cities such as Hengshui and Handan, or remote suburbs of Shijiazhuang. They traveled throughout the night riding trains, taxis or even bicycles hoping to see their loved ones the first thing in the morning.
A teenage boy brought a huge bag of food with him hoping to share the holiday celebration with his mother. Holding a small baby in her arms, a young woman stood outside in the freezing cold, hoping to show the baby to her 60-something mother, whom she had not seen for more than six months. A family member of a Handan practitioner begged a female captain with the surname of Fu, "Please let us see our loved ones. We left home shortly after midnight and traveled all night to get here!" Fu rudely responded, "We have decided to cancel the visitation day! Why are you still here? I cannot allow you to visit just because you traveled all the way from Handan. Get out of here! Do not gather here! I am following the orders of my superiors!"
Jiang Zemin claims that right now "the human rights in China are at the very best", yet the rights of citizens to visit their loved ones were taken away so trivially. Just because Jiang Zemin decided to suppress Falun Gong, so many practitioners have been sent to the labor camps for "transformation," and so many families have been broken into pieces. A family member of a practitioner who has not seen her for six months said, "Where is the law that says a person is a criminal and should be sent to the labor camps for simply holding certain poses? How could Jiang Zemin be given the power to determine the lives of so many people in a country as big as China? Can he take all the responsibilities that come along with his dictatorship?"
[Shandong Province] An individual who had been viciously persecuting Falun Gong practitioners dies suddenly
A certain large government-owned company in Shandong is notorious for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. In order to prevent practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong during the Chinese New Year, the company assigned people to watch and follow practitioners around at all times. On the Chinese New Year Eve (January 23rd) around 3 PM, a practitioner left his home. Mr. Huang, the person assigned to watch the practitioner at the time, took a couple of quick steps to catch up with the practitioner and suddenly dropped dead. Huang had always been very healthy, and his death took everyone by surprise. His family demanded that the company compensate them for his death. After "negotiating" back and forth for 10 days, the company finally settled the matter by paying them close to three hundred thousand Yuan (30 years of an average salary). After the payment was made, his family finally allowed to let his body be cremated. His death caused quite a stir among the local people.