(Clearwisdom.net) Eleven Falun Gong practitioners in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, were taken away from their homes and workplaces on the morning of April 20, 2011. All of the illegal arrests were carried out covertly, and all of the victims’ homes were ransacked.
The practitioners’ families went to the Wuhan City Police Department Domestic Security Division (a.k.a. Division One), which is in charge of persecuting Falun Gong. They inquired about their loved ones’ whereabouts and were told to wait 24 hours for a formal notice.
The next day, they were told to wait for three more days. Many days passed and there was still no word on where these practitioners were being held or why they were arrested in the first place. The only thing the families knew was that the raid was said to be related to the early April visit to Wuhan by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) Political and Legal Committee Secretary Zhou Yongkang.
Even before the regime openly launched its persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, Division One had been stealthily collecting “intelligence” to discredit the practice.
As early as 1996, they confiscated many Falun Gong publications and imposed fines on the publishers. They also shadowed and tapped phones of practitioners, and even had agents pretend to be practitioners to gather information.
Division One became a primary weapon in the persecution of Falun Gong after 1999. Many local practitioners who received heavy sentences had been arrested by the Division One agents. These agents don't wear uniforms or produce legal documents when making arrests. They usually launch a sudden raid, and the families of the victims are often kept in the dark long after the arrests.
One of the 11 arrested practitioners, Mr. Feng Zhen from Wuchang District, once served seven years in prison for his belief in Falun Gong. His April arrest was his sixth carried out by Division One. Mr. Xia Yang from Qingshan District, another of the arrested practitioners, had been previously arrested by Division One in 2009, when he and 26 fellow practitioners had gone to attend the trial of fellow practitioner Chen Man in the Hongshan District Court.
Intelligence Agency or Organized Crime Outfit?
Division One used to be called the “Political Security Division” and later changed to “Domestic Security Division.” Division One has long been a linchpin in implementing the regime’s numerous political movements against various segments of Chinese society. It spares no efforts in persecuting Falun Gong. It has a well-established system to shadow, tap phones, arrest, ransack homes and torture to extract “confessions” from practitioners. It also fabricates “evidence” to justify their sentencing Some of its agents took part in the production of videos slandering Falun Gong and its founder. In truth, it seems they are more like mobsters than officers of the law.
Shadowing, Abducting and Interrogating Falun Gong Practitioners with Torture
The following are examples of the methods used by Division One.
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Numerous agents from Division One arrived at Ms. Wu Keyan’s home on January 11, 2004. They searched her residence for two hours, from 9 to 11 that night, turning everything upside down and taking pictures. They told her, “We’ve been following you for three months.”
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Mr. Min Changchun is a graduate of Wuhan University of Hydraulic and Electrical Engineering. While he was walking out of a residential complex on July 17, 2002, two people approached him and slammed him down to the sidewalk. Five or six more people then beat him savagely and stomped on his head. This incident left severe scrapes and bruises on his hands, elbows, knees, feet and face. He had black-and-blue bruises everywhere, and his arms were badly sprained. His wounds didn’t heal even after several months; some marks were still visible several years later. It was later learned that the perpetrators were Huang Haiji, Zhang Ning, Liu Hua, Kang Bao and a few others from section one of Division One.
These agents then handcuffed Mr. Min and drove him to a nearby police station, where police chief Qiu Hanhua covered Mr. Min's head before taking him to the Police Department's “Key Cases Interrogation Chamber,” located in Gusaoshu of the Jianghan District. Qiu cuffed him with two sets of handcuffs to a specially designed steel pipe and stripped him down to his underwear. Mr. Min was forced to sit on a cement stump and was deprived of sleep for several days. Several officers took turns interrogating him. Led by team head Dai Zhongwei, a group of agents beat him with iron pipes. Huang Haiji also poured boiling water on his legs. Not long afterward, Mr. Min was sentenced to four years of forced labor. While imprisoned, he was beaten to near death by a group of criminal inmates.
Mr. Min was riding his electric bike on August 22, 2007, when a white sedan suddenly drove toward him and knocked him down. Several people jumped out of the car and physically assaulted him. They took away all his personal belongings, including his backpack, cell phone, bank card, e-reader and a laser distance meter used for his work. They abandoned his bike and took him to the Wuhan City Police Department, where they were identified as Division One agents.
Extorting Money from Practitioners and Their Families
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Eight plainclothes police officers from Division One, Qiaokou Police Office and Hanzhong Street Police Station broke into Ms. Jiang’s home (located on Hanzheng Street) on October 26, 2006. She was not in, but the officers arrested her family member, Hu Guoping, and confiscated her 160,000-yuan car and other property valued at more than 20,000 yuan.
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Mr. Peng Weidong is an employee of the Wuhan Tobacco Factory. Because he practices Falun Gong, the local police have been withholding his ID for years. He had to use his co-worker Mr. Hua’s ID to open a bank account in order to deposit his salary of 23,000 yuan. After making a withdrawal of 10,000 yuan in March 2001, he gave his bank deposit book to Mr. Hua for safekeeping. Several days later he was arrested by Division One agents. The police broke into his residence in the middle of the night and confiscated the 10,000 yuan and other property. They then went to the factory and forced Mr. Hua to surrender Mr. Peng’s deposit book and pass code.
Mr. Peng's and his family's numerous appeals for the return of their possessions in 2003 were ignored. After Mr. Peng filed a complaint with the Wuhan City Police Department’s Appeals Office in June 2005, Division One fabricated a 40-page-long document against him and produced backdated search warrant and property confiscation list. They even falsified a list of witnesses that never existed.
In July 2005, Mr. Peng reported his plight to a senior police official, who then ordered the Disciplinary Committee to conduct an investigation. The Committee delegated the case back to Division One.
It has become commonplace for the local police to loot cash, deposit books, computers, printers, copiers, jewelry and cars from practitioners’ homes. Most arrested practitioners had to pay a lump sum ranging from 5,000 to tens of thousands of yuan at the conclusion of their prison terms.
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Team Two head Xu Shengquan of Division One falsely alleged on TV and other media outlets that the founder of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi, collected money from practitioners. According to online news, Xu Shengquan was in charge of the investigation of Falun Gong books before the CCP began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999. China Broadcasting Publishing House held the initial book contract and knew that Zhuan Falun sold very well. As a result, they kept publishing the book covertly, even after the CCP had banned its publication. Xu Shengquan was aware of the publishing house’s operation and the extra revenue generated from the book sales, yet he intentionally covered it up and claimed that the founder of Falun Gong collected all the royalties.
Fabricating “Evidence”
Since the very beginning, Division One has been fabricating evidence for the local courts and the Procuratorate to use against Falun Gong practitioners.
Ms. Chen Man is a practitioner from Wuchang District. Division One agents arrested her on February 10, 2008, on charges that she was organizing Falun Gong activities through holding an English class for practitioners' children. Her mother said: “My daughter was missing for three months and we didn’t have any information on her. We didn’t receive the arrest warrant until May 2008.” In order to justify the eight-year sentence handed down by the Jiangan District 610 Office, Division One fabricated evidence of wrongdoing that led to her being held in a labor camp for a year in 2007. After her lawyer pointed out that this was not true, Division One made up new evidence and revised its indictment accordingly.
Sending Practitioners to Labor Camps Without Any Legal Procedure
When Mr. Min Changchun was arrested for the second time, Division One agents read him a statement indicating that he was sentenced to one and a half years of forced labor for “sabotaging law enforcement.” When Mr. Min questioned them about specific grounds for his sentencing, since he had not broken any laws, they couldn’t provide any evidence or legal paperwork. They simply replied, “You know the answer yourself.”
Mr. Gao Yunhui, 27, used to work at Wuhan City Vegetable Science Research Institute before his arrest. In December 2000, he went to Tiananmen Square to unfurl a banner to clarify the truth about Falun Gong. Division One agents arrested him on March 29, 2001, and sentenced him to one and a half years of forced labor. The verdict read, “The defendant went to Beijing to unfurl a banner and took photographs.”
Giving Practitioners Heavy Sentences
Ever since April 25, 1999, Division One has been secretly collecting evidence against Falun Gong practitioners.
Ms. Xu Xianglan had been the lead assistant at the Wuhan City Falun Gong Assistance Center before the persecution began. Division One head Du Wangzhong led his accomplices and arrested Ms. Xu and her husband, Mr. Wang Hansheng, on July 22, 1999. Wuhan City Court held a trial for the couple on January 6, 2000, and sentenced Ms. Xu and her husband to eight and six years, respectively. Mr. Wang had owned a business, the properties of which were confiscated after his arrest.
Wuhan City 610 Office and Division One arrested four practitioners in March 2003 and gave all of them heavy sentences. Mr. Xu Jianjun received thirteen years, 65-year-old Mr. Xie Fengyi and 56-year-old Mr. Liu Yongsheng received eight years, and 60-year-old Mr. Yu Ganghai received nine years in prison.
According to Wuhan practitioners, Division One is responsible for hundreds of arrests of Falun Gong practitioners, although only about 50 cases have been exposed so far due to the secret and unlawful nature of Division One's operations. Division One's involvement in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners is far more extensive than what is known by the outside world.
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