(Minghui.org) Local practitioners had not been arrested for a long time in our area. We were under the illusion that the environment was safer and that we no longer needed to pay close attention to phone security.

Then to our great surprise, agents from the local Domestic Security Division and the 610 Office arrested multiple practitioners in several districts. All the practitioners who were taken away had been under telephone surveillance by the Domestic Security Division for a long time.

I have been taken into custody three times because my phone had been monitored.

The first time, I used my home phone to call a fellow practitioner. We talked about how I had refused to renounce Falun Dafa while I was in detention and had encouraged practitioners who were being persecuted there to not give up and to maintain their righteous thoughts and actions. 

Soon afterward, I was arrested and taken to a brainwashing center. My employer went to demand my release and the authorities told him that I had been mobilizing other practitioners over the phone.

The second time I did not even use my own phone. I went to my coworker’s office to call up Bei [alias] who I did not think was known to the persecutors. No one answered, so I hung up. Shortly after I returned to my office, my coworker asked me who I had called. I was surprised to hear that someone from the security department called her to ask who had called Bei from her phone.

A friend of mine was the head of the security department and I asked him about it. He told me that the local 610 Office had called my coworker to find out who had called Bei. I was shocked. A few days later, my house was ransacked. It turned out that Bei's phone was monitored. They were able to track me down because I had called his number.

I should have learned my lesson from these two incidents. For a long time I had focused on running my materials production site and had not telephoned any other practitioners, but I became careless and started calling other practitioners on the phone. I used code words when talking to them, but I was fooling myself. Those who monitored our phones knew exactly what we were talking about.

One day, Feng [alias] called me. Using code words, he requested some materials. Before I finished getting things ready, with materials spread out all over the room, I left to run some errands.

On my way back, a group of plainclothes officers grabbed me and took me back to my place to search for Dafa-related materials. I later found out that they had been monitoring my cell phone for a long time. They also arrested Feng.

Every time this happened, we looked inward for flaws in our xinxing. There may be deeper reasons for the arrests, but not paying attention to phone security is an issue. There have been repeated reminders published on the Minghui website about telephone security and yet many of us ignored them and suffered the consequences.

Master said,

“But here’s the thing—when I mention keeping safety in mind, you may be thinking, “But things have eased up now.” And yes, that’s pretty much the case in China, as the evil is on the decline. But the mechanisms formerly put in place for persecuting Falun Gong are still operating. They haven’t explicitly told people to stop persecuting and to do away with the mechanisms. So people in subordinate positions who do the actual work, such as those in the 6-10 Office and the police, are still doing things in accordance with what’s in place.” (“Fa Teaching at the 2015 West Coast Fa Conference”)

A local 610 Office staffer reminded a practitioner acquaintance that they had not relaxed their monitoring of practitioners’ phones or internet usage. The officer advised the practitioner that if we need to get in touch with one another, we had best do it in person.

Amy [alias] mentioned that a short while ago she had a conflict with a neighbor. The neighbor reported her to the local police as a Dafa practitioner. After Amy resolved the conflict with her neighbor, the neighbor told her that the police already knew about her Falun Dafa activities and that she was already on their radar. The neighbor said that the police had told her that they did not want to do anything until they found more evidence and lured more practitioners to expose themselves.

We have made too many blunders in regards to this issue. I have wanted to write about our unfortunate experiences for a long time but never could do so until now. I had to overcome much interference before I managed to finish writing this article to expose the persecutor’s tactics.

Please kindly point out anything inappropriate.