(Minghui.org) The upcoming Moon (mid-autumn) Festival is the most important traditional festival for Chinese people besides the Chinese New Year. The full moon symbolizes the reunion of family and a happy ending. Unfortunately, the arrival of this festival may make the Falun Gong practitioners in China feel especially sad. Many of the practitioners have died during the persecution, leaving broken families behind, while many more are forced to be on the run to avoid arrest.
The Minghui website has published a series of reports about broken families, with many losing several family members to the persecution. When other families celebrate the holiday together, and when the beautiful full moon hangs in the night sky, it only reminds the families of practitioners of the voices and smiles of their loved ones who died because of the persecution, or those who are still behind bars.
Elderly Mother Loses Three Sons
A mother in Luoyang City, Henan Province was dealt another blow when her youngest son, Chen Xiaomin, died on March 10, 2020, less than two months after he was released from prison. He was 51 years old.
She had already lost her husband and two of her oldest sons, Chen Yuemin and Chen Shaomin, to the persecution of Falun Gong. She and her third son (and only surviving child), who doesn’t practice Falun Gong, struggle to cope with four deaths in their family due to the persecution.
Military Officer Sentenced and Wife Dead
Mr. Yang Xingfu, a colonel in the Nanjing Military Region, and his wife Ms. Chen Chunmei, a head nurse at Nanjing Children's Hospital, started to practice Falun Gong in July 1996. Before then, Mr. Yang suffered from many illnesses, including lumbar disc herniation, rheumatoid arthritis, sinusitis, and so on. He often felt dizzy, tired, and the need to suddenly urinate. All of his symptoms disappeared within two months after he began to practice Falun Gong. He felt refreshed and energized. He stopped taking medication and no longer needed health care services.
Mr. Yang did his best to follow the Falun Gong principles in his daily life. He became a much more caring and considerate person, and his work was praised by his superiors. He was selected as the best officer in his division in 1997 and placed third in his division in 1998. He went to Beijing to accept the award and gave a speech at the awards ceremony. His story was told far and wide after a Beijing newspaper ran it as a full-page article.
His wife Ms. Chen also used to suffer from many illnesses including hepatitis B, facial paralysis, gastrointestinal diseases, and cholecystitis. Her symptoms disappeared within three months after she began to practice Falun Gong. She has not taken any medicine since. She was also recognized for her good work and character.
The couple refused to renounce their faith in Falun Gong after the persecution started. The authorities put Mr. Yang in a forced labor camp three times and forced him to retire. Ms. Chen was arrested and detained three times and tortured in a labor camp for a year. The couple was subjected to brainwashing sessions multiple times, and their home was raided 10 times. In April 2012, Ms. Chen was force fed with unknown drugs when she was locked in Nanjing Detention Center. She died on December 24, 2016, at the age of 62.
Practitioner and Sister Die in the Persecution, Wife and Brother Tortured
Mr. Ji Guangjie from Hefei City, Anhui Province, was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison. He was not allowed to sleep for three days while handcuffed to a chair. He was force fed with unknown drugs and later died in Suzhou Prison. His wife Ms. Zhang Lanping was taken to a forced labor camp twice and almost died after being force fed.
The above was not the only tragedy that happened in that family. Mr. Ji’s younger sister, Ms. Ji Guangxiong, was an elementary school teacher. She died after being brainwashed and injected with unknown drugs during her detention. Before that the authorities harassed her and ransacked her home multiple times.
Mr. Ji’s younger brother, Mr. Ji Guangkui, was an engineer. He was sentenced to four years in prison because of his faith. He was once interrogated for 13 hours, during which time the authorities pierced his fingers with bamboo sticks, struck his face, and punched him in the head and chest.
21 Years of Persecution Still Ongoing
The above cases are only the tip of the iceberg, and the persecution is still ongoing.
When the CCP and the former CCP leader Jiang Zemin launched the nation-wide persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, an extermination policy was passed down, “eliminate (the practitioners) physically, bankrupt them and destroy their reputation.” It was ordered that Falun Gong practitioners who died due to torture are to be counted as suicides, and should immediately be cremated without investigation.
To date, at least 4,500 death cases of Falun Gong practitioners because of the persecution have been confirmed. More have been placed in forced labor camps and prisons, and subjected to relentless abuse. More horrifically, their organs were removed while they were still alive and sold for lucrative profit.
Just in the first half of 2020, 40 practitioners were arrested because of the persecution, 132 were sentenced to prison, including 24 over the age of 65, with the oldest being 83. Another 2,654 practitioners were arrested and 2,659 harassed.
According to the "Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court" promulgated by the United Nations in 1998 and the "Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act" passed by the United States in 2012, the heinous crimes committed by the former CCP leader Jiang Zemin and his regime go far beyond genocide and crimes against humanity.
The pace of investigating criminal accountability is picking up. In mid-July 2020, Falun Gong practitioners from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand submitted a new list of persons responsible for the persecution to the government agencies and demanded rejections of their visa applications and freezing of their assets in those countries. The list includes Zhao Leji, Wang Maolin, and Meng Jianzhu from the central CCP, as well as current and previous 610 Office leaders, judges, and national security personnel.
In July, 606 dignitaries, including former and current ministers, congressmen, senators and state members, from 30 countries in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Latin America signed a joint statement expressing their concerns over the CCP’s continued persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. They praised the practitioners for their adherence to peace and rationality and the spirit of resisting the CCP’s tyranny in the last 21 years. They condemned the CCP for violating human rights, and demanded that the CCP immediately cease persecuting Falun Gong.
As more Chinese people, who were deceived by the CCP’s hate propaganda against Falun Gong, are waking up to the truth and seeing the CCP’s evil nature, they are supporting the practitioners. Many lawyers in China openly defend the practitioners in court to seek justice for them.
As the holiday approaches, I hope that people in China will understand the truth and not participate in the persecution. Keep in mind that “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is good” and treat practitioners kindly. I sincerely hope that by the next Moon Festival, the persecution is over and practitioners’ families will be able to reunite.
Related reports:
Three Brothers and Their Father Die in the Persecution of Their Faith
Persecution Account of Mr. Ji Guangjie from Hefei City, Anhui Province Before His Death
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Category: Perspectives
