(Minghui.org) In the past few months, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been carrying out a “Zero-out” campaign aimed at getting all Falun Gong practitioners on the government’s blacklist to renounce their faith by signing the three statements.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a meditation and spiritual practice that has been persecuted by the CCP since 1999. The local 610 Office and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee, both were tasked with overseeing the persecution, ordered local community officials and police to pressure the practitioners into submission. When challenged, the authorities put the practitioners in brainwashing centers and threatened their family members with their jobs if they didn’t talk the practitioners into giving up their practice.
The following are some cases highlighting the severity of this campaign.
1. Cutting off Practitioners’ Power and Water Supply
Four officials in Jiansanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province broke into Ms. Liu Shiyin’s home on August 30, 2020, and one of them videotaped everything. They demanded Ms. Liu sign statements to renounce Falun Gong. They left after she refused to comply, but came back two days later to pressure her again. She refused to open the door. They shut off her water valve and power supply.
The officials who harassed Ms. Liu were Li Zhijiang and Bi Siyuan, both secretaries of Qianjin Farm of Jiansanjiang Agriculture Management Bureau; Yu Guihua; and a young man in his 20s.
Wang Zhensong, director of a local street office, and another man came back on September 3 and 4. They threatened to take away her daughter’s job if Ms. Liu did not sign the statement. They also threatened to suspend her pension. During those days there was a car parked down the road from where she lived every day. Someone was in the car monitoring her all the time.
2. Turning Family Against the Practitioner
The local authorities many times harassed Ms. Ma Guizhen from Lingwu City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Ms. Ma refused to sign the statements no matter how many times they tried. They threatened to confiscate her farmland and her rental apartment and take her grandson out of school. She still turned them down. The authorities then went to her family members and made the same threats.
Livelihood threatened, Ms. Ma’s son and her younger brother went to her workplace on October 25, 2020, trying to coerce her into signing the statements. When she refused, they berated and beat her. They grabbed her hand, bent her fingers with force, and put her fingerprints on the prepared statements. Her finger almost broke.
The officials who harassed Ms. Ma were An Peng from Wuling Farm Police Station and Yan Xuebin, chief director of the residential commission.
3. Husband Files Divorce to Avoid Being Implicated
Since November 2020 a local secretary frequently called Ms. Zhang Xuanwen and demanded that she sign the three statements. Song Yuliang, deputy secretary of Hepan Town in Baiyin City, Gansu Province, threatened Ms. Zhang with taking away her teaching job. Song also threatened to suspend her husband’s pay and take their children’s jobs away.
When Ms. Zhang told Song that practicing Falun Gong is her constitutional right and that he shouldn’t slander her belief, Song called Ms. Zhang’s husband. He ordered her husband to force her to renounce her faith by all means or risk the chance of losing his pay.
Song then called Ms. Zhang’s daughter and asked for the information of her employer. He also talked to Ms. Zhang’s son and terrorized him. In the next few days, the entire family pressured Ms. Zhang and tried to talk her into giving up the practice.
Ms. Zhang’s brother, Mr. Zhang Hengtong, was also a practitioner. Because he refused to stop his practice, the authorities put him in a forced labor camp for a year and imprisoned him for three years. He was given eight months for filing a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin, former CCP head who launched the persecution of Falun Gong. Fearing the persecution or being implicated himself, Ms. Zhang’s husband divorced her.
4. Daily Harassment
The officials and police harassed practitioners in Cangzhou City, Hebei Province, by appearing at their houses every day and did not leave until late at night in September 2020. They sometimes stayed until after midnight. The local chief and secretary ordered their subordinates to “go to the practitioners’ homes like going to work every day until they sign a statement giving up the practice.”
Bai Hongjian, secretary of Shijia Village, and four others went to Ms. Zhang Zhaoying’s home on September 22, 2020. Bai told Ms. Zhang, 78, the statements were ready and she just needed to put her fingerprints on them. She refused and wouldn’t let them videotape her at home. The authorities called her son and had him persuade his mother to sign. She didn’t give in to the pressure.
After eight o’clock in the evening, one of the officials unexpectedly grabbed Ms. Zhang’s hand, pressed her finger onto an ink pad, and put her fingerprint on the papers. They quickly left.
5. 80-year-old Woman Subjected to Brainwashing and Beatings
Ms. Li Guilan, 80, in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, retired from the Research Institute of Flight Control of Lanzhou Aeronautics and Space Administration. Starting in August 2020, local authorities constantly harassed her at home or ordered other community officials to show up at her door. These people went to her house from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily. They questioned and photographed all her guests.
The authorities broke Ms. Li’s door lock and ransacked her place. They even went to Shanghai to threaten her grandchildren in an attempt to force them to talk their grandmother into giving up the practice.
One time the authorities took Ms. Li to an empty room and forced her to watch videos slandering Falun Gong from 7:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. They turned the volume all the way up and pried her eyes open and forced her to watch. When she struggled, they took turns pinching and punching her. A fist hit her head and she fell on the ground. They had a nurse look at her and she had hypertension and heart problems. Without treating her, they rushed her to a temple for more brainwashing.
The personnel who harassed her were Wang Xia, secretary of Yintanlu Street office; Xue Yan, chief of the office; Han Weidon, staff member of the office; Guo Ren’an, officer from Yintanlu Police Station; and deputy police chief Jiao (first name unknown).
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Category: News Commentary
