(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioners in 36 countries presented their respective governments with a new list of perpetrators involved in the persecution of Falun Gong in China. The lists were submitted on and around December 10, 2021, International Human Rights Day. Practitioners requested that their governments bar the perpetrators and their family members from entering those countries and to freeze their overseas assets.
The 36 countries include the Five Eyes Alliance (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand), 23 countries in the European Union (France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Czechia, Romania, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovenia, Estonia, and Malta), and 8 additional countries (Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Israel, and Mexico).
Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since July 1999 (this includes torturing practitioners resulting in death and harvesting their organs). Practitioners have recently submitted numerous lists of perpetrators to various countries requesting that sanctions be imposed against these human rights violators. This latest submission of a perpetrator list marks the first time that Estonia has participated in this effort.
Zhang Yankun, Deputy Secretary of the CCP Committee for Beijing, is in the list.
Perpetrator Information
Full Name of Perpetrator: Zhang (last name) Yankun (first name) (张延昆)Gender: MaleCountry: ChinaDate/Year of Birth: January 1963Place of Birth: Fang Cheng, Henan Province
Title or Position:
Before 2013 – Assistant investigator at the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region Committee Office, other positions at various CCP offices and committees including the Ministry of Justice, the Beijing Municipal CCP Committee, and Beijing Huairou County CCP Committee
Jan 2013 – Aug 2013: Deputy Mayor of Beijing City
Aug 2013 – Sep 2015: Deputy Mayor of Beijing City and Deputy Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Political and Legal Affairs Committee for Beijing City
Oct 2015 – Nov 2020: Secretary of the CCP Political and Legal Affairs Committee for Beijing City
Nov 2020 – Present: Deputy Secretary of the CCP Committee for Beijing City, President of the Beijing CCP Party Institute (Beijing Administration Institute)
Main Crimes
From 1999 to 2013
Zhang has actively taken part in the persecution right from the start. According to Minghui.org, on January 13, 2001, Zhang, then deputy secretary of the Huairou County Party Committee, ordered the arrests of practitioners from their homes and sent them to a brainwashing center in Daxing County. He received 8,000 RMB (around 1200 USD) for each practitioner arrested.
Soon after, Zhang set up brainwashing sessions in Huairou County. By the end of 2001, about ten brainwashing centers were in operation. At the end of each brainwashing session, an enormous banquet was held for Zhang and his fellow officials using public funds. At least 60 practitioners were taken to forced labor camps in Huairou when they refused to renounce Falun Gong after one of the sessions.
In February 2001, Zhang worked with the directors of the Beijing Municipal Forced Labor Camp and the Beijing Daxing Women’s Forced Labor Camp. He transferred 10 practitioners, including Zhang Jinqi, Ma Guiying, Wang Xuecheng, Gao Fenghua, and Bai Qiulian, from the Huairou Detention Center to the Daxing Forced Labor Camp for additional brainwashing.
Every day from 7 a.m. to 8 or 9 p.m., the practitioners were taken from the hotel where they were imprisoned to the forced labor camp to be subjected to brainwashing. If they did not comply with the instructors’ orders, the brainwashing they were kicked and hit. One practitioner, Ms. He, in her 50s, was ordered to bend over with her head down and her arms raised. She had to stand in that position for a long time, leading to chronic backaches later on. Sometimes, she was in so much pain that she could not turn over in bed.
The brainwashing instructors threatened the practitioners that they would be sent to a forced labor camp if they did not give up Falun Gong. One practitioner developed a cerebral hemorrhage and another had a stroke. They became paralyzed and unable to take care of themselves.
Torture reenactment: Bending over with arms raised
Zhang was the mayor of the Shunyi District during the August 2008 Beijing Olympics. Using “security for the Olympics” as a pretense, Zhang directed the State Security and Domestic Security Office for the Shunyi District to compile a list of names of local Falun Gong practitioners. The list included their names, age, family members, relatives, contact information, home address, etc.
Zhang had the list distributed to neighborhood committees, township governments, village committees, and police stations. Their agents were told to locate the practitioners on the list and coerce them into writing a Guarantee Statement that they would not practice Falun Gong and would not leave home during the Olympics. If they wrote the statement, the authorities checked on them every three days and kept them under 24-hour surveillance. Practitioners who did not write guarantee statements and did not agree to their demands were arrested.
Before the Olympics, Zhang directed the local authorities to monitor practitioners’ landlines and mobile phones for “intelligence.” From March to July 2008 alone, the authorities arrested dozens of practitioners in the Shunyi District on the pretext of maintaining security for the Olympics.
From 2013 to the Present
Since January 2013, Zhang has served as deputy bayor of Beijing and deputy secretary of the Chinese Communist Party Political and Legal Affairs Committee for Beijing. He is in charge of public security and legal affairs and of the persecution of Falun Gong. In particular, after he became secretary of the CCP Political and Legal Affairs Committee in 2015, he directed the local 610 Office to implement the following policies: “bankrupt them financially, ruin their reputations, and destroy them physically,” “killing them is considered suicide,” and “cremate them without investigating cause of death.” All of these policies, by the way, were official Party policies with respect to “handling the Falun Gong issue.”
At least 26 practitioners were tortured to death during Zhang’s tenure as secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee for Beijing. Numerous practitioners were arrested and their homes were ransacked. They were also detained, sentenced, and prevented from earning a living, causing them and their families irreparable mental, physical, and economic harm.
According to statistics from Minghui.org, in 2015, 127 practitioners in Beijing were harassed and 609 practitioners were arrested. At least 47 were taken to brainwashing centers for refusing to renounce their faith, 39 were sentenced, and 55 were tried.
In 2016, 353 practitioners in Beijing were persecuted in different ways. Among them, 245 were arrested and held in detention centers and brainwashing centers, 53 were sentenced, 11 were tried, and 58 were harassed, intimidated, or had their homes ransacked.
In 2017, at least 68 practitioners were sentenced or tried, 254 were arrested, and 269 were harassed.
In 2018, 38 practitioners were sentenced, 131 were arrested, 6 were taken to brainwashing centers, 128 were harassed, and 36 people were put under residential surveillance.
In 2019, at least 30 practitioners were tried and 26 were sentenced. The police detained three in brainwashing centers, ransacked the homes of 31, and made 74 arrests. There were nearly 100 incidents of harassment.
In 2020, 29 practitioners were sentenced, nine were tried, and 249 were arrested. Police raided the homes of 153 practitioners and harassed 103 in person or by phone.
Examples of Deaths
1. Ms. Xu Xiuhong
Ms. Xu Xiuhong was arrested in the Tongzhou District of Beijing on January 21, 2016, and detained for 3 months. After she returned home, she exhibited symptoms of being poisoned and had frequent panic attacks. Her health quickly deteriorated. She died on April 2, 2017. She was 40. Until her death, the scars on her wrists from being tortured were still clearly visible.
2. Ms. Wen Mulan
Ms. Wen Mulan, 75, was arrested on October 14, 2017, for talking to people about the persecution of Falun Gong. She was held in the Miyun District Detention Center. She went on a hunger strike to protest.
After about two months on her hunger strike, Ms. Wen was suffering from generalized edema and was in critical condition. When her husband refused to pick her up, the detention center found a local practitioner to take her in. The practitioner noted that Ms. Wen exhibited symptoms of having been drugged.
Because of the CCP’s threats and harassment, her husband refused to allow Ms. Wen to come home. Ms. Wen stayed with a friend and passed away on the morning of February 27, 2018.
3. Ms. Liu Yanmei
Ms. Liu Yanmei of the Shunyi District was arrested in November 2016 for inviting people to attend a Falun Gong practitioners’ trial. She was handcuffed and shackled in the Tongzhou Detention Center and bruised all over. Her hair was pulled out, and her scalp was infected. She was sentenced to 4 years in prison in July 2017 and tortured to death on November 12, 2018. She was 52.
4. Ms. Hou Junwen
Ms. Hou Junwen lived in the Chaoyang District and was a well-known expert in the field of certification. In May 2017, the police arrested her and ransacked her home because she gave out Falun Gong materials. The detention center refused to accept her for health reasons, and she was released on bail. At the end of 2017, the court sentenced her to two years in prison. Due to her health problems, she was ordered to serve time outside the prison. In January 2019, the Xiaoguan Judicial Office in the Chaoyang District harassed her and made her wear electronic handcuffs. She was subjected to tremendous psychological pressure and passed away on January 29, 2019.
5. Ms. Pang Xiuqing
Ms. Pang Xiuqing was arrested by agents from the Shunyi District 610 Office, the Domestic Security Office, and the police on October 6, 2017. She was sentenced to two years in prison and held in the Beijing Daxing Women’s Prison. She suffered inhuman treatment.
On October 5, 2019, she returned home after two years of imprisonment. The local 610 Office, police, and village committee continued to harass, threaten, and intimidate Ms. Pang and her family, subjecting her to enormous psychological and mental pressure. Her health deteriorated. Even so, they still did not stop harassing. On September 5, 2020, the police barged into her home to harass her. She passed away in distress the evening of December 8, 2020, at the age of 65.
Examples of Practitioners’ Arrests and Sentences
1. Ms. Sun Zhongfang, 80, Tried at Home and Sentenced to Four Years
Ms. Sun Zhongfang, 80, was arrested at home on May 8, 2018, while she was reading a Falun Gong book with six other practitioners (four of whom were over 80). They were all taken to the Fengtai Police Station. Ms. Sun had high blood pressure and was released that day. On November 1, 2018, Fengtai District Court officials went to Ms. Sun’s house to hold a hearing. The judge didn’t allow her to defend herself, saying she could only answer “Yes” or “No” to the questions. The judge returned to her home on December 28, 2018, and sentenced her to four years in prison.
2. Canadian Citizen Ms. Sun Qian Sentenced to Eight Years
Ms. Sun Qian, founder, Director, and Vice President of Beijing Leadman Biochemical Company, became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 2007. More than 20 police officers broke into Ms. Sun’s home in the Chaoyang District of Beijing on February 19, 2017, and seized her without an arrest warrant.
While she was detained, she was sprayed in the face with mace, forced to wear shackles all day every day for two weeks, and subjected to brainwashing. The court-appointed lawyer forced her to renounce her Canadian citizenship. Her family hired more than a dozen lawyers for her, but they were forced to withdraw from her case after being threatened that they would lose their licenses to practice law. Ms. Sun was sentenced to eight years in prison by the Chaoyang District Court on June 30, 2020.
3. Eleven Practitioners Tried for Sending Photos to Overseas Website
Ms. Xu Na (an artist who lost her husband to the persecution of Falun Gong), Mr. Li Zongze, Mr. Li Lixin, Ms. Jiao Mengjiao, Mr. Liu Qiang, Ms. Meng Qingxia (48, a painter and teacher), Ms. Zheng Yanmei, Ms. Deng Jing, Ms. Zheng Yujie, Mr. Zhang Renfei, and Ms. Li Jiaxuan were arrested around July 20, 2020, the 21st anniversary of the beginning of the persecution of the Falun Gong. The police targeted them when they discovered that they had sent photos of empty streets in Beijing to overseas media during the pandemic.
The eleven practitioners were held in the Dongcheng District Detention Center. The police forwarded their cases to the Dongcheng District Procuratorate. They appeared in the Dongcheng District Court on October 15, 2021, and are still awaiting verdicts.
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