(Minghui.org) A native of Hunan Province fled home and moved to China’s southern-most province of Hainan to avoid the persecution of his faith in Falun Gong. He was arrested in September 2002 in Hainan for doing the Falun Gong meditation exercise. No one, including his family, has heard from him since. He was 33 years old at the time. It’s been 20 years since his disappearance and his family continues to look for him.
Mr. Yang Aijin
Mr. Yang Aijin from Zhongfang County, Huaihua City, Hunan Province, became a Falun Gong practitioner in 1997. After that, his epilepsy, a disease he'd had since he was nine and nearly killed him a few times, disappeared. Because he refused to give up Falun Gong when the communist regime initiated the persecution in July 1999, the police arrested and detained him four times. The local officials went to his home to assault and threaten him multiple times. He bled so much one time that his blood splashed on the ground and the wall. He nearly died from carbon monoxide poisoning while in detention in February 2001.
Harassment, Arrests, and Tortures
Two months after the persecution started in 1999, four officials from Jinxi Township show up at Mr. Yang’s home at 4 a.m. one day in September 1999. They seized him and put him in Zhongfang County Detention Center for 15 days. The sudden mental disturbance caused his epilepsy to relapse.
To protest the persecution, Mr. Yang went with his father Mr. Yang Chunxi, mother Ms. Yang Meixiu, and seven other practitioners, including Mr. Yang Mansheng, and Ms. Ding Xianglian, went to Beijing in November 1999. The armed police at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, upon learning that they practiced Falun Gong, assaulted and arrested all ten of them. The authorities from his hometown went to Beijing to escort them back and put them in Zhongfang County Detention Center.
After 15 days, Mr. Yang, his parents, Mr. Yang Mansheng, and Ms. Ding were transferred to Jinxi Township. The township officials tried to coerce them to sign the statements to renounce their faith and guarantee that they’d never go protest in Beijing. The five practitioners refused to do so and the officials locked them in the township building for 10 more days and forced them to pay 70 yuan in living expenses before their release.
The authorities from Zhongfang County 610 Office, County Police Department, and Jinxi Township Police Station broke into Mr. Yang’s home in March 2000. Without going through any legal procedures, they took him and put him in Zhongfang County Detention Center for 15 days.
Four officials from Jinxi Township government arrested Mr. Yang, his mother, and four other practitioners, including Mr. Yang Yunsheng, Ms. Yang Xiuying, Mr. Yang Mansheng, and Ms. Ding, and took them to a brainwashing center on April 12, 2000. The officials claimed that it was to prevent them from going to Beijing to protest during the sensitive day of April 25. The six practitioners all went on a hunger strike to protest the arbitrary detention. They were released three days later.
On June 6, 2000, five officials went to Mr. Yang’s home on a tractor. They dragged Mr. Yang out of his house. As he resisted, an official grabbed him by his legs and dragged him on the ground toward the tractor. The skin on his back was ruptured, and the blood-stained his clothes and the ground.
One of his neighbors shouted at the officials, “He’s ill, and you will kill him.”
One official yelled, “I’ll take the responsibility if he died.”
“Give an official statement and sign your name on it since you want to be held responsible,” said the neighbors who surrounded them.
The officials thus gave up and left. They came back the next day, seized Mr. Yang and his father, and locked them in the township building for 25 days. The father and son were each charged 146.7 yuan in food expenses.
One morning in November 2000, Mr. Yang and his family were doing the Falun Gong exercises at home, when nine officials from the township government broke in. Without saying a word, they dragged Mr. Yang into the kitchen and beat him. The officials chased Mr. Yang outside, held him down, and continued to beat him. His blood stained the ground, the wall, and the clothes of the officials. His neighbors came out to stop the beating and prevented the officials from arresting him. The officials seized his parents and held them in the township building for 11 days, during which time the officials tried to force the parents and three other arrested practitioners to sign a statement promising not to protest in Beijing.
Mr. Yang accompanied his mother to a cemetery to mourn her deceased brother on February 11, 2001. The officials tracked them down and took them to a small brick house. They sealed the windows with wooden boards, with the excuse to prevent them from going to Beijing for the third time. The house had only a single sofa and a pot of burning coal to keep them warm. The two nearly died of carbon monoxide poisoning. They became stiff and couldn’t move. A spot on Ms. Yang’s pants was burnt by the coal fire. In the morning, an official who brought them breakfast saw them not moving and screamed. Ms. Yang woke up from the screaming. However, the official told others that Ms. Yang passed out while she meditated, and hence caught fire and that he helped put out the fire.
Mr. Yang, his mother, and another practitioner Ms. Yang Xiuying went to the neighboring town to raise awareness about the persecution of Falun Gong. A person reported them to the officials in order to get a 500-yuan reward per practitioner. A dozen officials from Wanxi Township took the three practitioners to a middle school, handcuffed them to a basketball stand, and beat them for an hour.
They then cuffed Mr. Yang and Ms. Yang Xiuying to the basketball hoop to hang them up. The beating and hanging continued until they fell unconscious from the pain. That night the officials put the three practitioners in Baihunao Detention Center in Anjiang Town, Hongjiang City. The officials released Mr. Yang and his mother after extorting 10,000 yuan from them. Ms. Yang Xiuying remained detained for four more months. The officials put her in Baimalong Forced Labor Camp in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province, in December 2001 to serve a term of 18 months.
The officials in Jinxi Township began to break into the local practitioners’ homes and ransacked their places in May 2002. They took away two of Mr. Yang’s farming cows, television, two radio players, and a fan. The non-stop arrests, beatings, and detention forced Mr. Yang to leave home and work in Baofang Township in Hainan Province (about 750 miles away). The officials from his hometown quickly followed him there and took Mr. Yang to the local Baofang Township Police Station. They had him report to the police every other day and monitored his activities.
Mr. Yang meditated on a lawn next to his house on the morning of September 6, 2002. An officer from Baofang Police Station came and arrested him. Lin Mingqun, the deputy chief of Wenchang City Police Department, ordered to place Mr. Yang under the custody of the Political Security Division of the Police Department. Although the police claimed that they had released Mr. Yang, no one has heard about Mr. Yang’s whereabouts since.
Notes by the officer from Baofang Police Station who arrested Mr. Yang describing the arrest on September 6, 2002.
Mr. Yang’s family many times went to the Wenchang City Police Department to look for him, only to be cursed at and threatened by the deputy chief Lin.
Mr. Yang’s father has passed away and never got to see his son one last time. Before he passed, he wrote dozens of letters to the Appeal Office of Wenchang City Police Department. He only received one reply letter in October 2007 saying, “Things are complicated and we will reply in 60 days.” The family never heard anything back.
It’s been 20 years since Mr. Yang went missing. His family continues to look for him and is worried about him. When the news about the Chinese communist regime’s systemically harvesting organs from living practitioners broke in March 2006, the agony and grief of his family intensified.
In the past 23 years of persecution, a vast number of Falun Gong practitioners went missing after they went to Beijing to protest or were detained in forced labor camps, prisons, detention centers, and psychiatric hospitals. Many practitioners were arrested from home, from work, or on the street, and no one has heard from them since. According to Minghui.org, the missing cases spread over 30 provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions in China.
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Below is the translation of the police note about his arrest.
Case Report by the Wenchang City Police Department
At 7: 30 a.m. on September 6, 2002 (Friday), officer Wu Chang of our station received a call from Zhong Aijin, the boss of Dapin Fish Pond. Zhong said that a man (who speaks Mandarin) was meditating on the ground of a nearby hill. They suspected that he was a Falun Gong practitioner and demanded that our station dispatch an officer to check on the situation.
After receiving the call, Wu Chang reported it to the director Fu Rujin, who immediately brought another security officer Yun Changgui to the scene. Zhong, who reported the case, and her husband were still there. Upon arrival, Fu talked to the couple, who claimed that they talked to the man. He only said that he came from Beijing and nothing else. Then the director Fu and the security officer Yun brought this man to the Baofang Police Station. Through body search, we only found a study guide on how to learn Falun Gong on this person. The content of the guide was all hand-copied by him. He didn’t have any ID with him.
Director Fu searched the registration database of temporary residents and political dissidents in the region but didn’t find anyone matching the man's description. We kept asking him. He only said he came from Beijing and wouldn't tell us his name and address. We gave him some water, but he refused to drink it and he kept silent all the time.
I then reported the situation to the political department of Wenchang City Police Department and asked for instruction from the deputy director Lin Mingqun. According to director Lin’s order, we were asked to take this man to the Wenchang City Police Department for further investigation. Thus, we sent officer Wu and Yun to take this man to the police department’s appeal office a little after 8 a.m. After getting in touch with officials from the political department of Wenchang City Police Department, we handed the man to them in the appeal office.
Case reporter: Fu Rujin, Baofang Police Station
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Category: Disappearance
