(Minghui.org) Holidays, such as the latest annual Mid-Autumn Festival (which fell on September 10), are supposed to bring people joy. However, there is a group of people in China who haven’t been able to enjoy family reunions and happiness, simply because of their faith. They are Falun Gong practitioners.
Ever since the persecution of Falun Gong started in July 1999, hundreds of thousands of practitioners have been harassed, arrested, detained, tortured, or even had their organs harvested. Countless families have been torn apart as a result. Some will never again be reunited for holidays.
One of them is a Falun Gong practitioner that I personally knew. More than ten years ago, she died after being tortured in prison. Her family’s happy days have since disappeared, as they grieve during every holiday.
Below are a few additional persecution cases that I read on the Minghui.org website that really struck me.
Mr. Li Wendong, a law graduate from Beijing and former division head of a state-owned enterprise, was arrested with his wife, Ms. Shao Yan, in 2001. Ms. Shao, originally from Heilongjiang Province, was previously a professor at the Agriculture University. She was followed by Heilongjiang officers and harassed by Beijing officers. She passed away on December 31, 2006, at age 40.
Mr. Li was given toxic injections at the Haidian District Hospital when he was in police custody. He lost his memory and became bedridden. His family took him back to Heilongjiang. He passed away on June 3, 2020. He was 55 years old.
Mr. Zhang Yaoming of Hegang City, Heilongjiang Province, was a middle school math teacher. He was sentenced to 19 years in 2002 for intercepting TV signals and broadcasting programs that debunked the Chinese Communist Party’s hate propaganda against Falun Gong. He was persecuted severely in prison and released on medical parole. He was emaciated when released in April 2021 and passed away a year later, at the age of 59.
Mr. Zhang’s wife, Ms. Fan Fengzhen, 60, was the director of a hospital’s internal medicine department. She was given three years of forced labor in 2002. She was shocked with electric batons by many guards in the labor camp, causing her brain, head, and face to be injured. Her entire body became numb, and she couldn’t walk or take care of herself.
Mr. Sun Renzhi, 68, was a former credit union director. He was arrested, beaten, sent to a brainwashing center, harassed, and sent to forced labor camps and prisons many times. He was emaciated when he was released in 2020. He passed away on June 25, 2022. Before his death, a residential committee director went to harass him.
It has been one year and over two months since Mr. Wu Chengshou of Weifang City, Shandong Province, was arrested and detained at Weifang Detention Center. His family didn’t receive any updates about him and became worried about his health. They hired a lawyer to visit him. The detention center initially approved the lawyer’s visit, but soon revoked it, stating that his prosecution process had finished (since he had already been sentenced to prison and his appeal was rejected). The family later learned that he was sentenced to 11 years and fined 100,000 yuan.
Ms. Dai Zhiying, 66, from Shanghai, was arrested by Internet police from Luoyang City, Henan Province for posting information about Falun Gong online. She has since been held in Luoyang and was recently sentenced to 9.5 years in prison and fined 40,000 yuan. Her 88-year-old mother, who also practices Falun Gong, now struggles to live on her own and care for herself.
Based on Minghui reports, 132 death cases of the practitioners were reported in 2021. Among the 1,187 newly-confirmed sentencing cases, 44 practitioners received jail terms of more than nine years, and 227 practitioners were age 65 and older, with the eldest being 88 years old. Another 92 death cases were confirmed in the first half of 2022, and 336 sentencing cases were reported. One hundred and seven of the convicted practitioners were over 60 years old and the eldest practitioner was 85.
I hope that more Chinese people and the international community will take note of the persecution of Falun Gong, and help end this 23-year-long persecution.
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Category: Perspectives
