(Minghui.org) At least 18 Falun Gong practitioners in Dongying City, Shandong Province were arrested on November 29, 2023, on orders from the Dongying City Police Department and the Binhai Police Department. Prior to the arrests, the police spent a month monitoring the practitioners’ daily lives, including installing tracking devices on their cars and arranging agents to follow them and photograph them. It’s also reported that some practitioners were force fed in detention when they went on hunger strikes to protest the persecution.
Below are the details of some arrests.
Mr. Du Jianxin and his wife Ms. Wang Fan were arrested at home and had their place ransacked. They are currently held in the Binhai Detention Center.
The couple used to work at the Longkou Offshore Oil Shipping Company. Since the onset of the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, they have been repeatedly arrested. Ms. Wang was sentenced to 3.5 years on June 5, 2002 and given a 3-year labor camp term in 2008. The authorities extended her labor camp term by another 3 years because of her refused to renounce Falun Gong. Mr. Du was held in brainwashing centers multiple times and was sentenced to 10 years following his arrest in January 2011.
Mr. Zhang Aiquan, a former police commissioner, was arrested at home. He is currently held in the Binhai Detention Center.
Because he refused to give up his faith, Falun Gong, Mr. Zhang was not only fired by the police department he worked at, he was also given three years of forced labor in 2000 and was sentenced to eight years in 2006. He suffered severe injuries to his back and legs while he was tortured in custody. His wife, Ms. Wang Mingyuan, who also practices Falun Gong, was sentenced to seven and a half years in 2006. The torture she suffered at the Shandong Province Women’s Prison ruined her health and she passed away three months after she was released on November 19, 2012.
Ms. Lu Chunhua is currently held at the Liuhu Detention Center following her arrest. She was previously arrested several times and given two labor camp terms. She was force fed and deprived of sleep while in custody.
Ms. Liu Chunrong, a retired employee of the local water company, was arrested at home at 7:30 a.m. on November 29, 2023. Although she was released at 10 p.m. that night, she was arrested again on December 7 and taken to the Jishu Brainwashing Center.
The other practitioners who were arrested on the same day include: Ms. Liu Yufen (released on the same day), Ms. Wang Xuemei (released the same day) and her sister, Ms. Kong Fanlian (released the same day), Ms. Wu Xiulan, in her 70s, Ms. Li Benying, Sun (name and gender unknown), Ms. Sun, 77, and four practitioners from Lijin County whose names are not known.
In addition, Ms. Ji Yingping, whose mother, Ms. Bai Xingwen, is incarcerated in the Shandong Province Women’s Prison, was arrested at home. The police confiscated a broken computer from her. An insider revealed that the police arrested Ms. Ji in retaliation for Ms. Bai’s lawsuits against them for persecuting the family for practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Bai’s oldest daughter, Ms. Ji Yingwei, 45, who also practiced Falun Gong, died in October 2022 as a result of the persecution.
Young Couple from Shandong Province Suffer Years of Severe Persecution
Mr. Zhang Aiquan and His Wife, Both Practitioners from Shengli Oil Field, Sentenced to Prison Terms
Ms. Bai Xingwen Imprisoned Nine Months After Her Daughter Ms. Ji Yingwei Dies