(Minghui.org) Four people in Suining City, Sichuan Province, were arrested on October 14, 2024, for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Xiao Wenxue and his wife, Ms. Yang Sizhen, both 70, as well as Ms. Guo Chunfang, a 55-year-old former elementary school teacher, were seized from their share rental place. Mr. Yang Minghua, in his 60s, was seized not long afterwards, when he went to visit the trio.
The arresting officers included more than 20 agents from the Suining City Domestic Security Division, the local police station and the Daying County Police Department (Ms. Guo used to live in Daying County). They put bags over Mr. Xiao’s, Ms. Yang’s, and Ms. Guo’s heads and dragged them downstairs. The equipment and supplies the three practitioners used to print informational materials about Falun Gong were confiscated. Their landlords, a married couple (names unknown), were also arrested and had their home ransacked. It’s not clear whether they practice Falun Gong.
The police claimed that they had been following Mr. Xiao, Ms. Yang, and Ms. Guo for over four months and that they’d rather arrest the wrong person than miss a real Falun Gong practitioner.
The police were staked outside the practitioners’ rental place and arrested Mr. Yang when he stopped by, unaware of what had happened.
Mr. Xiao, Ms. Yang, and Ms. Guo are being held in a detention facility in Daying County. It’s not clear where Mr. Yang is detained.
Prior to this latest arrest, Mr. Xiao and Ms. Yang had been living away from home since 2008, and Ms. Guo since 2011. All three have moved from place to place over the past decade in order to hide from the police.
Overview of the Practitioners’ Past Persecution
Mr. Xiao and Ms. Yang were vegetables vendors. After Ms. Yang took up Falun Gong in February 1998, her many ailments, including a heart condition, all disappeared. Witnessing her improvement, Mr. Xiao also began to practice Falun Gong in March 1999 and regained his health as well.
After the Chinese communist regime ordered the persecution in July 1999, Ms. Yang was arrested eight times and held in brainwashing centers four times. She also served a labor camp term and was tortured.
Due to frequent police harassment, the couple lived away from home beginning July 6, 2008, after they escaped an arrest.
Ms. Guo was also repeatedly arrested and harassed since the onset of the persecution. She was sentenced to five years in September 2006 and brutally tortured at the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison. While she was serving time, her employer fired her, her husband divorced her in March 2007, and her mother, who was living on her own, died in July 2007.
When Ms. Guo was released in February 2011, her hair had turned gray, her reactions were slow, her hearing and memory had declined significantly, and she was pale and very weak.
On March 8, 2011, only 19 days after Ms. Guo’s prison release, the police harassed her again. They attempted to take her to a brainwashing center, promising to provide her with low-income subsidy or help her find a job. She refused to comply. She managed to escape being arrested and has been forced to live away from home ever since.
Ms. Yang’s Personal Account of Her Persecution Between 1999 and 2008
Below is Ms. Yang’s own account of the persecution she suffered in the early years.
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On December 25, 1999, Nanqiang Township government officials summoned me to their office and asked if I still practiced Falun Gong. I told them that Falun Gong is such a great practice that there’s no way I would give it up.
While I was working in the fields on March 4, 2000, eight officers appeared and took me to the Longping Brainwashing Center. About 20 more practitioners were also detained here. Some were later released after writing statements to renounce Falun Gong. That left 16 of us, six males, including the eldest in their 70s and youngest in their 30s.
Kang Jialiang, secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee, lectured us. He said, “You were arrested at Jiang Zemin’s instructions and are not allowed to practice Falun Gong. You must follow the rules and not practice since you are here. We will ‘transform’ you using all means, be it beating or starving. We will defame your reputations, bankrupt you financially, and destroy you physically; you have to give us money after we hit you. There is a policy from above: beat them to the point of disability but don't beat them to death. Those beaten to death will be counted as suicides and be cremated. You won’t be able to go after us; we get money from Jiang and do what he tells us to do. If you want to file a complaint, go to Beijing and file a complaint against Jiang.”
Shen Changxing, head of the police station said, “No one cares if you steal a chicken or a duck, but you will be punished for practicing Falun Gong.”
On March 7, 2000, the ten of us female practitioners were held in a room and beaten by the guards, while the six male practitioners were forced to stand outside in the heavy rain, barefooted.
The 16 of us were given less than 1.5 kg (3.3 pounds) of rice per day, which was far from enough. Some had to drink water when they felt hungry. At night, we slept on the concrete floor without much bedding. The guards tried all kinds of methods to torture us.
After dinner on March 9, 2000, a guard asked me what I thought of Falun Gong. I said it was good. Three of them surrounded me and beat me. When another practitioner, Ms. Zhang Xiurong, tried to stop them, they dragged her out of the room, beat her with a wooden plank, and stepped on her head. Despite the rain, the guards forced us to do a handstand outside.
Some locals saw us and condemned the guards for torturing us. To avoid criticism, the guards took us back inside. Because I still refused to denounce and renounce Falun Gong, they beat me for over three hours, breaking several planks. They pulled out a lot of my hair and I saw it lying it all over the ground. The skin on my head came away from my skull, and my mouth and gums were injuried. Finally, I collapsed, vomiting blood. My face was swollen and disfigured, and I was covered with bruises. I was unable to eat and the pain kept me from falling asleep at night.
When the township officials came to check on me the next day, they were scared to see how swollen my face was. Gao Xun, the Party secretary of Nanqiang Township, ordered my family to pay 5,000 yuan in exchange for my release. They also threatened to give me a long prison sentence because I was deemed a dangerous person and a diehard Falun Gong practitioner. My family paid them1,000 yuan and 160 yuan for my “living expenses.” I returned home on March 17, 2000.
Eight officers, including Feng Guangguo, Chen Fei, and Ren Fayong from the Nanqiang Township Police Station, broke into my home on July 18, 2000, when my husband and I were reading Falun Gong books. They searched the place and beat me again. My teenage daughter implored them to stop, as I had just recovered from the beating in the brainwashing center. In retaliation, they also arrested my daughter and took her to the police station.
I was again taken to the Longping Brainwashing Center, where, officials Zhai Changbiao, Kang Jialiang, and Li Xiang slandered Falun Gong. They said if I had issues with how they treated me, I could go to Beijing and talk to [former Chinese dictator] Jiang Zemin, because he gave them the order to persecute me.
To seek justice, I indeed set out to go to Beijing to appeal with other practitioners on December 20, 2000. We were arrested in Hebei Province on December 30 and taken to the Sanhe City Police Station. When I refused to tell the police my name and address, they stripped off my clothes and confiscated all my belongings. They loaded us practitioners from across the country into three vehicles, drove us to an empty field in a remote area of Tianjin, and dumped us.
Not giving up, we walked overnight and arrived in Beijing, only to be arrested by Xidan Police Station officers in Zhongshan Park around 9 a.m. on December 31, 2000. Deceived by the police, I told them my name. They called officers Mi and Liu Lan from the Suining Liaison Office in Beijing come to pick me up.
On January 7, 2001, I was escorted back to Suining by police officers Li Xu, Ren Fayong and Zeng Zuxing. Officer Chen Fei beat me and verbally abused me in the police station. I was taken to the Wujiawan Detention Center the next day and held there for two months.
On February 23, 2001, the authorities paraded the over 40 practitioners in the detention center out in the streets to be publicly humiliated and criticized. Many fifth and sixth grade students were forced to attend. Armed police pushed me and other practitioners onto the stage in the stadium, forced us to bow our heads, and announced our forced labor camp terms or terms of house arrest. I was given one year in Nanmusi Women’s Forced Labor Camp, where I was subjected to relentless torture.
Officers Feng Guangguo, Zhou Chunhong and Peng Minghua broke into my home again on the evening of September 26, 2002, and confiscated my Falun Gong book. I was taken to the detention center and held briefly.
Less that a month later, on November 1, 2002, the police arrested me again and took me to the Longping Brainwashing Center to serve a 15-day detention.
When my daughter gave birth on July 4, 2003, the police raided my home, but I wasn’t in.
My husband and I were teaching others how to grow vegetables on November 23, 2003, when the police arrested us. We were taken to the Beimen Brainwashing Center and held there for two months.
On the evening of February 27, 2004, only a month after we were released, the authorities harassed us again. My daughter, who was living with us, refused to open the door and condemned them for the persecution.
My residential registration expired in 2004, and it took a lot of effort to have it renewed. The police attempted to arrest me after that. I escaped and was forced to live away from home for over three weeks.
Director Xiao of the Anju District attempted to arrest me again on July 6, 2008. They raided my place and took my computer, printer, and other personal items. After I managed to escape, the police searched the homes of my neighbors and relatives looking for me. They also posted a 1,000-yuan reward for anyone who reported my whereabouts. My husband and I were forced to live away from home after that.
Eight officers broke into my home again around 10 p.m. on December 28, 2008, to look for us, intimidating my family.
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