(Minghui.org) A 56-year-old Zaozhuang City, Shandong Province, resident, was recently sentenced to eight months for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Xu Siqiang was arrested in March 2024 and his home was raided. He was taken to the Weishan County Detention Center. Weishan, also part of Shandong Province, borders Zaozhuang.
Mr. Xu was tried by a court in Weishan on September 18, 2024. He was represented by a lawyer his family hired for him. The judge sentenced him to eight months at a later time. Having already been detained for over seven months, he was released on November 28, 2024 when his term was up.
This is not the first time that Mr. Xu has been targeted for his faith. Not long after the persecution began in July 1999, officers from the Yicheng District Police Department broke into his home and confiscated his Falun Gong books and portrait of Falun Gong’s founder. Two officers shadowed him around the clock for more than one month. He was not allowed to go out except to go to work. He couldn’t focus on his job as the police watched him closely there, too.
Mr. Xu was arrested in December 1999 after being reported for distributing Falun Gong materials. He was detained for 15 days.
The Yicheng District Police Department seized Mr. Xu again in October 2004 in order to meet a quota of arresting a set number of Falun Gong practitioners to send to labor camps. While they did not give Mr. Xu forced labor terms, they kept him at a local detention center for 24 days, during which time he was beaten, verbally abused and forced to do hard labor without pay. After that, he was released on a one-year bail and forced to pay a 5,000-yuan fine. His employer suspended his pay and bonus for three months.
Officers from the Zaozhuang City Police Department arrested Mr. Xu at work in November 2010 and raided his home. They confiscated his cell phone, Falun Gong books, and videotapes of the Falun Gong teachings. After interrogating him at a police station, the police released him, but ordered him to report to the police department every day for one week. He had to show up at 8 a.m. every morning and he was not allowed to go home until 6 p.m. His employer kept threatening to fire him. He was so stressed out that he couldn’t sleep or eat. He quickly lost weight and his hair turned gray. After one week, his family took him to a psychiatric hospital.