(Minghui.org) I felt extremely sad after reading the series of articles “These Children Wish to Help End the Persecution.” In the 25-year-long persecution of Falun Gong, even we adults have trouble enduring the enormous pressure that hasn’t let up in all these years; I can’t imagine how young children manage to cope with the trauma of seeing their parents being persecuted.
I know of three families in Chongqing who all have young children whose parents have been repeatedly arrested and sentenced to prison. The experiences of these children give us a glimpse into how brutal the persecution is for young people.
Xixi and Wangwang
Mr. He Zubin was arrested in December 2000 and detained for one month for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. Back then, Mr. He was 23, and his wife, Ms. Lyu Caili, was nine months pregnant with their first child, daughter Xixi. Before Xixi turned one, Mr. He was arrested again on November 21, 2002, and held at a local brainwashing center for a few months.
Although Mr. He escaped another arrest on the evening of January 8, 2003, for hanging up a banner about Falun Gong, he was forced to live away from home for nearly two years. Ms. Lyu was pregnant with their second child at this time. He couldn’t go home to be with his wife when their son Wangwang was born on November 30, 2003. Due to the demands of raising two children by herself, Ms. Lyu’s hair turned gray when she was in her early 30s.
After nearly two years of displacement, Mr. He was arrested in Suining City, Sichuan Province, on November 29, 2004, and later sentenced to 2.5 years in prison. When he was released in 2007, he finally saw Wangwang for the first time--the child was three years old.
The couple was arrested on April 19, 2015, when Xixi was in middle school and Wangwang was in elementary school. The siblings were left to fend for themselves during their parents’ detentions. They faced constant police harassment at school when someone discovered that the siblings were also practicing Falun Gong.
Ms. Lyu was released 37 days later, but on October 20, 2016, Mr. He was sentenced to five years in prison. Ms. Lyu ran a small restaurant to support the family while still working to rescue her husband. Xixi understands how hardworking their mother is. She studied hard at school and helped care for her brother. One day, Wangwang wanted to play and refused to do his homework. Xixi didn’t know what to do with him. When Ms. Lyu returned home that evening, Xixi burst into tears in her arms, “I miss Dad so much! Wangwang wouldn’t behave this way if Dad were home.”
Unfortunately, one year after Mr. He was released from prison, he was arrested again, along with Ms. Lyu, on the evening of June 18, 2021. In 2023, the Jiulongpo District Court sentenced Mr. He to eight years in prison and Ms. Lyu to five years.
By then, Xixi was working at a job after graduating from a vocational high school. With the parents both serving lengthy terms, Xixi took on the responsibilities of caring for Wangwang and paying off the family’s mortgage. She longs for the day her parents are released.
Xinyi and Ruirui
Ms. Jin Yu was 27 when she was pregnant with her first daughter, Xinyi. Due to her pregnancy, she was released a few hours after being arrested in 2000. But just a few months after giving birth to Xinyi, Ms. Jin and the baby were forced to live away from home and hide from the police. Back then, Ms. Jin’s mother, Ms. Zeng Xianfu, was also detained for her faith in Falun Gong. The older woman developed a severe heart condition and high blood pressure due to torture in custody and passed away in 2008.
Ms. Jin was arrested again in 2003 and 2005. She later gave birth to another daughter, Ruirui. However, due to the pressure from the persecution, her husband divorced her. She had full custody of the children.
Following Ms. Jin’s fourth arrest on April 19, 2015, the police deprived her of sleep and told her that one of her daughters was dying and she should cooperate with them so she could be released earlier to see her daughter. She didn’t fall for their ploy and was sentenced to two years in prison on October 20, 2016.
At the time of Ms. Jin’s 2015 arrest, Xinyi was in high school and Ruirui was in elementary school. Xinyi told Ruirui that their mother went out of town for a meeting, and Ruirui often cried, asking why their mother had to leave them for so long.
When a friend of Ms. Jin’s visited the two girls, Xinyi asked if she had seen her mother in the detention center and whether the guards handcuffed her or tortured her.
Xinyi has loved to dance since she was a youngster, and her dream was to join Shen Yun Performing Arts. It happened that the Dance Program at Fei Tian Academy of the Arts (which has a partnership with Shen Yun for the dancers’ practicum opportunities) was accepting applications in 2015, and Xinyi met all the qualifications. But because of her mother’s arrest and subsequent two-year sentencing, she gave up her pursuit of becoming a dancer.
Zhenzhen and Xiongxiong
When Mr. Zhu Yong, a machinery factory worker, was arrested on April 19, 2015, he was taking his daughter, Zhenzhen, who was in elementary school, and his one-year-old son Xiongxiong for an outing along with his elderly parents. The police beat him in front of his children and parents and took him away. His parents and children were terrified to see how brutally he was treated.
A year later, a neighbor told Xiongxiong’s mother that the boy said to her, “The bad people took my dad away.” Xiongxiong’s mother was shocked to hear it, as she'd never explained her husband’s arrest to Xiongxiong, fearing it would sadden the little boy’s heart.
When a friend of Mr. Zhu visited the family later on, Xiongxiong again said that bad people seized his father. He also recounted the details of his arrest, such as in which direction he was taken away. His mother was shocked by the details he remembered and the level of trauma he must have felt.
Mr. Zhu was sentenced to two years on October 20, 2016. When Xiongxiong was playing by himself, he often pretended that he was talking to his father on the phone, “Hi, Dad! Where are you? Oh, you are at Grandma’s place. Are you coming home tomorrow?” After he “hung up” the phone, he would happily say to his mother, “Dad is coming home tomorrow.”
Epilogue
These three families, together with the cases listed in the cited articles, are only the tip of the iceberg of what children have suffered during the persecution of Falun Gong. Of the countless practitioners who have been targeted in the past 25 years, all of their children or grandchildren have been affected in one way or another. Some faced discrimination at school. Some were threatened expulsion from school or denied the opportunity to attend college. After 25 years, some have grown from young children to young adults. Their suffering is indescribable, and yet the fear and pressure continue every day because the persecution hasn’t stopped.
I applaud all the young Falun Dafa practitioners who work alongside the adult practitioners to raise awareness about the persecution. Their spirit and courage are laudable and priceless.
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