Ms. Lin Hong Recounts Her Experiences of Unjust Arrest, Torture, and Harassment

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My name is Lin Hong, and I am 50 years old. I am from Lianjiang City, Guangdong Province. I previously worked at the Lianjiang Water Supply Company. I started practising Falun Gong in Haikou City on Hainan Island in May 1997. I have been practising for eleven years now. During the past nine years, I have been constantly harassed by the police. My home was searched, and I was arrested and sent to a forced labour camp. On September 29th, 2007, I was forced to leave home and live in destitution in order to avoid persecution. It's been nine months now. In June 2008, the officials of Lianjiang City went to my home looking for me, and they harassed my husband. The following are my personal experiences of being persecuted.

On July 20th, 1999, when the persecution began, Lianjiang City Police Department officers began monitoring my every move. I could not leave Lianjiang City. My employer could not grant me vacation time without permission from the Political Issue Section of the police department, and the police often visited my home and harassed my family.

At around 11:30 p.m. on July 19th, 2001, more than ten officers from the Liangcheng Police Station broke into and forcibly searched my home. They confiscated Falun Gong books and over 400 copies of Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution and took me to the Liangcheng Police Station. On the third day after my arrest, Mou Qiang from the Police Issue Section of the Police Department, Mai Hua from the police station, and others interrogated me. Mou Qiang threatened me and asked me where I had obtained the materials and where I had posted, distributed, and mailed them. They wanted to know how many had I sent out, etc. Section Head Li of the Political Issue Section even held up the material they had taken from my home and told me in a self-satisfied way, "You are going to get it this time."

On September 30th, 2001, Lou Qiu, deputy director of the Political Issue Section (now of the State Security Unit), came to the detention centre and delivered my arrest warrant. On March 2002, the Procuratorate Office charged me with "insulting Jiang Zemin [former leader of China and instigator of the persecution]." In April of the same year, I was put on trial and sentenced to eight months in a forced labour camp for the so-called crime of "Insulting the Leader of the State." It was said that the police station received 20,000 yuan1 in bonus pay for my arrest. They even had a celebration party.

During the nine months I was incarcerated, I was beaten, held in solitary confinement, and forced to perform hard labour. I worked over 19 hours per day and had to be on duty one hour at night. If I did not finish the required work, I was beaten and deprived of sleep until I finished. As a result, I was tormented both physically and mentally.

In the past nine years, I have been constantly harassed by local police, people from the 610 Office2 and the neighbourhood committee. Wen Dongshan, head of the 610 Office, and his assistant, Ye, often came to my workplace and my home to harass me. They asked me to badmouth Teacher and told my supervisor at work to have me write a guarantee statement to give up practising Falun Gong. On several occasions, they tried to take me to the brainwashing centre, but failed.

Later, I left Lianjiang City and went to Hainan Island.

At around 10:30 p.m. on August 6th, 2005, as I was telling people about the truth of Falun Gong and advising them to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations, under the overpass at Haixiu Street in Haikou City, the police arrested me and took me to the No. 2 Detention Centre. While at the detention centre, they had me sleep on the wet floor next to the sink. I was among death-row inmates, killers, drug dealers, and drug abusers.

The first interrogation was conducted by Nongken Police Station Director Xing Yiyu. He wanted me to tell him how many Falun Gong leaflets I had distributed. The police in Hainan are very evil. If they found one Falun Gong leaflet the person implicated would get one year in prison. If they found five copies, the person would get five years in prison. So I kept my mouth shut and did not say a word to the director. Xing then asked another police officer to handcuff my hands behind my back, and they hung me up from the iron window frame. After a while, I felt dizzy and my hands were so painful that they felt as if they were broken. After about 20 minutes, they let me down. When my feet reached the ground, they started the interrogation again.

A few days later, two other policemen (names unknown) from the Hainan Police Department started to interrogate me. They asked if I had any connection with practitioners in Hainan, and about the source of my materials. They wanted me to tell them who had distributed leaflets in the Guohou area. Every time they interrogated me, I told them nothing. It was always the same two officers that interrogated me. They tried to scare me and threatened that I would get three years in prison, but they could not get anything out me. Finally I was turned over to the Longhua District Procuratorate Office. A woman from the office also interrogated me. I explained the truth about Falun Gong to her and advised her to withdraw from the CCP. She said that she understood, but she still put my case on trial.

On September 29th, 2005, an arrest warrant was issued for me. On December 19th, the procuratorate office brought a suit against me, and on December 26th a trial was held. Because I maintained righteous thoughts and actions, I was later told that I had only been sentenced to five months of detention.

On January 6th, 2006, I was released from detention, but my family in Hainan were not able to take me home. Instead, I was taken to a brainwashing centre in Haikou City by the two police officers who had interrogated me. But when I got there, the brainwashing centre was closed for the holidays. They tried to contact another brainwashing centre in Zhenjiang City, Guangdong Province, but that one was closed, too. I was finally free to go home.

As soon as the Chinese New Year was over, I left Lianjiang and went to Guangzhou to look for a job. After two weeks, Wen Dongshan, the director of the Lianjiang 610 Office, came to my home looking for me. When they could not find me, they called my daughter in Guangzhou to harass her. In the year-plus that I worked away from home, they went to my home many time to harass my husband.

At around 6:00 p.m. on September 28th, 2007, I returned to my home in Lianjiang from Hainan. The next day, Wen Dongshan and others came to my home. They had received news of my return especially quickly. With the help of my friends and family, I was able to escape again.

The persecution that I experienced is only a small sample of what goes on. The crimes committed by the Chinese Communist Party in its abuse of human rights, trampling of belief, and cruel implementation of organized persecution are truly too many to list. I sincerely hope that all those who love peace, believe in freedom and justice, and who have compassion in their hearts will help to ensure justice and work together to put a stop to this nine-year-long, inhuman persecution.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

2. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/6/23/180797.html

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