A Year of Persecution by the Shanghai Judicial System

According to recent reports, practitioner Ms. Zhang Ying is on the verge of death because she is refusing to accept any food or water to resist the brutal persecution of forced labour. This was Ms. Zhang Ying's third arrest. Before this she was sent to a forced labour camp for two and a half years for producing Falun Gong materials. Six months after being released she was arrested again and was forced to undergo brainwashing.

What Ms. Zhang Ying encountered and experienced is only one typical example of what countless practitioners are facing every day. Since Chinese New Year's Day, 2005, in Shanghai alone, more than 90 practitioners have been arrested, detained, sentenced to forced labour camps and brainwashing centres, and tortured to death.

This year there were reports on the Internet about practitioners Ms. Zhang Shuying and Ms. Dong Jian from the Yangpu District, Liu Jun from the Jing'an District, and Wu Qiurong from the Minhang District. Practitioner Ms. Zhang Shuying was arrested in August of last year when telling the facts of Falun Dafa to people. It has been learned that she was sentenced to 18 months in prison. Family members are not allowed to visit her. Ms. Dong Jian, over 60 years old, is a retired section leader in the Shanghai Municipal Archives Bureau. She lived at the dormitory of the Air-force Political Academy on Huangxing Road in the Yangpu District. She was sentenced by the Yangpu District Court to a three-year prison term in June, 2004, on fabricated charges. She is being held in the Songjiang Women's Prison. Practitioner Mr. Liu Jun was arrested and sentenced to one year of forced labour in August of last year in the Jing'an District. Wu Qiurong was sentenced to three years of forced labour for telling the facts of Falun Dafa to people.

Practitioner Chen Boying, 43, from the Minhang District, was arrested in April of last year but the practitioner's whereabouts is still unknown. Practitioner Ms. Chen Jingfang, about 34 years old, lived in the Jiading District in Shanghai. She was arrested again in November and there is no news about her. Ms. Tan Shaoshu, over 60, encountered similar misfortune. She was a retired worker from a pharmaceutical factory in Shanghai. She was arrested last year and is being illegally detained.

Five practitioners died in February, May, and June of this year as a result of inhuman torture. They were Ms. Chao Qiangzhen from the Yangpu District, Ms. Li Limao from the Luwan District, Ms. Cao Jinshan from the Pudong District, and Xu Meijing and Ge Wenxin from the Xuhui District.

It has been confirmed that 15 practitioners were sent to forced labour camps, seven to brainwashing centres, and 36 are still in custody, but their conditions are unknown. Seven practitioners were detained and either released or managed to leave the detention with the help of righteous thoughts. Five practitioners were tortured to death. Among these practitioners many of them have been arrested, detained, sent to forced labour camps, sentenced to prisons or sent to brainwashing centres many times. Many of them are also over 50 years old. On the afternoon of June 13, police officers from Chuanqiao Township in the Minhang District fanatically arrested practitioners, but the actual number of arrests is still unknown due to lack of information.

Many of the persecution cases are unknown to outsiders due to the news blockade or lack of information resources for the practitioners. In reality, the number of persecuted practitioners would exceed 100. You can imagine the severity of the persecution in Shanghai.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/11/27/115335.html