Wuhan City Authorities Plot to Indict Nine Falun Gong Practitioners

Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to openly persecute Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, practitioners in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, have endured extreme persecution. According to incomplete statistics, approximately 100 local practitioners were arrested this year alone. Wuhan police seized seven practitioners on April 20th, 2011, and two more on May 5th. Wuhan City Police Department officials filed a request with the Wuchang District Procuratorate, ordering them to indict the nine newly arrested practitioners for violating the so-called “Article 300 of the Criminal Law.”

Brief Background Information on the Nine Practitioners

1) Mr. Zhang Weijie, 47 and small business owner, has been arrested ten times and sent to labour camps twice in the past. His wife, Ms. Chen Man, an English teacher, is serving a seven-year term at Wuhan Women’s Prison.

2) Mr. Zhang Su, 45-year-old senior tennis coach, was seized three times in the past: in August 1999, February 2001, and March 2004. The police once extorted a total of 40,000 yuan¹ from him. While in custody, he almost lost his life due to brutal force-feeding.

3) Mr. Li Guohua, in his 40s, used to work at the No. 4 Steel Research Institute. He lost his job after he was sentenced to seven years of incarceration in 2002. After his release he opened his own advertising company in the Hankou District, Wuhan City.

4) Mr. Xiong Weiming, around 40, is a lawyer at the Wuhan City Patent Law Firm in the Hankou District.

5) Ms. Xia Yang, in her 50s, is a preschool teacher.

6) Ms. Zhu Chunlian is a 68-year-old retiree from the Zhongnan Steel Design Institute. She was put in detention twice, sent to brainwashing centres six times, and had her home ransacked six times.

7) Mr. Feng Zhen, born in 1969, used to work as a driver for a labour service company affiliated with the Hubei Province Construction Company. During the past 12 years he has been arrested eight times and incarcerated in Qinduankou Prison and Fanjiatai Prison for a total of seven years.

8) Mr. Feng Yun is an outstanding graduate of Huazhong University of Science of Technology.

9) Ms. Han Shuhua is a retired engineer who was persecuted on numerous occasions. Her son, Ye Hao, who was once imprisoned at a labour camp, died later as the result of brutal persecution.

The Arrests

At around 11:00 a.m. on April 20th, 2011, no sooner had Ms. Zhu Chunlian returned home from grocery shopping when more than a dozen police officers showed up and surrounded her in her living room. They turned her home upside down and took away many items, including Falun Gong and informational materials and her computer.

Around the same time another group of thugs broke into the home of Ms. Xia Yang, who also lives in the Qingshan District. After ransacking her home the police took her away.

That same day, the police also seized five other practitioners who live in the Wuchang District. Ms. Han Shuhua and Mr. Xiong Weiming were both arrested at home, while Mr. Li Guohua was picked up at his advertising company in the Hankou District. Mr. Li’s home in the Wuchang District was ransacked around the same time. When Mr. Xiong’s family learned of his arrest and rushed to his home, they saw chaos everywhere and noticed that the police had confiscated his printer, his desktop computer, and his laptop. Since the family never received any formal notice of his arrest, they reported him missing. Xujiapeng Police Station officials in charge of Mr. Xiong’s residential area claimed they knew nothing about his arrest, and Wuhan City Police Department Division One (also known as Domestic Security Division) also denied any knowledge of his whereabouts. It took a great deal of effort for Mr. Xiong’s family to finally confirm that he had indeed been arrested by the Wuhan City Police Department Division One.

Mr. Feng Zhen, on the other hand, was deceived by his former employer, the labour service company, to go to the street committee and was arrested there. His younger brother, Mr. Feng Yun, fell victim to police shortly afterwards.

Wuhan police arrested two more practitioners on May 5th. Around 8:00 a.m. that day, Mr. Zhang Su and his wife, Ms. Cheng Jing, were seized by a group of men near the Changqinghuayuan Railway Station ticket office in Wuhan City. The gang sprayed the couple with an unknown substance. An hour later, agents from the Wuhan City Police Department Division One ransacked the couple’s home and took their computer and other personal belongings. They released Ms. Cheng Jing that afternoon.

Around the same time, seven agents from the Wuhan City Police Department Division broke into the company where Mr. Zhang Weijie was working and took him away. They also confiscated his work computer.

The arrests of the nine practitioners is just another example of the Wuhan authorities’ efforts to intensify the persecution of Falun Gong, claiming a need for “tightened security” for the commemoration of the 100th Anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution.

After the arrests, Mr. Xiong Weiming, Ms. Xia Yang, and Ms. Zhu Chunlian were briefly held at the Qingshan District Brainwashing Centre, though Ms. Xia and Ms. Zhu were later released. The brainwashing centre guards did not allow the practitioners to talk to each other and assigned people to follow them everywhere, even to the toilet. Every morning, as soon as they opened their eyes, the guards turned on the TV as loud as it would go. Sometimes five TV sets were playing Falun Gong-slandering propaganda at the same time. Each practitioner was charged 100 yuan per day.

Wuhan authorities refuse to disclose the detention locations of Mr. Zhang Weijie, Mr. Zhang Su, and Mr. Xiong Weiming, though there have been reports that the three practitioners are in the Hubei Province Brainwashing Centre. According to an insider, on June 13th, under the directive of brainwashing centre team lead Liu Cheng, five guards tied Mr. Zhang Su’s hands behind his back and beat him savagely until he could no longer pull himself up. When the three practitioners’ families went to the brainwashing centre, they were told their loved ones were not detained there. As of now, the three families have not received any formal notice from the authorities regarding the whereabouts of the three practitioners, despite their frantic efforts to locate them.

It is confirmed that brothers Mr. Feng Zhen and Mr. Feng Yun are now in custody in a detention centre. Mr. Li Guohua, Ms. Xia Yang, Ms. Zhu Chunlian, and Ms. Han Shuhua are now awaiting trial at home. Yejin Street Committee officials dispatched three people to monitor Ms. Zhu, and the Hongweilu Street Committee also kept a close eye on Ms. Xia.

List of Perpetrators

Zhao Fei (head of Wuhan City Police Department and Head of Political and Legal Committee): +86-27-82402235
Division One, Wuhan City Police Department: +86-27-85395240, +86-27-85393500
Liu Nanhua, head
Jiao Jian, deputy head: +86-27-85393567
Chen Shiguo, Wuhan City 610 Office deputy head: +86-27-82402903, +86-27-87403060 (Home), +86-15367118323
610 Office Staff:
Feng Chunfang (female): +86-13260616509
Huang Geguang: +86-15902727216
Lv Shanhai: +86-18971036356, +86-27-88850789, +86-27-86739553 (Office)

Note

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

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/10/14/247857.html