Latest News from China - 10/22/2000

[Mainland] Shanghai practitioners use a variety of methods to clarify the truth about Falun Gong At the present time, a large number of practitioners in Shanghai are using a variety of methods to clarify the truth about Falun Gong to the local residents, including directly mailing flyers, putting flyers in residents' mailboxes, passing out flyers to the passers-by, among others. The evil forces controlled by Jiang Zemin must be extremely annoyed and frustrated. On October 3^rd around 4pm, one practitioner hung a 20-ft long hand-made banner over a crowded bridge overpass. The banner read, "Falun Dafa is a Righteous Fa." It took over 7 minutes before the authorities arrived and removed it. Then the practitioner walked across half of the city and passed out more than 2,000 sets of Falun Gong material, each 16-pages long. Finally, the practitioner was able to safely return home. In the majority of cases, the passers-by were eager to accept a copy of the material. [Mainland] Hubei practitioners distribute flyers to clarify the truth about Falun Gong Practitioners in a certain city in the Hubei province have either mailed or directly passed out thousands of copies of Falun Gong material to the local residents. They first mailed out close to 1,000 copies of the material to all the governmental agencies in the city. Then they mailed out more than 2,000 copies of the material to various business offices in the city. One practitioner has a friend who works as an executive assistant at a certain governmental agency, and the friend complimented the practitioner on how well the flyers were written. Another practitioner overheard people discussing the letter in the market, and one person said, "It looks like they are going to rectify everything this time." Before October 1^st (Chinese National Day), practitioners prepared more than 4,000 copies of material, 1,000 copies of which were sent out to nearby cities. Practitioners who went out to distribute the material said that everyone was eager to get a copy, and they were able to give away all the flyers quickly. When they returned the second time to pass out more flyers, undercover agents secretly followed them and discovered that the material was being assembled at the home of a former volunteer assistant. She was arrested, and her home was ransacked. Her family said that a huge bag of flyers was confiscated. Later on, more practitioners were arrested and had their homes ransacked. They are still being detained to this day. Practitioners had to use local printing services to make copies of the Falun Gong material. The people who worked in these establishments gradually began to understand the actions of the practitioners more and more and have given the practitioners a great deal of help. The practitioners are very happy for them, as their support today will help to secure good places for them in the future. Through all the efforts to spread the Dafa, practitioners gradually were able to progress from not daring to step forward, to actively participating in all the truth-clarifying activities. They are no longer afraid of being arrested, nor do they care what they gain or lose in their everyday lives. They realized that in the past when they were too afraid to step forward, the other practitioners who were being arrested, beaten, or even persecuted to death were suffering on their behalf. How could they be afraid any longer? [Mainland] A personal experience of a Shijiazhuang practitioner One practitioner in the city of Shijiazhuang went to many apartment buildings to put a copy of Falun Gong material in each mailbox. He also handed out the material directly to people who happened to see him. One resident heard about it and came out to take a look. When he saw the practitioner methodically distributing the flyers as if he did not have a care in the world, the resident asked, "What are you distributing?" The practitioner replied, "It is a flyer to clarify the truth about Falun Gong." The resident was very surprised, "You still dare to do this? Are you still practicing?" The practitioner replied, "Of course I still practice. Falun Dafa is such a good thing. All the information contained in the flyer is the truth. I hope you can read it to gain some understanding." The resident took the flyer and sincerely said, "OK. I will read it to understand what is going on. I am just an ordinary citizen, and I have no ulterior motives. I really hope you will watch out for your own safety." [Mainland] Zhengzhou conducts large-scale manhunts to round up practitioners The police in the city of Zhengzhou have detained a large number of practitioners. At the 4^th detention center in the district of Guangchen (a small local detention center), more than 80 practitioners have been detained as of October 23rd. Each practitioner was ordered to pay 700 Yuan to cover the daily expenses at the detention center. In the majority of the cases, the police would knock on the door of a practitioner in the middle of the night with a filled-out certificate of arrest. Two policemen would surround each member of the family, holding their heads and chests. The other policemen would then start to ransack the home. If they found any Falun Gong material, even if it was just a single copy, they would take the practitioner away. Because they had no idea where the Falun Gong material came from and just conducted random home searches of practitioners, often they could not find anything and had to leave empty-handed. Supposedly this large-scale search would be conducted all over the country, as October 26^th is considered a sensitive date (it is the 1-year anniversary of Jiang Zemin's government branding Falun Gong an evil cult). According to reliable sources, the Zhengzhou police department is currently not only using plainclothes agents to follow practitioners to find distributors of Falun Gong material. It is also conducting fingerprint testing on the flyers already posted outside to find out the identities of practitioners responsible. [Mainland] Hubei practitioners sent to labor camps In the city of Jinmen of Hubei Province, Zhou Li, Chen Qiji and three other practitioners were sent to the labor camps during the October 1^st period. In addition, the city government has spent more than 300,000 Yuan to conduct classes to "transform and re-educate" practitioners. [Mainland] Shandong policeman punished for his evil deeds A few days ago, the story of how policeman Liang Jiang in the Kerxueyuang Police Station in the city of Jinan (Shandong province) and his supervisor Mr. Zhang brutally persecuted Falun Gong practitioners was published on Minghui. Soon after, Liang Jiang suddenly appears to have fallen mentally ill. He went to the home of a certain practitioner that he had brutally beaten in the past, kneeled on the ground and slapped himself on the face repeatedly. He kept saying that he had done bad deeds, he was sorry to the practitioner and he felt really bad. Based on his recent out-of-control behavior, the police station has already transferred him to another location. In addition, his supervisor Mr. Zhang has taken a 1-month sick leave. No one knows what kind of illness he has. [Mainland] A partial list of Shanghai practitioners sent to labor camps At this time, most of the male practitioners from Shanghai who have been sentenced to serve time in the labor camps are being held at the Dafeng Labor Farm in the neighboring Jiangsu Province. All the female practitioners are being held at the Shanghai Qingpu Female Labor Station. The list below is just a small fraction of Shanghai practitioners who are serving time in labor camps. Practitioners are working toward making a more complete list. In addition, the whereabouts of a number of practitioners are unknown right now. Lin Shengli, male, was sentenced to one and a half years at labor camps. Zhang Congming, male, was sentenced to one and a half years at labor camps. He used to be a volunteer assistant in the district of Yangpu. The police took him from his home in February for no apparent reason. The excuse was that he once went to Beijing and went to visit a fellow practitioner in November of 1999. Sheng Chongjin, male, was sentenced to two years at labor camps. He is from the district of Yangpu. Deng Guoping, male, was sentenced to two years at labor camps. He is in his 30's and from the district of Yangpu. He used to work in the Beijing office of a world-famous company based in Shanghai. Since July of 1999, he was sent from Beijing to Shanghai and detained there many times for things such as writing appeal letters, conducting Falun Gong exercises outdoors, and participating in informal experience-sharing sessions with fellow practitioners. In June of 2000, he went to the home of a practitioner to repair someone else's laptop and was arrested there (the police happened to be there arresting people). He was sent back to Shanghai and has been detained since then. All his personal belongings, such as his laptop and personal computer, were confiscated and have not been returned. His family found out only at the end of August that he has been sentenced to two years at the labor camps, but they were not told where he is actually being held right now. Zhang Caixing, male, was sentenced to two years at labor camps. He is about 43 years old and a farmer from the Nanhui district. In the evening of July 22, while about 14 practitioners were holding a group study in his home, the police surrounded his home and arrested the practitioners. He was detained for one month and released on August 22. He only spent one night in his home before he was arrested again for no apparent reason on August 23. In October, he was sentenced to two years at the labor camp. He has an excellent reputation in his village, and he used to hold a group study session at his home every Saturday. Qiu Yinglong, male, was sentenced to two years at the labor camp. He is about 45 years old and used to work at the Nanhui District Detention Center. He went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong many times and was detained for a month last year. Xi Xiaocheng, male, was sentenced to one and a half years at the labor camp. Cai Jun, male, was sentenced to one and a half years at the labor camp. He is from the district of Pudong and about 35 years old. Jiang Xiaojun, male, was sentenced to the labor camp (the length of his sentence is not known). He was a computer science professor in the renowned Shanghai Jiaotou University. He was arrested for downloading and printing Falun Gong material from the Internet. The police confiscated his two personal computers and printers. Liu Peng, male, was sentenced to two and a half years at the labor camp. He was a teacher in the Shanghai Police Academy. Zhang Yiming, male, was sentenced to two years at the labor camp. Xiong Wenqi, male, was sentenced to two and a half years at the labor camp. He is from the district of Putuo and 29 years old. He went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in March of 2000. Without any other outlets to make his appeal, he went to meditate at Tiananmen Square. He was sentenced to one and a half years at the labor camp. He conducted a 90-day hunger strike while in prison and was paroled for medical reasons. He returned to Beijing again and was brought back to Shanghai again. As a result, an extra year was added to his original sentence. He has been conducting a hunger strike in protest. Guo Chengru, female, was sentenced to one and a half years at the labor camp. She is from the city of Tianjin and was arrested when she went to visit a fellow practitioner's home in Shanghai. Zhu Fengguan, female, was sentenced to two years at the labor camp. She and is about 54 years old and a teacher at the Huinan elementary school in the district of Nanhui. She went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong at the end of this June, and was sent to the labor camp in August. Wei Longfang, female, was sentenced to two years at the labor camp. She worked in the Nanhui Printing Press and was arrested in June when she went to deliver Jinwen (short articles written by Master Li) to fellow practitioners. She was sent to the labor camp in August. Yang Jie, female, was sentenced to one year at the labor camp. She was sent to a local detention center for a period of time and taught Falun Gong to fellow inmates. After she was released, she went back to the detention center trying to bring a copy of "Zhuan Falun" to the inmates and was arrested again. Because she insisted on practicing Falun Gong and refused to promise not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, she was sent to the labor camp in January. Wang Yudi, female, was sentenced to one year at the labor camp. She is from the district of Huangpu and was arrested for performing Falun Gong exercises outdoors on January 1^st. Sheng Xiaofang, female, was sentenced to four years at the labor camp at the end of this September for delivering Jinwen to fellow practitioners. Wang Yu, female, was sentenced to two years at the labor camp. She worked in the University of Shanghai. Jin Huifang and Chen Wenying were each sentenced to one and a half years at the labor camp. Pe Gengdi, Chen Shiyi, and Lu Lingli were each sentenced to two years at the labor camp. All five women are from the district of Xuhui. Shanghai is a major metropolitan city, and highly advanced equipment is being used to follow or trace practitioners. For example, the telephone system has automatic listening and recording features built into it. If the time spent talking on the phone is too long or certain "important words" are repeatedly mentioned, then the phone call would be automatically recorded. If a cellular phone is being traced and it is turned on, then the police can discover the location of the practitioner very easily. It is a good idea to use public telephones whenever possible and talk on the phone as briefly as possible. If something important comes up, it is better to talk to each other face to face.