Latest News from China - 08/08/2000

[China] Practitioners are clarifying facts about Falun Gong In a city in China, Falun Gong practitioners from all walks of life are working very hard on telling the true facts about Falun Gong to local people. Up to now, at least 50,000 copies of Falun Gong brochures have been quietly distributed to the local residences. The practitioners in nearby cities are also working hard on that. [Sichuan] 200 practitioners arrested for talking in a park On July 15, 2000, when 200 Falun Gong practitioners in Deyang City were sharing their experiences and studying Teacher's new articles in a park, police came and arrested all of them. They were later picked up by their family members or work units. But on July 17, 2000, the police arrested these practitioners from their homes again, and announced that they would be detained for 15 days. It was said that the police were implementing the order from the provincial authorities. People couldn't understand why the regime was so nervous that it does not even allow Falun Gong practitioners to talk to each other in a park. [Beijing] On the eve of July 20, 2000, an old practitioner in Beijing was arrested from home for no reason, and was detained for 9 days in the Haidian Detention Center. The following was her experience. On the night of July 19, 2000, a police officer broke into the home of the practitioner, and took her to the detention center. The medical exam in the detention center showed that her blood pressure was 120/200. People with such a high blood pressure should not be detained in the detention center. But the police still decided to detain her. When her family members sent in clothes and money to her, the police took the money but refused to take the clothes. In the detention center, there were two blind practitioners detained there. The police arrested them with the charge of "gathering" because three fellow practitioners visited them. The phone number of Haidian Detention Center is 011-86-10-6209-2266, ext. 3744. [Beijing] New tactics for suppressing Falun Gong practitioners on Tiananmen Square The police violence against Falun Gong practitioners on Tiananmen Square has been widely reported by foreign journalists. To avoid further exposures, the police adopted a new tactics to suppress Falun Gong practitioners who went to Tiananmen Square to defend the righteousness of Falun Dafa. The strategy was that the plainclothes agents pretend to be street vendors. Once they noticed people who looked like practitioners, they would inform the hired thugs on the Square to rob practitioners' belongings to stir up trouble. Then the police would come and took both the practitioners and the thugs onto the police vans pretending to keep order. After that, the thugs and the police would beat practitioners in the police vans. [Beijing] Quota for sentencing Falun Gong practitioners Yu Jinmei, a graduate student from Department of Chemical Engineering of Qinghua University, was sentenced to one year of forced labor for making copies of Falun Gong materials. Zhang Yong, a graduate student from the Academy of Science, and Jia Shouxin, a graduate student from the Institute of Electronics, were arrested from their workplaces on August 1, 2000, and were both sentenced to one year of forced labor without trials. Qin Wei from Beijing Bayi Middle School received sentence of one year of forced labor. Graduate student Mo Haitao got arrested on July 3 from his workplace. Researcher Kong Fanfen (female, 60) was arrested on July 22, 2000 at home; their whereabouts is unknown. Cao Kai, a graduate student from the Academy of Science, was arrested on June 7, 2000 in Hainan Province, and was escorted back to Beijing on June 23, 2000. His whereabouts is unknown. Huang Jian from Shijingshan District was sentenced to one year of forced labor. Practitioners from Aviation Ministry, Zhang Jingshen, Wang Shuli, Wang Xuan, and Hu Haibin, were arrested on August 4, 2000, and were all sentenced to one year of forced labor without any legal procedures. Once practitioners in Shijinghsna District held an experience sharing conference. The police arrested practitioners with loaded guns. It was said that the Haidian District had received a quota of 100 that would be used to sentence Falun Gong practitioners. Many practitioners' phone lines are being monitored. [Sichuan] Be alert of spies In Chengdu City and Zizhong City, there are three people who have betrayed Falun Dafa, and are now working for the regime. They are attempting to persuade practitioners that they should surrender their books and write the pledge to recant. They also claimed that Teacher's new articles published on Minghui Net were faked. Some practitioners in the jails have endured a lot, and they are not allowed to study Falun Dafa books. So they might be misled by these spies. We hope that local practitioners could contact them and tell them the truth.