(Minghui.org) A Maoming City, Guangdong Province resident was arrested on January 29, 2024 at her younger sister’s home in Guangzhou City for her faith in Falun Gong. Ms. Liang Shaolin was given 15 days of administrative detention before being put under criminal detention. She is currently held at the Baiyun District Detention Center in Guangzhou.
A group of officers from the Jiahe Police Station seized Ms. Liang while she was out and about on January 29. They next went to her sister’s home and pounded on the metal security door (behind it is an interior wooden door). Not knowing who they were, her sister didn’t dare to open the door. Half an hour later, upon hearing the people outside had opened the security door, her sister opened the interior door. She questioned them on where they got her keys and why they broke into her home.
The officers replied that they got the key from Ms. Liang and the person who opened the security door was with the property management office, whom Ms. Liang’s sister never saw in the neighborhood before.
Five officers entered the home, with only one wearing a police uniform. With a search warrant in hand, they began to look around. Ms. Liang’s sister demanded to know the reason for the home raid, and they replied that they had arrested Ms. Liang earlier that day after receiving a tip on January 16, 2024 that she talked to people about Falun Gong at a supermarket.
The police did not explain why they waited two weeks to arrest Ms. Liang and refused to reveal the exact location and time of her arrest. They confiscated all the Falun Gong related materials they could find from her sister’s home, but did not provide a list of confiscated items as required by law.
In mid-February 2024, Ms. Liang’s younger brother, who resides in the U.S., called the Jiahe Police Station to inquire about her case status. Two female officers answered the call, but they refused to provide any information, with the excuse that they couldn’t verify his identity. He asked to talk to the police chief on duty, but was denied. He also proposed to connect to his other sister to verify his identity, but was still denied.
Ms. Liang’s sister went to the police station three times to inquire about her case, but was never given a copy of her detention notice or informed of her transfer to the Baiyun District Detention Center after 15 days of administrative detention. Her sister actually went to the police station on the 16th day, hoping to pick her up, only to be told that she had been put on criminal detention and transferred away. The police also indicated that they would submit Ms. Liang’s case to the Baiyun District Procuratorate to seek prosecution of her.
Ms. Liang, 73, used to work for the Maoming Petrochemical Corporation and won several awards. In October 1999, three months after the Chinese Communist Party ordered the persecution of Falun Gong, she went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice her faith, but was arrested midway. She held a seven-day hunger strike to protest the detention and was released. The police arrested her again not long after and gave her two years of forced labor. As she remained firm in Falun Gong, the authorities extended her term by three months and transferred her to several brainwashing centers after her extended term expired. She wasn’t released until March 31, 2005.
A group of officers of the Maoxi Police Department opened Ms. Liang’s home with a chainsaw on the morning of September 24, 2009. For a year after that, her family was kept in the dark of any information about her. It wasn’t until September 2010 that they confirmed that she had been sentenced to nine years in May of that year.
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