(Clearwisdom.net) Duan Xirong is a female junior high school (grade 9) student from the No. 2 Middle School of Zhangjiawa Neighborhood Office in Laiwu City, Shandong Province. Her teacher slapped her face for possessing a copy of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. Not only did she physically assault her, but the principal Lu Jin and the local 610 Office expelled her from school. Miss Duan Xirong's parents have been sent to a forced labor camp for refusing to renounce Falun Gong, and her mother is currently jailed at the Jinan Forced Labor Camp.

Miss Duan Xirong is 15 years old and lives in Shanzihou Village of Zhangjiawa Township. Since the start of the persecution of Falun Gong by the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, her family was broken up. Her parents were abducted, beaten and fined several times for appealing on behalf of Falun Gong. In the end, they were both sentenced to terms in a forced labor camp. Xirong is just a teenager and yet she now has to shoulder all of the family responsibilities. She has to go to school, do the housework and look after both her sister and her grandmother, who is in her eighties.

Young Xirong could not understand what her parents had done wrong. Facing the daily trauma of her sister's crying for her parents and the stress of looking after her elderly grandmother places tremendous pressure upon her. Other children of her age have their parents around to support them, so why can't she? Through this, she has learned to be strong and to think independently. She knows that her parents are good people and that Falun Gong is been wrongfully persecuted. She weeps whenever she thinks about her mother, who is still jailed and subjected to daily persecution in the Jinan Forced Labor Camp. Why aren't they allowed to be good people? They are persecuted simply for following Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. One day, on her way to school, a woman gave her a copy of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. She brought it to school and it was discovered by her teacher.

On the afternoon of April 8, 2005, her teacher Shang Xianqin called her to the office and intimidated her saying, "Do you want me to lose my job so that your classmates won't be able to pass the high school entrance exam?" She forced Xirong to hand over the book to her, but Xirong refused because she wanted to read the book so as to find out what the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) true nature is. Why did they persecute her parents? Why did they sentence them to forced labor when she and her sister needed them so much?

The teacher angrily stormed into the classroom to get her book and asked one of her classmates to burn it. The teacher also tore apart Xirong's two history books and a geometry book and threw them to the floor. Xirong was in tears, but she said to her teacher "The CCP is evil and bad." For that, the teacher slapped her face. The teacher even said that she was applying to become a party member.

Later on, the principal, in conjunction with the local 610 Office personnel continued to persecute Xirong. They forced her to sign all kinds of documents, but she refused. As a result, they expelled her from school after all else failed to persuade her.

It has been four weeks since Xirong was expelled and the mid-term exams are approaching. Xirong misses her classmates and would really like to have the chance to return to school.

Please offer your help to stop the persecution of Falun Gong and human rights abuses in China and let Xirong return to school.

Related phone numbers

No.2 Middle School, Zhangjiawa Neighborhood Office
Lu Jin, principal: 86-634-6581030 (Office)
Shang Xianqin, teacher: 86-634-6680540 (Home)