(Clearwisdom.net) Officials from the Mengyin County 610 Office, the Tanbu Town Police Station and the Tanbu Town government, including Liu Zhen and Zhang Dagan, broke into the home of Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Hu Changping in Dongxiya Village, Tanbu Town, Shandong Province, at 2:00 p.m. on May 22, 2008. They ransacked the home and arrested Hu Changping. As it is wheat harvest season, the toilsome fieldwork fell completely on the shoulders of Hu Changping's 56-year-old wife Song Bingxiang. The couple has been illegally arrested numerous times during the past nine years of persecution. Hu Changping was twice sent to labor camps, Song Bingxiang's father suffered a nervous breakdown from endless police brutality, and the formerly prosperous family became destitute after countless ransackings.

Hu Changping, 55, had been sickly since childhood. Prior to practicing Falun Gong, he suffered from stomach ulcers, rheumatoid arthritis, migraines, and inflammatory esophagus, among other conditions that had tormented him for more than three decades.

His wife Song Bingxiang had been afflicted with severe migraines as long as she could recall, and it always came with violent vomiting. As she grew older, the migraines got worse, especially after she had children. Sometimes her head hurt as if it was going to split open. Even in the summer, she wore a thick, cotton hat, padded with plastic on the inside, and a wool scarf on the outside so no wind could get through. To make it worse, she developed lower back pain at age 28. During the inopportune times when both illnesses attacked at once, she could not take care of herself and became bedridden for months at a time. She gave birth to another child at age 33, which was against the Communist regime's policy, so she was on the run during the entire pregnancy, and caught postpartum fever as a result of exhaustion and constant fear.

Hu Changping began practicing Falun Gong in December 1997. Soon, he experienced overwhelming physical and mental improvements, and all of his illnesses disappeared. He borrowed money and bought three cassette players, in addition to Mr. Li Hongzhi's lecture cassettes and the book Zhuan Falun. Once, as Hu Changping listened to the cassettes, Song Bingxiang heard it and thought, "Falun Dafa is wonderful!" As this thought emerged, she felt the parts of her body that were cold from illness quickly warm up, and she also felt a Falun [law wheel] spinning in her abdomen. The warm sensation lasted from noon until 9:00 a.m. the next day, by which time all of her ailments had disappeared without a trace. She thought, "Falun Dafa is miraculous. I was almost paralyzed, but now I'm just fine!"

Song Bingxiang eagerly introduced Falun Dafa to her family and friends so they could also benefit. Her three children witnessed the changes in their parents and also began the practice. They all experienced positive changes in more than one way, and their small shop attracted more business. Their life improved tremendously.

Detention, ransacking, extortion and beatings

The Communist regime began persecuting Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, and Hu Changping decided to take his whole family to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. He pooled 2,000 yuan and joined several other practitioners from the same town on a trip to Beijing.

Police surrounded the Hu family right after they got off the train in Beijing and immediately put them in a truck along with other Falun Gong practitioners, and drove them to Fengtai Sports Stadium. Armed police officers carrying automatic machine guns stood facing these peaceful people who simply wanted to practice Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. Soon, local officials, whom the central regime had called to Beijing, escorted most practitioners back to their local towns. The Hu Changping family became separated in the process, and Hu was reunited with his two daughters near Tiananmen Square. They did not want to go home, so they stayed near the square for two weeks before being arrested and taken to the Mengyin Liaison Office in Beijing. The office head kicked them. Hu Changping and several other practitioners were handcuffed and taken back to Mengyin on August 3, 1999, while Hu's two daughters were sent home. Hu Changping was held at a custody center for 15 days before being allowed to go home. His family was extorted out of 2,200 yuan.

Hu Changping appealed in Beijing for the second time on December 9, 1999. He was arrested on December 11 when doing the Falun Gong exercises in Tiananmen Square. Tanbu Town Police Station head Wang Jiquan in Mengyin County took Hu Changping back to Mengyin County on December 13, 1999. Several officers at the Criminal Police Division for the Mengyin County Police Department punched and kicked Mr. Hu until blood gushed from his nose and mouth, and they pulled out some of his hair. He was taken to the county detention center on December 13, 1999, where he was held for one month. Mr. Hu's home was ransacked and he was also extorted out of 6,000 yuan. He was physically tortured and mentally tormented at the detention center, and was additionally made to sit on a wooden board and recite the detention center policies. He was forced to do labor such as making matchboxes and was deprived of food and sleep if he did not finish his assigned workload. Hu Changping was released on January 11, 2000.

One hundred practitioners from Tanbu Town who appealed in Beijing and sent information about the persecution abroad were deceived into going to the Tanbu Town government compound and the police station on February 10, 2000 and were brutally assaulted. Tanbu Town head Yuan Junhai, Pan Yushan, Party organization staff, Tanbu Town deputy head Meng Qinglong, and Gong Fangzhen, deputy Party secretary, instructed all Tanbu Town government employees to engage in the attack. They even hired gangsters from the street and hit the practitioners with wooden sticks and bricks, and whipped them with belts. They also rammed the practitioners' heads against a wall.

Six people surrounded Hu Changping and they kicked him with heavy boots. They then removed his belt, stripped him naked and whipped him with the belt until the new belt broke into three pieces. Hu Changping sustained broken ribs and wounds all over his body. He could not lie down or sit. Still, 40 officials and thugs beat him every few days. The abusers included: Zhang Qian, Zhang Jiazhao, Feng Chuanqi, Zhang Minglei, Zhao Jian, Gong Yanpeng, Gong Weidong, Xu Jiadong, Yu Huazeng, Zhang Yuan, Sun Jifang, Gong Xuefeng, Gong Weizao, Gong Weiguo, Gong Piqian, Gong Pide, Wang Youfu, and Sun Chuankun.

Mr. Hu's wife Song Bingxiang was taken to the Tanbu Town Police Station. The police made her sit on the concrete floor, and nine people savagely attacked her. They whacked the backs of her hands with four-edged wooden sticks, which caused instant swelling and excruciating pain. Tanbu Town Deputy Party secretary Gong Fangzhen slapped her in the face repeatedly. Zhao Jian kicked her and fractured one of her toes. She was taken to the county hospital, and the doctor found that a nerve was damaged, which caused her muscles to atrophy and one of her hips to become immobile. She could only sleep face down. It took seven months for her to recover completely through studying the Fa and doing the Falun Gong exercises.

Hu Changping was held for three and a half months and returned home in May 2000, after being extorted of more than 10,000 yuan.

Constant harassment

Officers at Tanbu Town Police Department were afraid that Hu Changping would go to Beijing again, so they arrested him on July 12, 2000 and held him at Mengyin County Surveillance Division for one month. Even after he went home, Party officials continued to harass him every now and then.

Hu Changping visited his relatives in another village on November 19, 2000. Someone reported him as leaving for Beijing, which immediately sent the Communist agents into panic mode. Soon, officials in three vehicles surrounded the village. They searched houses at random and did not stop until they forced Hu Changping's family to find Mr. Hu at his relative's house, more than 60 km (40 miles) away; they finally felt reassured and drove off.

Hu Changping and his daughters were weeding the field in February 2001 when two vehicles pulled up and a large number of officials jumped out. They grabbed Hu Changping and his daughters and threw them in one of the vehicles. They drove them to Tanbu Town Police Station and demanded 4,000 yuan from the family, threatening to kill Mr. Hu and his daughters and report it as suicide if the family did not hand over the money by 5:00 p.m. that same day. The family borrowed 3,200 yuan and handed it to the police, in exchange for Hu Changping and his daughters' release.

Hu Changping wrote, "Falun Dafa is good" on the blackboard inside his own shop one morning in March 2001. He was reported, and a police car arrived one hour later. Four officers including Li Qiang physically assaulted Hu Changping and tore his clothes in the process. They then carried him to the police car. Once at the Tanbu Town Police Station, the officers made Hu Changping stand in the rain for an entire day and interrogated him in the evening. They ordered him to write something, and he wrote, "I can write anything as long as it's truthful and will benefit others; therefore, I have no fear in this regard." The police released him after seeing he was not going to give up his belief.

Hu Changping severely injured from beating; father suffers nervous breakdown

Hu Changping was working in the fields on June 28, 2001 when five officers from the Tanbu Town Police Department including Li Qiang and Wu Gang suddenly approached him and handcuffed him. They threw him in the trunk of their car and drove him to the police department where he was alternately hung from a basketball rim, handcuffed to a tree, locked to a chain with his hands cuffed behind his back, or compelled to stay out in the scorching heat until he suffered dizzy spells. Wang Jiquan, Yi Yongtao and other police officers beat him with rubber clubs and wooden boards. They also shoved him to the floor and dragged him back and forth by his arm until blood soaked his shirt, and the flesh on his legs and feet was severely bruised and lacerated.

Hu Changping's father Hu Huaide went to see him at the police department one day and was shocked to find Hu Changping handcuffed to a tree and his body covered in blood, almost beyond recognition. Hu Huaide collapsed on the ground, and tears streamed down his face. He suffered a nervous breakdown soon after returning home and passed away in 2005.

Hu Changping was sent to the Mengyin County Surveillance Division on July 2, 2001, after seven days and nights of brutal torture.

During this period, on July 8, 2001, about 20 Falun Gong practitioners were publicly paraded through the streets wearing humiliating placards around their necks. A Cultural Revolution-style public attack meeting was held in Duozhuangji City. Practitioners had their arms twisted behind them, and they had humiliating placards with insults written on them hung around their necks. After the meeting, the practitioners were forced to walk in this degrading manner through Jiepai, Taoxu and other towns. After the meeting and parade, they were held at the Mengyin County Surveillance Division for one month before being transferred to the Mengyin County 610 Office Brainwashing Center where they were held for another 20 days. Afterwards, they were sent back to the Mengyin County Surveillance Division, where another parade and public attack meeting took place. The mentally degrading assault of practitioners happened in front of the Tanbu Town Industry and Commerce Bureau, causing them tremendous psychological trauma.

Hu Changping was illegally sentenced to three years of forced labor on September 3, 2001. Tanbu Town Police Station officers ransacked his home again on the day the sentence was issued. Hu Changping returned home on January 1, 2004 after undergoing physical torture and mental trauma at the labor camp. Party officials, disregarding any and all laws, again sentenced him to one year of forced labor on June 17, 2008. Hu Changping is currently held at the Wangcun Forced Labor Camp.

Additional information on the extortion and robbery of Hu Changping's family belongings:

Tanbu Town government officials extorted 2,200 yuan from the Hu family, and their privately owned shop was ransacked and looted of merchandise worth about 13,000 yuan the first time in 1999. The following is a partial list of items the police took from Mr. Hu's shop during their first looting in 1999:

Twenty metal key chains, 12 decks of playing cards, one Olympus WS-311 Digital Voice Recorder, five boxes of instant noodles, three boxes of soymilk powder, three boxes of tea bags, two packs of soft drinks, eight cases of batteries, three bags of laundry powder, five recorders, one mini-recorder, 14 boxes of audiocassettes, 38 vats of liquor, four cases of ESB (Extra Special / Strong Bitter), seven boxes of special-package cigarettes, three boxes of medications, two boxes of syringes, two large bags of salt, two tubes of shoe polish, half a case of shampoo, two cases of light bulbs, one vial of silicone oil, two bundles of power cords, a bunch of leather belts, 18 umbrellas, 15 electronic watches, three wristwatches, half a case of matches, ten ponchos, half a case of hawthorn crackers [about 50 individually packaged rolls], one box of pens, one box of light switches, half a case of crackers, ten bottles of wine, one large bag of individually packaged toothpastes, half a case of soaps, 50 kg of sunflower seeds, two 30-roll packages of toilet paper, half a case of sausages, six music boxes, one small scale and one large scale, two wood scales, two computers, one TV set, one recorder, ten flashlights, one quartz clock, one gas cooker, one sewing machine, one bicycle, one motorcycle, five sockets, one standing fan, and two pairs of gloves.

In 2000, Tanbu Town government officials extorted 10,000 yuan from the Hu family. In February 2001, it was 3,200 yuan; and another 500 yuan in the summer of 2001, when the officials also stole 3,000 kg of wheat [approximately 6,100 lbs]. They also took merchandise worth about 6,000 yuan from the family's shop, as well as a bank deposit slip worth 600 yuan.

Tanbu Town Officials involved in the persecution:

Sun Lingjie, Party Secretary: 86-539-4712669, 86-13573966567 (Cell)
Wang Jindong, town head: 86-539-4712698, 86-13853951506 (Cell)
Zhao Yingli, deputy town head: 86-539-4712588, 86-539-4538235, 86-13854952066 (Cell)
Liu Zhen, head of Tanbu Town 610 Office: 86-13325070141 (Cell)