(Clearwisdom.net) Communist Party officials sentenced Mr. Yu Changxin, a former member of the Falun Dafa Association, to 17 years in prison not long after the persecution started in 1999. His wife was sentenced to ten years in prison. Mr. Yu Changxin is being detained at the "Air Force Xiaohongmen Detention Center" in Beijing's Chaoyang District, a place isolated from the outside. Falun Gong practitioners held at this detention center have been brutally persecuted.
Mr. Yu Changxin is a retired official from the Air Force Commander's College. He held a deputy army commander level position in the Air Force, with a division commander's rank. He flew more than 30 years, logging about 2,000 flying hours. Prior to his arrest, he contributed a great deal to the theories of pilot training and flying and was awarded a Second Class Merit distinction for his many years of professional accomplishments.
Mr. Yu and his wife began Falun Gong cultivation in June 1992 to improve their health. They learned that Falun Gong is not a common qigong, but a way to cultivate xinxing (heart-mind nature, moral character) following the principle of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." Cultivating this mindset makes the practitioner compassionate and a person of the highest virtue. The couple was overjoyed.
Mr. Yu's home was searched twice after he was arrested in July 1999. Each time more than ten people ransacked the home, going through every single nook and cranny. They confiscated any books and materials they saw, even the mat the couple used for doing the Falun Gong exercises and the small Falun badges on their shirts. Whatever was related to Falun Gong the authorities took away and many other things, even a dictionary.
Following Mr. Yu's sentencing on January 6, 2000, people at the Air Force Commander's College disconnected his phone and stationed people at the gate where he lived to be monitors. Everyone who visited Mr. Yu's home had to be checked. Even after the people were let in, they were still watched and monitored. Officials eventually stationed guards at their door day and night. When people asked why this was done, the officials said it was for the couple's safety. It was surveillance! People followed Mr. Yu's wife even when she went grocery shopping. On March 19, 2000, they suddenly drove his wife out of her long time home and off the campus of the Air Force Commander's College. They sealed the couple's door and put a lock on it.
