Name: He Yanhua (何滟华)
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Teacher at Shanhe Middle School, Maoming City, Guangdong Province
Date of Most Recent Arrest: May 2008
City: Maoming
Province: Guangdong
Persecution Suffered: Forced labor, brainwashing, illegal sentencing, imprisonment, torture, detention, wages suspended
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. He Yanhua has been a chemistry teacher in the graduating class in Shanhe Middle School for more than ten years. She has been praised by her supervisors and colleagues and is well liked by her students. The school principal once told her that she qualified for the title of “Outstanding Teacher.” However, since she practices Falun Gong, they did not dare offer her this title, and she has had her salary withheld for more than two years.
Officials from the Maoming 610 Office and the township government arrested Ms. He in front of many teachers and students as she was supervising the students take a physical exam in May 2008, before the Beijing Olympics. She was detained in Maoming Brainwashing Center. When she asked to return to school to finish the last 30 days of teaching her graduating class, she was ignored. Instead, they beat her and pressured her to write a guarantee statement to give up her practice and to slander Falun Gong. Ms. He was detained for more than four months. After she returned to school, her activities were restricted. For three months, she had to request permission to go out, even on weekends and holidays. The school authorities also threatened to fire her.
In June 2008, officials at Maoming 610 Office ordered the education department to stop paying Ms. He's wages. She was forced to leave the school at the end of the year. Agents from the 610 Office harassed her relatives. They pretended to be from the education department and said that they wanted her to come back to school to teach.
When Ms. He returned to school when the new semester started in 2010, she was told that she could only do janitorial work, and they still withheld her wages. She ended up tutoring outside of school to help pay her bills. Ms. He still worked hard and did her job well. When other teachers were ill and could not go to school, she quietly substituted for them and helped the students. Her colleagues were very touched by how she conducted herself.
In an attempt to get her wages reinstated, Ms. He visited many government departments. In September 2010, the school principal promised that her wages would be paid if she wrote a guarantee statement to renounce her belief. When she refused, she was forced to leave the school again.
Ms. He returned to school in November 2010, when the school principal said that they would reinstate her wages. She spent a great deal of effort visiting and appealing to the city government. In September 2011, she got her wages back-paid from December 2010. However, it was at a reduced rate.
This semester, the school arranged for Ms. He to teach chemistry and other classes in the graduating class. She teaches more hours than anyone else, but she is still paid as a regular worker, which is a lot less than what she should be paid. Her supervisors told her that she was lucky to be teaching at all, as the officials at the 610 Office were against her teaching.
When Ms. He wrote an appeal letter to the provincial government, the director of the education department, Li Zejun, passed her a message from the 610 Office that said: “Either you write a guarantee statement to give up Falun Gong before October 15, or you will be taken to the provincial brainwashing center.”
Those involved in the persecution:
Li Kangrong, head of Maoming district 610 Office: +86-13929770003 (Cell)
Maoming district 610 Office in Guangdong Province: +86-668-2910610
Li Zejun, director of the Maoming District Education Department: +86-668-2688382
Office of the principal, Shanhe Middle School: +86-668-2667138
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