(Minghui.org) The Laishui County government, in Hebei Province recently hosted a province-wide poverty relief conference. In order to prevent Falun Gong practitioners from appealing to the provincial authorities, a county-wide lock-down was orchestrated. Village officials illegally locked an elderly practitioner inside of her home for more than four hours.

A Falun Gong practitioner's gate locked from the outside by the officials of a mountain village in Laishui County

From February 28 to March 1, 2012, a province-wide poverty relief conference in Hebei Province took place at the Laishui County movie theater. Among the attendees were Secretary Zhang Qingli of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Hebei Provincial Committee, Hebei Province Governor Zhang Qingchun, Deputy Secretary Zhao Yong of the CCP Hebei Provincial Committee, sixty city mayors and municipal party committee secretaries, a hundred chief executives of the county government and county party committee secretaries, persons in charge of poverty relief at the provincial level, city level, county level, and other relevant departments. More than 1,800 people attended this conference and more than a hundred reporters and journalists reported live from the event. This was the first time the Laishui County CCP Committee has hosted such a large scale and high level conference since its establishment.

It is still highly questionable how much this conference will benefit the people, since it is unclear how the various poverty relief funds are allocated every year. Only a small amount of money is given to the poorest families, mainly for show. The rest of the money just disappears. It is understandable that the people are skeptical of the poverty relief initiatives of the provincial party committee and the provincial government. The officials of the Laishui County Party Committee and the county government work in collusion with the real estate developers to force the sale of land in each village of Laishui County without permission from the villagers. They buy at a low price and sell high. The land that's vital to the farmers' livelihood becomes a commodity to make a fortune for the officials of the communist party and the county government. The farmers' livelihood and their very existence is not their concern at all. Farmers are forced to appeal to all levels of government all year round. When they appeal, many of them are arrested, beaten, detained, fined, sent to forced labor camps, or sentenced.

During the period of the conference, in order to “maintain stability,” or to put it plainly, to prevent the people from legally airing their grievances to the higher authorities, the authorities deployed the police departments, Domestic Security Bureau, armed police force and the city security departments of the 22 cities and counties of the Baoding region. All Laishui County police officers joined forces to “maintain order.” The Laishui Town Police Department sent out all of its officers, with no one left on duty. The gate of the police station was locked. All streets and roads that connect to the conference venue were blocked off and no pedestrians or motor vehicles were allowed to pass. All taxis were ordered to stop operations, and the taxi drivers were not happy. Even the No. 917 passenger bus heading to Beijing had to take a detour.

Laiyang Road under martial law

Laiyang Road that leads to Fuqian Street

All the street vendors around Fuqian Street were driven away, to “clean up” the appearance of the city. More than ten barbecue restaurants and vendors were forced to close and were driven away. To prevent pollution, local residents were not allowed to use their boilers to keep warm. The nearby residents had to endure the cold weather for an entire day.

In order to “maintain stability,” the Laishui County Party Committee and the county government gave the order to officials of each village to closely monitor the villagers that appealed regularly. Voicing any injustices was not allowed. Would-be appelants were told that all issues would be taken care of afterwards. An order was given to each town and village to monitor Falun Gong practitioners closely in order to prevent them from appealing to the provincial and city officials regarding the persecution. The authorities appointed specific personnel and officials from each community, town, and village to go to practitioners' homes and watch them one on one. The practitioners were not allowed to “impact” the conference, or to go to Beijing to appeal. The roads within a radius of 50 li (about 15.5 miles) of the county were blocked off and checkpoints were set up. The whole of Laishui County was under a red terror.

Nearly two thousand people attend the province-wide poverty relief conference in Hebei Province at the Laishui County movie theater. There were more than one hundred reporters.

The starting point of the Xiguan Passway that leads to the movie theater was under martial law

On the morning on February 28, nearly a hundred vehicles gathered in front of the movie theater on Fuqian Street. Several hundred public security police, traffic police, armed police force agents, city security police, and plainclothesmen blocked each intersection that led to Fuqian Street. The usually crowded park in the center of the city was also under martial law. The area was nearly empty with only policemen and temporary law enforcement teams wandering around. The state of martial law lasted for three days.

On the morning of March 1, when Secretary Zhang Qingli of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee was accompanied to inspect Songge, Shiting and other poor villages and towns, the county government appointed village officials to monitor local Falun Gong practitioners at their homes. Two officials were assigned to each practitioner.

Under orders of the county authorities, the officials from a village locked a practitioner in her home from 8 a.m. until after 11 a.m., illegally detaining her for nearly four hours. When this practitioner went to the county government and questioned the authorities, “Who sent people to lock me in my own home?” the party secretaries and the head of the township said jokingly, “I told the village officials to lock you at home. Are you really going to get upset with me?” Another village official said with a smirk that it was he who gave the order to lock her in. He added that if they didn't put her on watch she would appeal to the provincial authorities, so he had no choice. He then warned the practitioner not to publicize him on the Internet.

These CCP officials ignored the fact that it's illegal to detain innocent civilians. While they should be held responsible for their actions, they instead treated it as a joke without any regret or guilt, and just brushed it aside.

The county authorities not only locked this practitioner in her home, they also sent a county official and a village official to this practitioner's son's home to monitor her daughter-in-law. The officials sat in the son's home and would not leave. When the daughter-in-law asked what they were doing there, they told her that the village was being inspected so the authorities sent them to watch her and prevent her from appealing. They also told her that all the intersections had checkpoints set up and all vehicles, passengers, and pedestrians were being checked. The daughter-in-law told them that her husband was sick and had been staying at the hospital for more than a month. She asked them, “Don't you already know this? Why are you still monitoring us?” Still, they didn't leave until after the inspection team left at around 11 a.m. This practitioner's son was in the hospital for a critical health condition for nearly a month, and not even one official visited them. They only showed up to illegally monitor the family.

The Shengshi Hotel, the most luxurious hotel in Laishui County, where the secretary of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee, Governor of Hebei Province, and more than sixty party officials stayed.

The poverty relief conference with its nearly two thousand attendees became an opportunity for entertainment and squandering money. The city and provincial officials stayed at the most luxurious hotel in Laishui County, the Shengshi Hotel. Officials below the county level stayed at hotels in the tourist district such as the Shidu Hotel. The drivers stayed at the Gaobeidian Hotel in the nearby county. It is not exaggerating to say that a meal for ten people cost from a thousand to a few thousand yuan. This conference cost a total amount of nearly one million yuan. More than a hundred taxis were forced to stop operating, tens of various sized barbeque restaurants were forced to close, and operations at nearly a thousand mines in nearby counties were suspended. It is ludicrous to talk about how the poverty relief conference is going to benefit the people of Laishui County, since it has already brought a huge loss of millions of yuan to the common people there.

Since the Chinese Communist Party began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, the Laishui County CCP Committee and the county government ordered the 610 Office, the police departments and each of the county and town governments to persecute thousands of Falun Gong practitioners throughout the county. Practitioners have been severely persecuted mentally, physically and financially. As a result, many practitioners died, many families were separated and broken apart, practitioners were fired from their workplace for no reason, and many were illegally sentenced to prison, forced labor camps, criminal detention, administrative detention, and forced to undergo brainwashing. Many families are now impoverished and are no longer able to maintain a normal life. Yet, not even one county official has visited these families, nor have they given them one cent of the poverty relief funds. Instead, the persecution has been escalating and is becoming more severe.