(Minghui.org) A recent college graduate was dealt another blow as his mother was arrested again for refusing to renounce Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation practice persecuted by the communist regime in China.
He had been terrified by police from a young age, as his parents had been repeatedly arrested for their faith. His mother's latest arrest on August 5, 2018, evoked memories of their family's ordeal over the years.
A Healthy and Happy Family
He lived with his parents in Xianghe County, Langfang City. When he was three, his father, Mr. Li Liandi, took up Falun Gong. The practice helped his father quit smoking and drinking. Two years later, his mother also started practicing, and her arthritis, vertigo, low blood pressure, inflammatory diseases, and chronic pain quickly vanished. The family led a healthy and happy lifestyle.
First Harassment by Police at Age 10
He was 10 when his parents first got into trouble with the authorities. In the spring of 2003, his father was arrested. Police ransacked the house and found a Falun Gong flier. For this, his father was incarcerated for a month. The boy was terrified and cried all night. The family bribed the police and the authorities at the detention center to have his father released.
A few years later, agents from the local 610 Office ordered the surveillance of his mother, Ms. Li Xiuqin, at work. When he was 13, his mother was fired from her job because she refused to give up her belief. The family fell into a dire financial situation. He also witnessed how his mother was discriminated against and shunned by her co-workers.
Mother Assaulted After Teenager Opens the Door
His mother was first arrested in July 2009. Several police officers charged into their house after the boy answered the door. His mother refused to cooperate with the police and was violently restrained. Two officers twisted her arms while one dragged her by the hair all the way down from the fifth floor. She was thrown down the stairs, which injured her ribs, chest, and legs.
Ms. Li was transferred from the police station to a detention center the same afternoon. She was forced to do perform manual labor making food bags, from which the guards would profit.
A week later she was transferred to Langfang Brainwashing Center. All Falun Gong practitioners there were put in separate cells and not allowed to go out. They were forced to listen to propaganda defaming Falun Gong and its founder. The guards interrogated and threatened them in order to extract information or make them confess to trumped-up charges.
The son was in high school when his mother was arrested and detained and their home ransacked. He blamed himself for opening the door to strangers. The mental burden and the traumatizing experience haunted him, and his grades went down.
College Freshman Sees Both Parents Arrested on Same Day
The second time both of his parents were arrested, he had just started college. That day, he went home and found himself alone. He asked relatives and friends to help rescue his parents, only to be treated with indifference and prejudice. He was told that his parents had “violated the laws.”
In October 2011, four special agents broke into their house and took his mother while she was preparing dinner. Three more people came in and began ransacking their place. No one provided identification.
Ms. Li was taken to the county police station and transferred to Langfang Brainwashing Center the next day, where she was beaten until her muscle was lacerated and her elbow injured. She was subjected to brainwashing for a month.
His father was arrested on the same day as his mother and subsequently tortured for two months in the brainwashing center. As soon as he was released, the police arrested him again just to extort 30,000 yuan from the family, who wanted to take him home.
In August 2013, four policemen stopped his mother on the street and illegally searched her.
Mother Arrested a Third Time
His mother’s most recent arrest took place a few years after he graduated. On the morning of August 5, 2018, police officers and agents from the 610 Office took his mother, ransacked their home, and confiscated their possessions as “evidence” of her practicing Falun Gong.
The Xianghe County Procuratorate officially approved the arrest a month later, and Ms. Li has been held in Sanhe City Detention Center since.
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