(Minghui.org) In a new police sweep dubbed the “Net Closing In” operation, more than 30 residents in Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province were arrested between April and May 2022 for not renouncing their faith in Falun Gong.
Falun Gong is a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
In early 2022, the Qiqihar City Police Department held a meeting attended by all local police forces in seven districts and nine counties to ramp up arrests of Falun Gong practitioners.
Chen Dong, the deputy mayor of Qiqihar and head of the Qiqihar City Police Department, ordered the police to follow, monitor and harass local practitioners, especially those who persisted in raising awareness about the persecution during the pandemic.
The operation gained support from Guo Xiaofeng, the head of the Qiqihar City Political and Legal Affairs Committee, an extra-judiciary agency overseeing the public security and judiciary branches and also orchestrating the persecution policy of Falun Gong.
One of the practitioners who was targeted in the operation, Ms. Li Dongmei, recounted the violent arrest of her on April 13, 2022.
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As soon as I opened the door at 8:25 a.m. on April 13 to go to work, three plainclothes officers, two male and a female, barged in. Without saying anything, they snatched my purse and cellphone.
I asked them where they came from and what they wanted. A tall man in black jacket said they were with the Tiefeng Police Department. He flashed his ID quickly in front of me, but without allowing me to look at it closely. I later learned that he was Xie Ping, the deputy chief of Tongdonglu Police Station. The other male officer was Tang Liang. I still don’t know the name of the female officer.
Xie removed my wall calendar with information about Falun Gong and the Falun Gong pendant on my mirror. Tang went directly to my bedroom and took off the portrait of Master Li (the founder of Falun Gong) hanging above my closet. He also searched for other Falun Gong related items in my bedroom.
My daughter, who was having virtual classes at home, came out from her room as she heard the commotion. She videotaped the officers and demanded that they show their IDs. But Xie took away her cellphone.
My daughter argued that she had every right to record them, but Xie claimed that he also had the right to monitor us. He threatened to arrest my daughter with the charge of obstructing law enforcement. He looked through her cellphone’s gallery, forced her to delete the video she had just recorded and threatened to confiscate her phone. As my daughter was also using her cellphone for the online classes, the police’s threat terrified her and she couldn’t stop crying. Finally, with our demand, the police showed a blank search warrant with an official seal only but no other information.
While they were searching our place, three more officers came. One of them was said to be a city-level official. He walked around my home and then left with one person. The remaining one then joined the previous three officers in ransacking my home. The drawer in my night stand was damaged by them.
They took away my Falun Gong books and looked at my daughter’s computer used for her classes. With nothing else to search for, they took away several old cellphones, charger, cables, and some flower and lights I put in front of Master’s portrait.
As they didn’t find much Falun Gong related items at my home, a few of them stayed behind at my home to interrogate my daughter, while others took me to the Tiefeng District Police Department without an arrest warrant.
In the interrogation room in the police department, an officer of the Domestic Security Office in his 40s forcibly took my pictures and tore off my mask. One officer named Sun Bo intimidated me. The female officer who went to my home and another female officer around 50 searched my body.
The police threatened that if I didn’t admit everything confiscated from me was mine, they would claim that they were my daughter’s. They also ordered me to acknowledge their fabricated evidence against me.
Li Guofeng, the head of the Longjiang County Domestic Security Office, who had harassed me previously in the “Zero-out” campaign, also came to interrogate me. He threatened to sentence me if I didn’t sign the prepared statement to renounce Falun Gong.
At 6 p.m., my daughter was summoned to the police station for my bail release document. A young officer around 30 came at 8 p.m. and took my photos. Shortly after, another officer came and brought my daughter to a separate room, trying to pressure her into persuading me to renounce Falun Gong.
When I told them that there is no way for me to give up Falun Gong, that officer, who claimed to be in charge of my case, seemed to be very upset. He threatened to sentence me to 2 to 3 years. I later found out he was Lu Liang, the head of Tiefeng Domestic Security Office.
They held me at the police department until 10 p.m. Because I only had very little lunch that day, I was experiencing low blood sugar when I returned home.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Xie Ping (谢平), deputy chief of Tongdonglu Police Station: +86-17745207177, +86-13836241922Tang Liang (唐亮), officer of Tongdonglu Police Station: +86-13604523168Lu Liang (卢亮), head of Tiefeng Domestic Security Office: +86-13945268839, +86-18946296356, +86-18845211212
Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province: Nine Face Prosecution on Fabricated Charges against Their Faith