At Least 15 Falun Gong Practitioners Detained at the Longgang Detention Center in Guangdong Province

(Minghui.org) At least 15 Falun Gong practitioners are still being detained at the Longgang Detention Center in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Four of the practitioners have been confirmed to be Ms. Nan Minmin, 65, Ms. Ma Yanping, 34, Ms. Lin Lehong, 46, and Ms. Chen Lifang, in her 30s. The names of other detained practitioners remain to be investigated.

Most of the practitioners detained in Longgang Detention Center were secretly arrested. The authorities usually kept their families in the dark about their situation in the first few months following their arrests, which was the reason for the delay in reports about practitioners detained there.

It’s been reported that there are one or two Falun Gong practitioners in each of the 15 cells in the detention center. The guards don’t allow the practitioners to do the Falun Gong exercises and have ordered other inmates to monitor them. If a practitioner was found doing the exercises, the guards would stop giving out daily necessities to everyone in the cell and the inmates would also be reprimanded.

Ms. Nan, a retired accountant, was arrested on May 29, 2020 and later sentenced to 5.5 years. She appealed the verdict, but the higher court ruled to uphold her original sentence in December 2021. Due to the pandemic, she is still held at the Longgang Detention Center, without being transferred to the Guangzhou Women’s Prison. 

Ms. Lin and Ms. Ma were arrested on the evening of October 12, 2020. Ms. Lin held multiple hunger strikes at Longgang Detention Center to protest the persecution and was force-fed. After being resuscitated following a forced-feeding session in April 2021, she couldn’t hold any food down, and vomited everything she ate. Her blood pressure shot up to a dangerously high level. She had constant chest tightness, and her left hand was numb. She was given oxygen once every week.

Despite Ms. Lin’s condition, she was made to stand trial in the Yantian District Court on August 18 along with Ms. Ma. To continue protesting the persecution, Ms. Lin started a hunger strike again on November 18, 2021. After over 20 days of forced-feeding, her body weight dropped to 100 lbs. Her tongue became stiff, and her glucose level was less than 3 mmol/L (normal fasting level is 3.5-5.5 mmol/L). Her hands and feet were so cold that she had to wear a winter jacket when the weather was 26°C (78°F).

On December 27, 2021, the judge sentenced Ms. Lin to 3.5 years with a 5,000-yuan fine and Ms. Ma to 3 years and 3 months, also with a 5,000-yuan fine.

Details about Ms. Chen’s case are unclear.

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Qiu Chibin (邱驰斌), head of the Longgang Detention Center: [phone]Hao Boyuan (郝博园), deputy head, Longgang Detention Center: [phone]Guo Hongwei (郭洪伟), instructor, Longgang Detention Center: [phone]