After a Decade of Displacement, Shandong Man Secretly Sentenced to 11 Years

(Minghui.org) Shortly after Mr. Wu Chengshou returned home from a decade of displacement to avoid being persecuted for practicing Falun Gong, the Weifang City, Shandong Province resident was arrested and secretly sentenced to eleven years.

Mr. Wu, 57, was arrested at work on April 20, 2021. The police snatched his keys and raided his home. His wife, Ms. Wang Xian, was handcuffed and held aside during the raid. The police videotaped the raid. The couple’s Falun Gong books, photo of Falun Gong’s founder, 10,700 yuan in cash, a computer, a broken paper cutter and their son’s old computer were all confiscated.

Ms. Wang was taken to the Gaoxin District Domestic Security Office and interrogated in the basement. Before allowing her nephew to take her home at 10:45 p.m., the police took 9,000 of the 10,700 yuan confiscated from her as her bail bond and also extorted 2,000 yuan from her nephew.

Mr. Wu was first held at the Fuyanshan Police Station and taken to the Changle Detention Center in the evening by deputy police chief Zhang Jie. After the police submitted his case to the Weicheng District Domestic Security Office, he was transferred to the Weifang City Detention Center.

In order to gather information about the couple, the police forced their son, Mr. Wu Binjie, who doesn’t practice Falun Gong and works in Inner Mongolia about 600 hundred miles away, to come back to Weifang for interrogation. When the younger Mr. Wu reported to the police station on June 9, the police accused him of also being a suspect.

Mr. Wu has been denied family visit since his arrest. His family later heard from an insider that he was experiencing some medical condition in custody. Worried about his health, his family hired a lawyer to visit him. The detention center initially approved the lawyer’s visit, but soon revoked it, with the excuse that his prosecution process has finished (since he was already sentenced to prison and his appeal was rejected).

Mr. Wu’s family later confirmed from a person familiar with his case that he was sentenced to 11 years and fined 100,000 yuan. But other details remains unknown at the time of writing.

Past Persecution

Mr. Wu took up Falun Gong in the winter of 1995. Many of his severe ailments were cured in a month and his character also changed for the better.

After the communist regime ordered the persecution in July 1999, the government began to monitor local practitioners’ daily lives. The township officials connected Mr. Wu’s landline to their own office and made him cover their phone bill, with the excuse that it’s easier for them to monitor his phone calls.

On January 19, 2000, Liu You from the Armed Force Department of the township government arrested Mr. Wu, his wife Ms. Wang and four other practitioners, including Sun Huajun, Sun Shichao, Sun Mingde and Wu Chengxi. They covered the practitioners’ eyes with cloth and forced them to sit barefoot on the ground, with their legs and arms straight forward. Then the officers began to beat them on the head, hands and feet with wooden sticks. Others whipped them with a leather baton or vigorously rubbed their shoes against their ankles, causing their skin and flesh to be severely torn.

After over three hours of beating, the practitioners were unable to stand up. Mr. Wu was covered with bruises, including his toes.

On the next day, the officers continued to beat the practitioners. They also left them in the snow and deprived them of sleep.

Only days after Mr. Wu and his wife were released, they were arrested again at home. The police broke two batons while beating them. Even their 15-year-old son was beaten when delivering food to them. The couple were released after being extorted 20,000 yuan.

The authorities arrested the couple one more time in April 2000 and questioned them whether they still practiced Falun Gong. When they said yes, the police closed the door and beat them. Another two batons broke as a result.

Officer Cai Jiyan threatened them, “I will beat you to death and pour gasoline on you to burn you down. I can then claim that you set yourselves on fire.”

Another officer named Li Maoliang shouted, “I will smash you to death and bury you in a pit, or I can throw you in the water.”

A third officer, Liu Youzhi, claimed to leave them bankrupted if they continued to practice Falun Gong.

The couple’s next arrests were on March 27, 2010. They were interrogated at the police station. Mr. Wu escaped on the morning of March 31 and he was forced to live away from home to hide from the police for the next ten years.

In order to force them to renounce Falun Gong, the police also went to the Qingdao University and arrested their son, who was attending college there.

Li Luchun, the head of Weicheng District Domestic Security Office, broke into Ms. Wang’s home on October 28, 2019. It happened that her son was home for a vacation. Li attempted to force the mother and son to tell Mr. Wu’s whereabouts, but they didn’t comply. The younger Mr. Wu later learned that the police also went to his workplace in Inner Mongolia to look for him, without knowing he had come back to Weifang.

After Li left, Ms. Wang saw several officers staying outside of their home to monitor them. Li came back twice on the third and fourth day to harass her. As she wouldn’t tell him Mr. Wu’s whereabouts, he went to Mr. Wu’s hometown and attempted to get information about him from his uncle.

Although Mr. Wu later returned home after over a decade of displacement, he was soon arrested and sentenced to a lengthy term after one year of detention.

Perpetrators’ contact information:

Li Luchun (李鲁春), director of Weicheng District Domestic Security Office: [phone]Yu Zhihai (于志海), deputy director of Weicheng District Domestic Security Office: [phone], [phone]Zhang Jie (张杰), deputy chief of Fuyanshan Police Station: [phone]Liu Yaowu (刘耀武), police officer: [phone]