Reported in September 2024: 552 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested or Harassed for Their Faith
(Minghui.org) A total of 552 cases of Falun Gong practitioners being arrested or harassed for their faith were reported in September 2024, including 253 arrests and 299 harassment episodes.
The 253 arrest cases included 42 cases in the first half of 2024, 15 cases in July 2024, 72 in August 2024, 113 in September 2024, and 11 cases with unknown months in 2024. The 299 harassment cases also all took place in 2024, with 28 from the first half of the year, 29 in July 2024, 63 in August 2024, 175 in September 2024, and 4 unknown months.
The delay in reporting is mostly due to information censorship in China under the communist regime, which makes it difficult for Minghui correspondents to collect, verify and send the data to the website. The practitioners who have suffered persecution also face the danger of being retaliated against when reporting the persecution accounts with their real names.
The practitioners hailed from 24 provinces and 4 centrally-controlled municipalities. Hebei had the most combined cases of 77 (14.8%), followed by 71 (13.6%) in Jilin, and 58 (11.1%) in Shandong. Eleven other regions also had double-digit cases ranging from 11 to 49. The remaining fourteen regions had single-digit cases between 1 and 6. A total of 109 of the targeted practitioners were 60 or older at the time of their arrest or harassment, including 38 in their 60s, 50 in their 70s, and 21 in their 80s.
The newly reported cases included three group arrests, with two taking place in Jiangxi and Jilin Province in August 2024, and another incident in Beijing in September 2024. For the group arrest in Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province on August 21-22, 2024, the police monitored the targeted practitioners for months before making the arrests. They held the practitioners at a local brainwashing center in Qingyunpu District for one week before transferring them to the local lockup.
Surveillance in Shanghai
In Shanghai, before the October 1 National Day holiday (when the Chinese Communist Party declared the establishment of the government), the authorities began to monitor local practitioners around the clock since the end of September 2024.
Most practitioners were monitored by four people, working in two shifts in a group of two. They were given electric bikes or cars. Most of such people were contractors hired through job placement agencies. They also signed confidentiality agreements with the local police stations. As soon as the practitioners went out, they followed them and reported their activities to the police.
According to practitioners on the government’s blacklists, the authorities often arranged for people to monitor them during “sensitive days,” such as major holidays, events, or anniversaries related to Falun Gong. The total days of them being monitored around the clock are more than 30 days each year.
Ms. Li Hong said she began to notice herself being followed when she went out on September 27, 2024. There were also people staying near the elevator of her apartment building.
Ms. Chen Ping said the police told her she would be monitored between September 30 and October 7.
Mr. Du Ting wasn’t allowed to leave his neighborhood during the first week of October. There were people staying outside of his home around the clock to monitor him.
Everyday Life Disrupted
The surveillance and harassment of the practitioners didn’t only happen during the “sensitive days,” but also in every aspect of the practitioners’ daily life as well. Below are a few recent examples.
69-Year-Old Missed Train after Being Searched for Carrying a Falun Gong Amulet
Ms. Liu Hongli, 69, was already in her seat in the sleeping compartment on a train at the Xi’an City Train Station in Shaanxi Province on August 19, 2024, when two male and one female plainclothes officers demanded to check her identity. They ordered her to open her bag and then checked her phone and wallet. After discovering a Falun Gong amulet in her wallet, the officers ordered her off the train and to carry her luggage with her. They also took her ID and phone.
Ms. Liu told the officers that she was on her way to see her 90-year-old mother, who was in intensive care in the hospital, but the officers insisted that she get off.
They told Ms. Liu that they were with the railway police station, but none of them showed any identification. Before the train departed, the officers took Ms. Liu’s ID and changed her ticket from 8 p.m. to 10:40 p.m. on a hard seat.
From 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., Ms. Liu was held in the police station and watched by eight officers. She was interrogated and not allowed to use the restroom or make phone calls.
Teacher in Zhejiang Province Fired and Harassed by the Police
Ms. Jiang Xinbo, a schoolteacher in Wenzhou City, Zhejiang Province, received a call from someone claiming to be from the Wumajie Police Station on June 25, 2024. The caller asked her for her workplace contact details and address and said the police wanted to meet her at her rental home. The next day, two police officers and four neighborhood committee officers showed up and started video-recording her home. One plainclothes officer asked her if she or her relatives practiced Falun Gong.
Ms. Jiang Xinbo
Ms. Jiang received another call on June 28, 2024. The caller claimed to be from the Lucheng District Public Security Bureau, demanding to meet with her at her home again. This time she refused.
Shortly after, the administrators at Ms. Jiang’s school told her that her summer classes had been suspended because there were not enough students. A month later, she was told that there were not enough students for the autumn classes either, implying that she didn’t need to come to work anymore.
Ms. Jiang went back to her hometown in Heilongjiang Province, on July 17, 2024, to attend a relative’s wedding. At around 11 p.m., the police came and videotaped her place. One of them had another officer take a photo of him with Ms. Liu and checked her ID and phone number.
Hubei Resident Harassed at Home
Ms. Yin Fengying from Xianning City, Hubei Province, was at home in August 2024 when several police officers barged in, claiming that she had distributed Falun Gong materials in a neighborhood. Their evidence was the blurry figure of a woman recorded by their surveillance camera. The officers ransacked her home, took two Falun Gong booklets, and kept asking her who gave her the booklets. She refused to answer.
Ms. Yin was taken to the police station and fingerprinted. She also had to stand in front of a machine and have her photo taken from all angles. She was later taken to the detention center for five days. She was still harassed after being released.
Hebei Officers Encouraged Locals to Report Falun Gong Practitioners
Beginning in August 2024, officers from the neighborhood committee and police station in Tangshan City, Hebei Province, went to Falun Gong practitioners’ homes to harass them and take their photos. The practitioners were also ordered to write guarantee statements to renounce their faith.
In some districts, officers would knock on every resident’s door and offer them cash to report Falun Gong practitioners. This resulted in some people secretly recording practitioners when they were out telling people about Falun Gong. If the practitioners happened to see this, the person would deny it and say nothing was recorded. When the practitioners tried to tell the person about Falun Gong, the person would record again.
Shandong Family Suffers Non-Stop Harassment for Practicing Falun Gong
A family in Weifang City, Shandong Province, has endured 25 years of constant harassment for upholding their faith in Falun Gong.
Before the annual plenary sessions of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in March 2024, the police called Ms. Li Zuping and ordered her to report to them with the prison release certificate for her husband, Mr. Xian Chunwei.
Mr. Xian and Ms. Li were previously arrested on January 6, 2016, and sentenced to 4 and 3.5 years on September 6, 2016, respectively. After Mr. Xian was released in early 2020, he was forced to live away from home to avoid constant police harassment. Unable to find him, the police often called Ms. Li and intimidated her.
The police called Ms. Li again on August 30, 2024, and demanded to know Mr. Xian’s phone number. Ms. Li refused to tell them. That same day, the police also showed up at Mr. Xian’s sister’s home and attempted unsuccessfully to get his phone number and whereabouts.
A group of officers knocked on Ms. Li’s door the next day. She wasn’t home, and her father, who was living with her, was unable to open the door due to his mobility issue. The police knocked on Ms. Li’s neighbor’s door, who also refused to open the door. The police waited a while downstairs and came back to bang on Ms. Li’s door again. They did this several times in the morning and finally left when no one opened the door on their last attempt at around 1 p.m.
Ms. Li Zuping’s door was badly damaged after being kicked by the police.
Ms. Li’s front door.
In addition, Ms. Li’s mother, Ms. Shan Shuyun, also endured frequent harassment for practicing Falun Gong and lived in constant fear. Whenever she heard people walking in the hallway of their apartment building, she would become nervous and hold her breath, fearing the police would come again to smash their door. When watching TV, she always kept the volume to a minimum, so that she could hear any sound outside. She also constantly checked whether the front door was locked. The constant mental pressure took a toll on her health, and she passed away in October 2014.
Repeated Persecution
After Over 16 Years Behind Bars, 61-Year-Old Sichuan Man Detained Again for Practicing Falun Gong
Mr. Zeng Yuxian, a 61-year-old resident of Cangxi County, Sichuan Province, was seized on July 24, 2024, while practicing driving with a friend. The police impounded his car and took him to the local detention center.
The friend, Mr. Yang Shiyuan, is also a Falun Gong practitioner. He was arrested at the same time as Mr. Zeng, but was released on August 7, 2024, after 14 days of detention.
Prior to his latest arrest, Mr. Zeng was repeatedly targeted for upholding his faith. He spent a total of 16 years and 9 months behind bars, including one forced labor term of two years and three prison terms (2 years, 5 years, and 7 years). In addition to his forced labor term and three prison terms, Mr. Zeng was also detained at various detention centers for a total of more than one year. His cumulative detention time over the years amounts to over 16 years.
Ms. Wang Lijun, 54, of Wenling City, Zhejiang Province, was arrested on February 23, 2024. At the secret detention location, she was tricked into drinking a cup of water. In no time her stomach started to hurt. The pain was so intense that she rolled on the mattress. She said she had never been in such pain her whole life and she wondered if she’d die that day. About 30 minutes later, the discomfort spread to the rest of her body. She felt as if something was crawling all over with stuff regurgitating from her stomach to her tongue. She fought the pain for about four hours until she fell asleep.
The next morning she was offered rice congee. She ate it and did not feel anything. The guards gave her water with lunch. She had decided to not drink any water at the secret location, but the lunch was so salty that she took two sips of the water again.
Ms. Wang immediately felt something was wrong again. Compared to the night before, the same symptoms were a bit less severe as she did not drink the whole cup. She had no doubt that the water she was given was laced with unknown drugs. She did not drink the water that was brought to her with dinner.
On the third day, Ms. Wang’s eyes began to hurt and shed tears. There was also excessive mucus. She had difficulty seeing. Her back also hurt. For the next few days she felt exhausted. She did not drink any more water. She noticed the water sometimes smelled acidic and other times looked green.
Ms. Wang held firm to her faith and was brutally beaten around the three-week mark. The guards threatened her and said they wouldn’t face any consequence even if they beat her to death. They also ordered her to eat when she lost her appetite after drinking the water. So that they would beat her less, she ate but her stomach hurt. She also reported hearing screams from the room next door, where another practitioner was held and beaten. The cries stopped after some time but Ms. Wang didn’t know where the other practitioner was taken.
The police finally released Ms. Wang at 8 p.m. on March 22, 2024. They covered her head with a black hood and drove her to her apartment complex. Months after her release, however, she still felt dizzy and struggled to keep her balance as she walked. Her teeth are now so loose that she can’t even bite into an apple. She also cannot stay home alone due to panic attacks and she’s lived with a relative for more than four months. Her eyes still hurt and tear, and her vision is blurry.
This is not the first time Ms. Wang has been targeted for her faith. She went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in late 1999 and was arrested. After months of criminal detention, she was given one and a half years of forced labor in July 2000.
Ms. Wang returned to Beijing in 2001 to appeal for Falun Gong and was arrested and given three years of forced labor.
After another arrest in March 2007, Ms. Wang was sentenced to seven years in the Zhejiang Province Women’s Prison. She was released on March 11, 2014.
Elderly Practitioners Targeted
Four plainclothes officers broke into the home of 87-year-old Ms. Fan Huifang in Changchun City, Jilin Province, on the morning of May 17, 2024. They ransacked her home. She stretched out her arms to prevent the police from entering the room where she kept her Falun Gong books. Given her age, the officers relented and left.
Ms. Zhang Shuxiang, a 75-year-old Zhaoyuan City, Shandong Province, resident, was arrested on August 14, 2024, after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong at a community fair. As she was found to have several bone fractures from a car accident days ago, the detention center refused to admit her and the police released her on house arrest. Upon hearing that the police attempted to install a surveillance camera at her home, she was forced to live away from home to avoid persecution. With declining vision and mobility issue, she now struggles to live on her own.
Ms. Liu Yuxia, 75, of Yushu City, Jilin Province, was harassed at home by the police on September 3, 2024. They took photos of her against her will. Days later, the police took her to the police station for interrogation. They also confiscated from her home several Falun Gong books, a name list of local residents who had withdrawn from the Chinese Communist Party and its associated affiliations, and a radio. The confiscated items were later returned to Ms. Liu.
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1,219 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested or Harassed for Their Faith in July and August 2024
2,714 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested or Harassed for Their Faith in the First Half of 2024