Recently, Falun Gong practitioners are facing severe persecutions such as illegal detention, cruel torture, and stiff fine. In order to present the truth to the government, many practitioners are continuously going to Beijing. In Jiaozhou City of Shandong Province, each level of the communist authorities has adopted some cruel methods to stop practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal. In the name of "showing the gratitude" to the Beijing police authorities, a group of officers from the municipal public security bureau and political-legal Committee visited officials in the Tiananmen police station, begging them to transfer the appealing practitioners from Jiaozhou directly to the Jiaozhou police for detention, instead of reporting them to the higher authorities. This way, they would avoid the punishment from the central government, and they could claim that they have brought Falun Gong under control. This group of officers formed a temporary special team in Beijing to intercept and arrest the appealing practitioners from Jiaozhou, and detain them in a guesthouse of the air force in Fengtai, Beijing. Several officers were responsible for getting in touch with the Appeal Office of Central Government, the Appeal Office of State Council, Bureau of Appealing Visitors, Public Security Bureau of Tiananmen Square. If their local practitioners go to these offices to appeal, they would arrest them directly instead of letting them arrested by the Beijing police, so that the Beijing police would not report the cases to the higher authorities. This way, they would be able to maintain the so-called political "reputation" of Jiaozhou city.
After arresting the appealing practitioners in Beijing, the local authorities would punish them in many illegal ways, such as cruel physical tortures, long period of detention and stiff financial penalties. Since July 1999, the detention center of Nantan Village appeal office located in Zhuo-an of Jiaozhou City has detained a large number of Falun Gong practitioners. The detain center is now overfull.
In one case, on the way back from Beijing, the police from Beiwangzhu Town of Jiaozhou City stuff seven appealing practitioners with handcuffs all at the back seats of a small cab, which can only hold three people. In the police station, the police used all kinds of punishments, such as hitting faces, grabbing hair, biting ankles, elbows and toes with sticks, forcing practitioners to squat on the concord floor in bare feet etc.. At midnight of 15 Dec 1999, the police took off the cotton overcoats of eight practitioners who had gone to Beijing, and handcuffed them on the trunk of a tree for eight and half hours. When the practitioners were untied, their hands and feet were all frozen and swollen with blood. Being treated like this, they were still detained for 18 days and fined 30,000 yuan (three years of income of an average Chinese worker).
We practitioners are just a group of people who want to be good. We do not get involve in politics nor are we against the government. We only present the truth of Falun Gong to the Central Government out of trust. To appeal to higher authorities is the basic right of a Chinese citizen according to the constitution. We have done nothing wrong. However, the severe violations of the basic human rights of Falun Gong practitioners are still escalating. In Jiaozhou City, the local authorities of Zhuoan and Zhongyun have issued the red-head official document regarding the fine to be imposed on those Falun Gong practitioners who had gone to Beijing. The fine is up to 12,000 yuan. The document also stresses that none of Falun Gong practitioners are allowed to go to Beijing or the capital city of the province, otherwise the people involved will be punished.
In order to protect the right of the public, we are going to Beijing one after another out of our own will to present the truth of Falun Gong to the central government. Since 25 Oct last year, when the Central government defamed Falun Gong as a "cult," the number of practitioners from Jiaozhou City who paid the appealing visits to Beijing has been increasing daily, and doubled in every month. We all have one intention: to present the truth of Falun Gong to the Central Government. Falun Dafa is the great law of the universe, and a righteous way of spiritual practice. It teaches people to be compassionate, and to return to their original true selves. It is not a "cult" at all! Every genuine practitioner is doing his/her best to be a good person. We urge each level of the local authorities to stop resorting to cruelties to suppress the innocent Falun Gong practitioners. This is against the law and also against the will of the public. How can a government claiming to rule by law break the law itself?!
Practitioners from Shandong Province January, 2000
Category: Accounts of Persecution
