(Clearwisdom.net) My name is Li Xiumei. I am a 32-year-old female Dafa practitioner from Youai Village on Beiguan Street, located in the Weicheng District, Weifang City, Shandong Province.

The condo unit that was the residence of Liu Shengzhu and Li Xiumei

After learning the news that Jiang's regime had started their brutal suppression and persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, my husband (Liu Shengzhu, a 32-year-old Dafa practitioner) and I decided to travel to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong and to speak out in defense of our Teacher.

To avoid the tight security checks against bus passengers along the way, we took our child with us and traveled on our motorcycle instead. However, the police arrested us in Beijing, and we were transferred back to our hometown. Once home, the local police searched and ransacked our house. They detained my child and me at the police station for two days. After I was released from detention, the village association cooperated with the police by arranging someone specifically to watch us, limiting my personal freedom. They even followed me to the market while I shopped.

In an evening in late October 1999, village association secretary Jiang Weidong put us under surveillance again by stationing several people in a car parked on the street in front of our housing unit. We found an opportunity and escaped from our home. They were angry after finding out that we escaped. The officials from the police station and the village association went to my brother's home. They harassed my brother and tried to force him to sign the ownership of our house away as a security guarantee. After my brother refused to do so, the police started shocking my brother with an electric baton and cursed at him. My brother had no choice and finally signed the papers.

At the time, my sister and her husband were taking care of our house for us and living in our house. The ruthless police came directly to our house after they finished abusing my brother. They ransacked my house and took away our 29-inch color TV, VCR and just about anything that was worth any money. They also took away the grant deed of our house, our residence registration certificate and all the cash that was kept in a drawer. Furthermore, they demanded a 2,000-Yuan fine from my family. After they were through, they took my sister's husband to the police station. Although he was not even a Falun Gong practitioner, the police put him in a wooden cage for 24 hours before releasing him. After he came back to our house, the village association secretary forcibly drove him out of our house, locked the door and sealed the entrance. The three of us thus lost our home and forced into homelessness.

One day in November 1999, all three of us went to talk to the village association secretary. Secretary Jiang Weidong ordered three men to surround my husband and beat him. They hit him on the sides of his head and kicked him in the groin. While beating my husband they cursed him, "We will make sure you will die right here and now!" They cursed him with other despicable words. My husband continued to talk to them to clarify the truth but they refused to listen to him. They beat him even harder afterwards and finally stopped only when they got tired. The villagers watching the scene told my husband to run away, but the hoodlums did not want him to get away that easily. They dragged him into an office and told him, "We are going to beat you to death!" My husband finally escaped later.

I did not leave right away, and tried to reason with secretary Jiang Weidong. He told me, "You are not going to reason with me. I am the reason. I am the law! We already sold your house for 50,000 Yuan. We spent 30,000 Yuan when we went to Beijing to take you back, and we spent another 20,000 Yuan to have someone watch you from July to October. You don't have the house anymore, and from now on you do not belong to this village." He forcibly shoved me out of his office and threatened, "You can appeal to anyone you like, I couldn't care less!" That afternoon, the arrogant Jiang Weidong led a group of people to our house. Our house was about 1,300 square feet and a two-story unit. I also had a separate entrance for my hair salon, which was my livelihood. They used brick and mortar to completely seal off our house entryway and the adjacent hair salon.

The totally blocked doorway

Just because we insisted on practicing Falun Gong and being good people, today, three years later, our home is still sealed off by the ruffians. The three of us are still living the roaming life of refugees even though we once owned our own home.

The Youai village association telephone number is 86-0536-8323077 (please note that the village association uses the same telephone as the village heating plant.)