(Clearwisdom.net) While the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners initiated by Jiang is now difficult to sustain, in the Qingdao area, the situation remains very serious. In the past three months alone, at least three Falun Gong practitioners have been sentenced to prison terms of up to ten years. Arrests also continue to occur.

According to the most recent news from China, on December 23, 2004, Qingdao Falun Gong practitioner Liu Weixian was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment by the Laoshan District Court simply for clarifying the truth about Falun Gong. In October 2004, Qingdao practitioners Ms.Wei Yumei and Wei Yufen were each sentenced to ten years of imprisonment by the Qingdao Sifang District Court because they created truth-clarifying materials about the persecution of Falun Gong. At the end of October 2004, after having been imprisoned for seven or eight months at Dashan Third Detention Center in Qingdao City, Ms. Gao Fengqin was sentenced to four years of "reeducation through labor" by the Jimo City Court at Chenjiahe Village of Jimo City. She was sent to the Jinan Women's Prison on November 3, located at 93 Gongye (Industry) South Road in Shandong Province. Ms. Gao is still imprisoned at this location.

News about the arrests of Falun Gong practitioners in the Qingdao area continues to be revealed.

Mr.Wang Taojing, after being detained for fifteen days in December, was transferred to a Qingdao brainwashing class by Sifang District 610 Office personnel.

On October 24, 2004, Mr.Tan Hongrang, after over two months of detention in Heze, was taken back to Qingdao by the local police station at Jinhu Road in Qingdao. He is now detained at the Qingdao 610 Office brainwashing class. According to an eyewitness who knows Tan Hongrang well, Mr. Tan has been disfigured from torture and is almost unrecognizable.

Ms. Cui Ling, 32, is a university graduate who lives at Sixiao Qu, Xinjiazhuang, Shinan (South City) District, Qingdao City, Shandong Province. On the evening of September 7, 2004, she and Mr. Li Zhenwen, along with Mr. Li's wife, Zhou Limei, were secretly arrested by the police from the Shinan Public Security Sub-bureau of Qingdao. Cui Ling is currently imprisoned in the Qingdao Dashan Detention Center. She has a three or four-year-old daughter who is currently at home with nobody taking care of her. Li Zhenwen was once again imprisoned in Weibei Jail.

It is reported that more than twenty Falun Gong practitioners are still imprisoned in the Qingdao Labor Camp, located at Li Cang Qu of Qingdao City. According to a news source, another wave of persecution against Falun Gong practitioners has recently begun. According to a source from inside the labor camp, all teams are required to speed up the "transformation" of practitioners currently held in the labor camp before the end of the first half of 2005, so that they can benefit from another bonus (forcing a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong will be rewarded by a bonus of 3,000 to 4,000 yuan). Under the pressure and temptation of a bonus from the higher authorities, some policemen resort to extremely cruel methods to brutally persecute Falun Gong practitioners and force them to renounce their belief. Tortures include using boiling water on practitioners and vicious beatings.

According to incomplete statistics reported by media outside of China, during the time that Jiang's faction and the Chinese Communist Party began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, until the end of 2004, within the Qingdao area alone (including Qingdao, Laixi, Pingdu, Jimo, Jiaozhou, Jiaonan, Chengyang and Mt.Laoshan), twenty-three Falun Gong practitioners have been killed, over one thousand practitioners have been sent to labor camps and 47-60 practitioners have been sent to mental hospitals where they suffered forced injections and shocks with electric needles or nerve-damaging medication, among other tortures. Many other people have been sent to brainwashing classes and detention centers, where they suffered merciless tortures and terror, brainwashing and extortion.

Below is a list of the Qingdao area Falun Gong practitioners who have been killed as a result of the persecution:

Li Qisheng (male, 70, Jiaozhou City, Qingdao)
Zhao Yuezhen (female, 48, Jiaozhou City, Qingdao)
Zhu Meijuan (female, 36, Jiaozhou City, Qingdao)
Wang Chongbo (male, 62, Jiaozhou City, Qingdao)
Xu Zengliang (male, 29, Jiaonan City, Qingdao)
Ma Lizhi (male, 37, Jiaonan City, Qingdao)
Cui Dezhen (male, 29, Laixi City, Qingdao)
Shi Hongjie (male, 44, Laixi City, Qingdao)
Li Jingdong (male, 41, Pingdu City, Qingdao)
Zhang Fuzhen (female, 38, Pingdu City, Qingdao)
Yu Guizhen (female, 55, Pingdu City, Qingdao)
Zhao Mingxiang (male, 46, Pingdu City, Qingdao)
Lu Xiufang (female, 56, Jimo City, Qingdao)
Zou Songtao (male, 28, Qingdao)
Liu Chun (male, 28, Qingdao)
Liu Jiming (female, 61, Qingdao)
Wang Xiaoli (female, 35, Qingdao)
Wang Suqin (female, 70, Qingdao)
Zhang Shouqian (male, Jiaonan City, Qingdao)
Sui Guangxi (male, Laixi City, Qingdao)
Li Yinglin (male, Qingdao)
Chang Shuzhen (female, Qingdao)
Geng Xuezhi (50, home address at Pingdu City)

January 5, 2005