(Clearwisdom.net) The 2008 Olympic Games are approaching. Not only has the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) failed to make its promise to improve human rights in China a reality, but has also staged a nationwide, large-scale arrest of Falun Gong practitioners and dissidents. Since the end of 2007 to March 11, 2008, 1,878 Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested. On February 25, 2008 alone, the Communist regime agents arrested nearly one hundred practitioners in the cities of Jinzhou and Chaoyang, Lianoning Province. In Beijing, the regime agents covertly arrested more than one hundred practitioners.
On February 25, 2008, local police agents nabbed Falun Gong practitioner Yang Zhaoying and her family members without justification. The police also broke a window and then ransacked the house. It was said that Zhaoying's father Yang Guangwu has now been released, while Zhaoying, her mother Feng Kelan, and her sister Yang Zhaofang are still unlawfully detained.
Zhaoying and her four-member family began the Falun Gong practice in 1996. People in their area know that they are good persons. Yang Guangwu, the father, works in a local realty company. He takes good care of his customers and works hard. His older daughter Yang Zhaofang is a doctor who practices traditional Chinese medicine in a private clinic. Her patients often commend her for her medical expertise and her treatment of people. His younger daughter Yang Zhaoying is an English tutor in her area. Her students' parents all speak highly of her. However, such a good family has been repeatedly persecuted and harassed just for upholding their belief. Yang Zhaofang had been persecuted in a local brainwashing center. Yang Zhaoying was arrested three times. Zhaoying's fiancé Xue Xinkai, also a practitioner, was sentenced to seven years in prison and is now incarcerated in the Benxi Prison.
Yang Zhaoying was admitted to the Dalian Institute of Foreign Languages in 1997. She strove to follow Falun Gong's principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" and to be a good student. She did well in her studies and was a well-recognized, good student. Her teachers and classmates like her. After the Communist regime started the persecution in 1999, Yang Zhaoying wanted to let more people know the facts about the persecution. She went to Beijing's Tiananmen Square in 2001, to declare from her heart, "Falun Dafa is good!" However, for doing so, the police detained her unlawfully, and her school also canceled her Bachelor's degree.
Although not granted her official diploma, she finished her schooling in 2001. She then went to a Japanese enterprise in Dalian City to work where she quickly demonstrated her good Japanese translation skills and received positive comments from her company officials. Nevertheless, police agents once again arrested her, this time on November 9, 2001. The arresting officers were from the Jieshan Police Station in Dalian City Zhongshan District. The police had planned to sentence her to forced labor. To avoid further persecution, she tried to escape and jumped from the local police station building. She sustained complicated bone fractures and was paralyzed. When she returned home and was examined, a doctor said she probably would be unable to stand up for the rest of her life. But, after she resumed reading the Fa and practicing the exercises, she could soon stand up and walk on her own again without receiving any medical treatment. She only had a minor problem controlling one of her feet. Many of her classmates did not understand why she was so determined in her cultivation. After they saw her miracle, they have finally learned the truth. They have since changed and began to support her belief.
Later on, Yang Zhaoying began a relationship with Xue Xinkai, a practitioner from Xinzhaizi of Dalian City. They had finished the legal procedures required to prepare for their marriage. But, just before they were to be married, on March 21, 2006, agents from the Dalian City Police Department, from the Ganjingzi District Police Department and the Xinzhaizi Police Station, more than twenty of them, broke into Xue Xinkai's home. They nabbed him and his mother Sun Shuyun. His father Xue Jinfu managed to safely escape the arrest. His mother was eventually released when she was in critical condition from police abuse. Since then Xue Xinkai's father and mother decided to stay away from their home to avoid additional persecution.
In the article "The Personal Account of a Bride-To-Be" (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2006/10/7/78725.html), Yang Zhaoying wrote, "In today's China, thousands upon thousands of families are unhappy in the same way - because members of these families practice Falun Gong, they are illegally arrested and detained, which causes the families to crumble and even fall apart. When the same mishap falls on these different families, the pain that each member of the families feels is real and tangible. In my case, even before I enter into my marriage, I have already suffered such pain....I prefer to believe that everyone is kind. I prefer to believe that it was under the pressure of this wrong government policy that they (the police) did what they have done. I prefer to hope that those police officers have a chance to learn more about the truth, so that they can cast off this persecution and choose a wonderful future for themselves and their families."
While Zhaoying was experiencing various kinds of suffering, she still considered others, including those who were involved in persecuting her. This is the broadmindedness of a Falun Gong practitioner.
After Xue Xinkai was illegally sentenced to seven years in prison, Yingkou Prison officials had for a long time deprived Xinkai's family members of the right to see him. Zhaoying overcame the physical challenges her condition presented her with and traveled several times the long distance to the Yingkou Prison where Xinkai was detained. She not only wanted to regain the Xinkai family members' legal rights to see Xinkai in prison; she wanted even more to tell those guards not to persecute kind practitioners and not to commit crimes against Falun Gong. Her determination eventually moved the prison guards. Seven months later they let Xinkai's family members see Xinkai. This brought some comfort to this misfortune-stricken family.
This nine-year-long persecution is still going on. Many families are suffering. In the Suizhong area, there are nine practitioners' families who suffered persecution on February 25, 2008. Mr. Fan Dezhen and his wife Ms. Yang Xiaoxue were arrested. Their child who is only several months old and still needs breast-feeding was left at home. That same day, nearly one hundred practitioners in Jinzhou, Chaoyang and Huludao in Liaoning Province were arrested. Among them, practitioner Chen Fengbao from Chaoyang City was tortured to death. Now the detained practitioners from Chaoyang and Huludao have staged a hunger strike to protest this persecution. The hunger strike has already lasted over ten days. These practitioners' lives are in peril.
This large-scale arrest of Falun Gong practitioners in the west Liaoning area is a drastic reflection of the Communist regime's using the Olympic Games to relentlessly trample human rights. The slogan, "One Dream" indeed makes people tremble, because the regime's "dream" is not peace and freedom. It is a synonym for arrests and slaughter. It is "One Nightmare" for any one who still has a conscience. No righteous person would support the CCP's using the Olympic Games to persecute people, and thus stain the "Olympic Spirit" and bring shame to the Chinese people.
We call on all people of conscience in the world work together to stop this persecution of kind people! We call for the immediate release of Yang Zhaoying and her family members as well as all unlawfully detained Falun Gong practitioners.
March 16, 2008
Category: Perspective
