(Clearwisdom.net) It has been 9 years since July 20, 1999, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong. More than 3,000 practitioners are confirmed to have died due to persecution of Falun Gong so far. In addition to these deaths, hundreds of thousands have been detained and/or imprisoned. Huge numbers of practitioners have lost their jobs and have been forced to leave their homes. Many families have been torn apart, including many children who have lost their mother or father.

• Young Mother Killed, Leaving Two Children Behind

Wang Yujin was 12 years old in 2000, and her brother was only 6. Their mother Ms. Zhang Zhibin died as a result of persecution at Kaiping Forced Labor Camp in Tangshan City. She was only 32 years old at the time of her death.

Ms. Zhang Zhibin was formerly an employee of the Department Store of the Commerce Department in Qinglong County. She was detained four times and then sentenced to forced labor for promoting Falun Gong to people. In December 2000, she died as a result of torture at the Kaiping Forced Labor Camp, Tangshan City.

During Ms. Zhang's detention at the Qinglong County Detention Center, she was handcuffed and forced to wear shackles all the time. She had to lie on her stomach on the ice. One day, when lying on ice, her fingers turned as white as paper. The skin on her fingers later turned dark and then came off along with the finger nails. At the Kaiping Forced Labor Camp, Ms. Zhang Zhibin was hung up on a persimmon tree, beaten and shocked with electric batons.

When she died, a large area of her chest was black and blue, one of her arms had a large area of bruising and there were two needle holes in the small of her back. Under threats by the forced labor camp and the Qinglong County authorities, Ms. Zhang's family had no place to sue the related parties for her wrongful death.

During Ms. Zhang's detention, 12-year-old Wang Yujin and her younger brother were cared for by their maternal grandmother. When Ms. Zhang died, the gandmother was 77 years old. Since she could not raise the two children on her own, she had to call their paternal grandparents from Luannan County, Tangshan City to help her raise their grandchildren together.

• Opportunity to Go to College Taken Away

Practitioner Mr. Guo Hongshan worked in the Security Department of the China Yaohua Glass Group Corporation. He suffered from neurasthenia and weak kidneys. His wife, Ms. Sun Yufeng, worked at the Qinhuangdao Electric Motor Factory and suffered from headaches, rheumarthritis, endocrine imbalance and potassium deficiency. The couple was in poor health for a long time. They were on medication all year round and as a result in poor financial shape. Their daughter also suffered due to her parents' ill health. When Mr. Guo and Ms. Sun learned Falun Gong, their illnesses disappeared. Their health improved, and along with it their spirits improved, as well, and the family lived a very happy life.

After the CCP began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, they were repeatedly harassed in their home by police from the Qinhuangdao Police Department. The couple was also repeatedly harassed at work. In March 2001 Ms. Sun had a mental breakdown under pressure from the authorities. Mr. Guo was detained in May 2001 and was repeatedly tortured by the police. Sometimes seven or eight policemen would punch and kick him after handcuffing him. They also whipped him with leather belts and beat him with the handle of a shovel, breaking the handle into two pieces in the process. They also kicked him in the genitals and pinched his nipples. The torture lasted for eight hours straight. Most of his thighs and buttocks were black and blue. He was then handcuffed to a metal chair for five days.

By the end of 2001, Ms. Sun was sent to a mental hospital, where she was held for ten months. In July 2002, Mr. Guo was sentenced to seven years in jail.

While the couple was detained, their daughter had to live by herself. At the time she was in senior high school. As she prepared for the university entrance examinations, she had to go to self study sessions in the evenings alone. Even under such circumstances, she passed her entrance examination in 2003. Since her family had no income, however, she was forced to give up the opportunity to attend college.

• Girl Detained When She Was Only a Year Old

Guo Yuetong, born in 2001, was from Zhongzhuang Township, Lixian County. Her parents are both practitioners. Shortly before Yuetong was born, her father Mr. Guo Yuting was illegally held at a detention center. Her mother was arrested for going to Beijing to speak out for Falun Gong. When she was only a year old, Yuetong was held at a detention center and then transferred to a brainwashing center. The police beat her mother for several hours and did not allow her to feed her child. She was detained for a year and a half.

Soon after Yuetong was released, her father was arrested again. At that point he could not even walk as a result of the severe torture he had endured.

In May 2006, police broke into Yuetong's home once again. She and her parents were arrested, and their home was ransacked. That was when Yuetong was detained for a second time.

On one evening in August 2008, police from the Changli Suburb Police Station went to Yuetong's home to harass her family. They ransacked the home and arrested her father. He was released two days later, but he was placed under house arrest and not allowed to leave his home, even to go to work to support the family.

• Persecution of Practitioners in the Name of the Beijing Olympics

When the Beijing Olympic Games were held, Qinhuangdao City was a co-host city. The authorities in Qinhuangdao City continuously arrested practitioners.

On May 11 and 12, Ms. Li Wei and her husband Mr. Yu Shen were arrested. Another practitioner took their 5-year-old child into her care. However, the police harassed this practitioner for doing so repeatedly and kept her from continuing to care for her.

On June 15, Ms. Hu Rimei from Changli County was arrested by the police. Her 3-year-old daughter had to be taken care of by her elderly grandmother. Currently Ms. Hu is still being held at the Changli Detention Center.

What kind of political entity would throw a 1-year-old child into a detention center? Who would keep a kind-hearted person from taking in a 5-year-old child after his parents had been wrongfully arrested?

The CCP's propaganda is full of lies. In the early days after the CCP took over power, it conducted a series of political movements, including the Movements against the Three Evils, Movements against the Five Evils, the Movement to Eliminate the Counterrevolutionaries, the Anti-Rightist Movement, the Cultural Revolution and Four Clean-ups Movement. Since the CCP took power, more than 80 million people have wrongfully perished. On June 4, 1989 it brought in tanks to kill college students demonstrating for democracy, and in 1999 it began to persecute Falun Gong. This is the latest and the most severe of the CCP's movements to destroy freedom of belief and thought.