Name: Xiang Youwei (向有为)
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Address: Wangpai Road, Wanzhou District, Chongqing
Occupation: Liyang City Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. employee
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 6, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Liyang City Detention Center (溧阳市看守所)
City: Chongqing
Persecution Suffered: Forced labor, brainwashing, illegal sentencing, interrogation, detention

(Clearwisdom.net) Practitioner Mr. Xiang Youwei, who worked at the Liyang City Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. in Jiangsu Province, was arrested by police from the Ximen Police Station in Liyang City on the evening of September 6, 2011. He is currently being illegally held in the Liyang City Detention Center.

Mr. Xiang, 26, lived on Wangpai Road, Wanzhou District, Chongqing and was a student at the Chongqing Three Gorges University. After he was arrested on September 6, his mother traveled the long distance from Wanzhou District, Chongqing to Liyang City, Jiangsu Province on September 20 to demand that Ximen Police Station agents release her son. An officer surnamed Lei told her that the arrest was ordered by Cai Jin, a Liyang City Domestic Security Division officer. When she asked Cai why her son was arrested, he said that it was a secret and he wouldn’t tell her.

Mr. Xiang began practicing Falun Gong during the Chinese New Year in 1999, when he was 13 years old, studying in middle school. Since then, he disciplined himself according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and became a student, excellent in both character and scholastic ability. He was enrolled in the Department of Computer Science of Chongqing Three Gorges University, and was selected as an outstanding student and based on his widely-known excellent grades and character. He was also selected as the student union representative. However, such a good student was arrested at his dormitory by Wanzhou District police on the evening of July 21, 2004. He was interrogated for 24 hours and sent directly to the Wanzhou District Brainwashing Center. Afterward, Mr. Xiang resisted the persecution with righteous thoughts and managed to escape. He had to leave his hometown and move from place to place in order to avoid arrest.

Following Wanzhou District Police Department orders, the university officials lied to the students, claiming that Mr. Xiang had a “political problem” and demanded that anyone who saw him report to the police. In addition, police from the Wanzhou District Police Department harassed Mr. Xiang’s family numerous times. They threatened his father, who was not a practitioner, trying to intimidate him into revealing his son's whereabouts.

Afterward, officials from the Chongqing 610 Office and Chongqing Domestic Security Division reported Mr. Xiang to the Ministry of Public Security as a means to serve their own political ambitions, claiming that Mr. Xiang was good with computers and posed a threat. From then on Mr. Xiang was wanted by the communist regime and a 6,000 yuan reward was offered for information about him.

In 2005, Chongqing police started a large-scale arrest of practitioners, during which time around 30 practitioners were forcibly arrested. Mr. Xiang was arrested on September 28, 2005. The police took his laptop, and sent him to the Yubei Detention Center on October 5 after torturing and interrogating him for seven days.

The Yubei District Court tried Mr. Xiang in secret on the afternoon of December 22, 2005. Although he denied everything in court, he was still sentenced to four years in prison. He immediately appealed to Chongqing First Intermediate Court as soon as he received the judgment on the afternoon of March 23, 2006 while he was detained at the Yubei District Detention Center. However, there has been no response thus far.

Mr. Xiang was not released until September 2009. He then began working at the Liyang City Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. in Jiangsu Province. The company officials and colleagues highly praised him for his excellent performance and often commented that people as good as him were rarely seen in society nowadays.

On September 6, 2011, following orders from the Liyang City Domestic Security Division, officials from the Ximen Police Station in Liyang City arrested Mr. Xiang without any reason or evidence. Mr. Xiang is currently being held in the Liyang City Detention Center.

Cai Jin, official of the Liyang City Domestic Security Division: +86-13813533555