(Minghui.org) More and more people in Hebei Province now support Falun Gong, and many police officers have become unwilling to participate in the persecution. This shift in attitude is the result of practitioners' efforts to clarify the public's misunderstandings seeded by fifteen years of suppression and hate propaganda by China's communist regime.
The following cases show a stark contrast with previous years, when police eagerly apprehended practitioners at every opportunity, incentivized by bonuses and promotions for following orders from above to suppress Falun Gong.
Two Falun Gong practitioners were arrested by an officer from Police Station A while they were distributing pamphlets about the persecution on August 11, 2014. The police transferred the practitioners to Police Station B, noting that the arrest was made in B's district.
Unwilling to take the case, Police Station B handed off the case to Police Station C, because the practitioners were residents of C's district. Police Station C released the practitioners.
Ms. Xiaolin is a new practitioner. Her husband, influenced by the Communist Party's hate propaganda, strongly opposed Falun Gong, so she practiced in secret. Her husband became angry when he found Falun Gong materials in her handbag in 2013. He blamed another practitioner, Hualian, and called 110 (the emergency number in China) to report her.
He called the police repeatedly but was told that because of the distant location, a local police station had been asked to make the arrest.
The next day, Xiaolin found that nothing happened to Hualian.
Falun Gong practitioner Xiaoying was arrested in 2012. A police instructor was in charge of the arrest. She was sentenced to three years in prison for her belief. Police seized more than 10,000 yuan from her and divided the money among themselves.
Xiaoying was released at the end of 2014. She went to the police station to request the return of her money. The police instructor shouted at her, “Tell your fellow practitioners to stop calling me. I'm going crazy. I can't get sleep at night....”
Xiaoying calmly asked him, “Do you know how many of my relatives suffered when you arrested me? Do you know what I endured in those three years in prison?” Deflated, he agreed to investigate the case.
Not long after, he returned her money. When he did, he looked relieved.
Sometimes, officers have a change of heart after becoming aware that their actions are being followed by the international community.
After Falun Gong practitioners in one city sent out a list of perpetrators being tracked by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), two officers told them that they no longer participated in the persecution. One of them even withdrew his Communist Party membership and became a supporter of Falun Gong.
An officer in another city learned that his crimes were being tracked by WOIPFG. He sought out a practitioner he knew and said that, to make up for his crimes, he would no longer persecute Falun Gong practitioners.