(Minghui.org) A 72-year-old man was arrested at a checkpoint in Gucheng County, Hebei Province after police found amulets bearing Falun Gong messages in his car trunk.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body practice based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999.
Mr. Han Junde is a resident of Baoding City, Hebei Province. His car was impounded after he was seized at 9 a.m. on March 24, 2018. He was taken to Gucheng County Police Department, where he was held until 6:30 p.m., when police from Lianchi District Police Department in Baoding City came to pick him up.
Mr. Han was taken to Yonghuazhonglu Police Station at 10 p.m. He was given criminal detention and released at around midnight after his family paid 10,000 yuan of bail.
Days later, Sun Yan of the police station and officer Du of the Domestic Security Office, along with a few other policemen, searched the home that Mr. Han and his wife share with their younger daughter. The police confiscated a lot of informational materials about Falun Gong.
Mr. Han and his wife visited the local police station and the police department many times afterwards, urging them to drop the case against him as no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong.
Ma Jianlong, deputy chief of the police station, submitted the case to the local procuratorate, which soon returned the case, citing insufficient evidence.
Ma has refused to drop the case and is in the process of resubmitting the case.
This is not the first time that Mr. Han has been targeted for his faith. He credits Falun Gong for helping him quit smoking, drinking, and other bad habits. His pursuit of a healthy lifestyle landed him in police custody.
He was given three years of forced labor in 2000 for refusing to renounce Falun Gong. He was fired from his job in September 2001 while he was still in detention. He was forced to live away from home for seven months to avoid further arrests after he was released from the local labor camp in 2003. His wife and two daughters lived in fear. His mother, then in her 80s, was so traumatized by his ordeal that she became bedridden.