(Minghui.org) A four-year-old boy in Macheng City, Hubei Province was recently denied admission to his local kindergarten because his grandmother wouldn’t give up her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Accompanied by his parents, the little boy went to the Macheng City Kindergarten on September 6, 2020, the first day of school, only to be blocked outside. It turned out that Yu Li, the kindergarten’s principal, had been pressured by the Political and Legal Affairs Committee and 610 Office, two government agencies tasked with persecuting Falun Gong, to deny the boy’s admission, simply because his grandmother, Ms. Tao Lahuai, who taught 33 years at the same kindergarten before her retirement 15 years ago, refused to renounce Falun Gong.
Since May 2020, the local police and leadership at the kindergarten have been harassing Ms. Tao, 70, and asking her to sign statements promising not to practice Falun Gong or talk to people about it. The harassment caused enormous mental pressure to both Ms. Tao and her family.
Jin Sufang, the vice principal of the kindergarten, once said to Ms. Tao that because she didn’t sign the statements, all teachers at the kindergarten would be deprived of their bonuses, which is a typical implication policy used by the communist regime in the persecution to incite hatred towards Falun Gong practitioners.
On another occasion, a police officer kicked on Ms. Tao’s door and shouted, “Are you going to open the door or not? If you don’t open the door, we will arrest you as soon you come out!” Because of the police intimidation, Ms. Tao and her family couldn’t go out for many days.
When the Macheng City Kindergarten began the enrollment of new students in late August 2020, Ms. Tao’s son signed up his four-year-old son, who was then admitted and assigned to the nursery class.
On the first day of school on September 6, the little boy’s parents took him to the kindergarten, only to be told by the class teacher that his name wasn’t on the roster. He was directed to the kindergarten’s management.
Ms. Tao’s daughter-in-law, who also practices Falun Gong, found principal Yu and asked why she removed her son’s name from the enrollment.
Yu insisted that both the boy’s mother and grandmother write the statements to renounce Falun Gong, before she could re-enroll the boy. Yu said to the boy’s mother, “We are doing this to purify our education environment. We need to make sure you don’t spread any rumors or believe in any religion.”
Ms. Tao’s daughter-in-law asked Yu, “What does our practicing Falun Gong and living by its principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance have to do with my son’s enrollment in the kindergarten? We’ve been teaching him to be polite, not to fight with other kids, and listen to the teachers. What’s wrong with that?” She refused to write the renouncing statements and said she was considering filing a lawsuit against the kindergarten.
Yu then softened her tone and said they were just temporarily putting the boy’s enrollment process on hold, and it wasn’t a final decision for them not to accept him.
It has now been a month since school started, and Ms. Tao’s family still hasn’t received any update from the kindergarten regarding the boy’s admission, nor has the school returned the application fee they paid.
In the past two decades, Ms. Tao has been arrested multiple times for practicing Falun Gong and detained twice at a brainwashing center for over two months.
