Ms. Xu Fengqiong, a former employee of the Tibet Military Printing Shop, filed a criminal complaint against former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin with the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on August 12, 2015. She holds Jiang accountable for the mental and financial suffering she and her family have endured under the communist regime’s violent persecution campaign against Falun Gong.
Ms. Xu was repeatedly arrested and detained for refusing to renounce her faith in Falun Gong. After she was released, she was not able to find a job or rent an apartment because the authorities would not re-issue her ID card.
Listed as a “key figure” in the public security department’s electronic ID card system, Ms. Xu was monitored and repeatedly harassed by police. She was arrested again in 2005. Since then, she has lived in fear of being arbitrarily arrested at any time.
Before her first arrest, Ms. Xu was evicted from her dormitory after her husband was arrested for practicing Falun Gong. She had to send their six-year-old daughter to live with her husband’s parents. Her own parents were also threatened and monitored frequently.
Below is an excerpt from Ms. Xu’s personal account of what she and her family have endured.
Illegally Confined at Work
I was watched, followed, and harassed non-stop after the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999. It was worse on “sensitive days” on the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) calendar. In 2001, agents from the 610 Office searched my home. Their brutality upset my family terribly.
In the morning on May 20, 2002, I was told to report to a meeting room, where more than 30 individuals were present, including a Jinzhuzhonglu Police Station officer and two Chinese military officials. They assailed me with questions and accused me of many baseless crimes. They then confined me to a room in a hostel.
I was not allowed to report to work or to go home. They wouldn’t let me use the phone or see anyone. They assigned four people to watch me around the clock. They beat me and tried to compel me to “confess.” Every day they pressured me to sign statements apologizing for practicing Falun Gong and promising to give up my faith.
On May 29, I escaped from the hostel and fled Lhasa. With help, I arrived in Beijing and spoke up for Falun Gong on Tiananmen Square. My employer charged me with “absenteeism.”
Sent to Forced Labor Camp
On June 4, I called my employer to clear the charge against me, but I was arrested and taken back to Lhasa and incarcerated in the Autonomous Region Public Security Bureau Detention Center.
In detention, I was insulted and verbally abused because I refused to give up Falun Gong. I was not allowed to shower or talk to anyone else. The guards purposely searched me in front of my family during their visits. They also assigned criminal inmates to live in my building and provoke conflicts between others and me. I went on a hunger strike for five days to protest the abuses.
The Lhasa City Forced Labor Committee sent me to three years of forced labor on July 16, 2002. My health was deteriorating, and I was diagnosed with hepatic cancer.
When I was sent to Lhasa City Forced Labor Camp in March 2003, the camp refused to accept me because of my poor health. The detention center still incarcerated me until I was so ill that I had to be released on medical parole.
Financial Hardship
We had lived in a dormitory assigned by the Autonomous Region Economic and Trade Commission, where my husband used to work. When my husband was arrested for practicing Falun Gong, the 610 Office and the local police station pressured the Commission to remove me from the dormitory. With no place to go, I had to send my 6-year-old daughter to live with her grandparents in Sichuan Province.
I was fired from my job on July 29, two weeks after I was sent to a forced labor camp. When I was released, my former employer and the local police station refused to re-issue me an ID card. Without one, I could not find a job or rent an apartment, causing me great financial hardship.
Followed and Harassed
Fortunately, a good friend offered me a place to live, and a kind advertising shop owner offered me a job. Officers from the 610 Office and Tuanjiexincun Police Station spied on me around the house and made loud noises to wake me up in late night or early morning hours. They even came to my new workplace to harass me, and pressured the shop owner to fire me.
To ward off the harassment, my friend had to buy them dinners, give them gifts, and provide them and their relatives free hotel rooms. The advertising shop owner also had to print materials for them free of charge.
I was again arrested and taken to a 610 Office in 2005. When I refused to sign their prepared statements, the officers pushed me down on the floor. Officers from the Tuanjiexincun Police Station have closely monitored, followed, and harassed me ever since. I have lived in terror for a long time, and often wake up in the middle of the night, fearing I will be arrested again.
When I fled to Beijing in 2002, my sickly parents, who live in Sichuan Province, were intimidated, threatened, and monitored. Even today, my mother still trembles in fear when she sees a police officer or a police car.
Background
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners during the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their beliefs and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang’s directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.
(Clearwisdom)
