Crimes of Liu Yuan, Former Deputy Secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Shandong Provincial CCP Committee and Director of the Provincial “610 Office”

Full Name of Perpetrator: Liu (last name) Yuan (first name) (刘渊)

• Gender: Male
• Country: China
• Date/Year of Birth: December 1966
• Place of Birth: Dongping, Shandong Province

Title or Position:

• 2006 – 2011: Deputy Secretary and Deputy Director of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Leadership Group of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shandong Provincial Government
• 2011 – 2012: Deputy Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shandong Provincial Government and Executive Vice President of the Provincial Friendship Association
• 2012 – 2015: Director of the Foreign Affairs Office of the Shandong Provincial Government, Secretary of the CCP Leadership Group, and President of the Provincial Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries
• 2012 – 2018: Deputy Secretary of the Political and Legal Affair Commission of the Shandong Provincial CCP Committee and Director of the Provincial “610 Office”
• 2018 – Present: Deputy Director of the Office of Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao Affairs of the Shandong Provincial Government

Main Crimes:

Shandong Province is one of the provinces where Falun Gong is most severely persecuted. As of now, 438 Falun Gong practitioners have been persecuted to death.

According to available statistics, from June 2015 to October 2018, while Liu Yuan was the Deputy Secretary of the Political and Legal Affair Commission of the Shandong Provincial CCP Committee and Director of the Provincial “610 Office,” 32 Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death.

Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners were arrested, of which, at least 1,118 were arrested in 2017, making it the area with the highest arrests in the country. Furthermore, 347 Falun Gong practitioners were illegally sentenced.

Liu Yuan must be held accountable for the arrests, harassment, detention, sentencing, torture, deaths, illegal imprisonments, and other crimes against Falun Gong practitioners that occurred during his tenure as Deputy Secretary of the Political and Legal Affair Commission of the Shandong Provincial CCP Committee and the head of the “610 Office” of Shandong Province in charge of the persecution of Falun Gong.

 

The following are the key facts of the persecution during this period:

1. In June 2015, when Liu Yuan was appointed as Director of the Shandong Provincial “610 Office,” Falun Gong practitioners in Shandong Province filed complaints with the Supreme Procuratorate and the Supreme Court of China for Jiang Zemin (former CCP head) launching the persecution of Falun Gong. Under the Shandong Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission and the “610 Office,” local authorities at different levels of the Shandong government arrested and harassed Falun Gong practitioners.

Since July 31, 2015, at least 158 Falun Gong practitioners in Dezhou, Shandong Province have been persecuted: six were arrested to the detention centre, 81 were detained, 27 were arrested and sent to the police station, 41 were harassed at home, and ten were harassed or arrested to the police station and then threatened by their work units.

On August 20 and 24, 2015, the Security Office of Nanshan Group in Longkou City, Shandong Province, followed the list issued by the “610 Office” and arrested more than 20 Falun Gong practitioners, including Song Hongtian and Chen Guihua. They were subjected to beatings, interrogations, and torture, forcing them to pledge to not practice Falun Gong. They were extorted out of huge sums of money and their family members were forced to sign documents and give their fingerprints that if the Falun Gong practitioners persevered with their faith, all family members would be kicked out of the Nanshan Group. Many Falun Gong practitioners were beaten so severely that their faces became deformed.

From October to November 16, 2015, more than 100 Falun Gong practitioners were detained in the Liaocheng Detention Centre.

On October 15, 2015, police arrested Li Xiufen in Weifang. A month later, on November 14, 2015, Li Xiufen died from torture in the detention centre. The Weifang “610 Office” and Changyi “610 Office” instructed that Li Xiufen be cremated immediately. The authorities threatened the practitioners’ families with cremation to cover up their crimes. Judging from her body, Li Xiufen was emaciated and her face was unrecognisable. Her mouth was gaped wide and could not be closed. According to internal public security reports, during Li Xiufen’s illegal detention, she was force-fed, severely beaten, and repeatedly injected with unknown drugs.

On October 22, 2015, police from the Wucheng County Public Security Bureau arrested Ms. Sun Xiuju. She was detained in Dezhou City Detention Centre and died from torture on November 3, 2015, at the age of 45.

On November 9, 2015, Mr. Sun Mingqiang spoke about the persecution of Falun Gong to students outside the Jinan Army Academy. The school police severely beat him and left a hole in his head. He died that month at the age of 35. The case was included in the United States “Report on International Religious Freedom.”

2. In 2016, 1,150 Falun Gong practitioners in Shandong Province were arrested and 132 were sentenced. At least Liu Yaohua, Wang Yijun, Liu Huaifeng, and Chen Xiumei died from torture.

From March to June 2016, under the direction of the Shandong Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission and the “610 Office,” Jinan City police planned how they would arrest Falun Gong practitioners. Every Falun Gong practitioner who was illegally detained was required to sign four official documents with an official seal.

It was clear from these documents that the arrests of the Falun Gong practitioners were pre-coded in advance. From March 22 to June 30, as many as 112 Falun Gong practitioners were harassed and detained in Jinan, of which at least 82 were women. Seventy-two were arrested and persecuted.

Chen Xiumei, female, 59 years old, was arrested by police and her home was ransacked on June 24, 2015. Police confiscated her personal belongings such as computers, printers, Falun Gong books, mobile phones, etc. After eight months of detention, she died as a result of torture on February 28, 2016.

Wang Yijun, male, 65 years old, was arrested and sent to the detention centre on September 6, 2015. In late July 2016, he was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison. On September 25, 2016, he died as a result of torture in the Qingzhou Detention Centre. His body was purple in the face, both sides of his body, and above the waist. There was a red spot on his back.

3. According to available statistics, in 2017, at least 3,787 Falun Gong practitioners were harassed, and 1,118 were arrested in Shandong Province, making it one of the provinces with the highest numbers of harassment and arrests in the country. In 2017, 108 people were sentenced, and 89 were tried by courts.

In April 2017, local police repeatedly harassed Ms. Guo Ailian, a 73-year-old Falun Gong practitioner. She was taken to the police station for questioning and was forced to sign a pledge to give up practicing Falun Gong. Repeated harassment, video recording, and intimidation caused severe stress to the elderly Guo Ailian. As a result, she could not eat or sleep and died on the evening of May 10, 2017.

On May 2, 2017, 67-year-old Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Shao Chengluo and his wife Ms. Gao Wenshu were arrested and their home was ransacked. On November 10, 2017, they were sentenced to nine years and four years in prison, respectively. Shao Chengluo was taken to Shandong Provincial Prison in January 2018, where he went on a hunger strike to protest and was force-fed as punishment. Over the next few months, Shao Chengluo was reduced to skin and bones until he only weighed about 40 kilograms. He suffered from muscular atrophy in his legs and could hardly walk.

Ms. Dong Yonghui, 79, was sentenced to one year, six months and taken to Jinan Prison at the end of September 2016. She used to be in good health, but when her daughters visited her in June 2017, they saw that she could not stand or talk as a result of the persecution. She died on August 11, 2017.

On October 17, 2017, police arrested Mr. Gong Piqi. On July 20, 2018, he was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison and fined 20,000 yuan. On April 12, 2021, Gong Piqi died from torture in Jinan Prison, Shandong Province. His body showed head injuries and bleeding from his ears.

4. In 2018, at least 1,006 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested by order of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Shandong Provincial CCP and the “610 Office,” making it the province with the most arrests in the country. One hundred seven people were sentenced, at least 406 were harassed, 34 were arrested, and 16 were sent to brainwashing centres.

In April 2018, Ms. Su Cuirong, a 72-year-old Falun Gong practitioner, was sentenced to seven years in prison by the local court for “disrupting the legal order” and was fined 30,000 yuan.

On the morning of May 23, 2018, Binzhou police broke into Ms. Liu Lanchun’s home and videotaped a search. They arrested her in the afternoon. On May 25, 2018, police returned and ransacked her home, confiscating Falun Gong books, computers, printers, amulets, accessories, CDs, mobile phones, disks, and other personal items. Police also took nearly 190,000 yuan in cash from her home.

On June 9, 2018, the CCP held the World Forum of International Organisations Summit in Qingdao. Between April and May, before the “Qingdao Summit,” Qingdao police and the “610 Office” monitored, harassed, threatened, and arrested Falun Gong practitioners under the pretext of maintaining security for the summit. The authorities harassed almost all Falun Gong practitioners who were practicing before the persecution began in 1999.

According to available statistics, at least three Falun Gong practitioners, Liu Shuxiang, Sheng Ceylon, and Cai Ying, were tortured to death, 227 were arrested, 29 were sentenced, 30 were tried in court, 143 were harassed, and 18 were arrested.

Cai Ying, female, born in 1970, was a translator by profession. Police arrested Cai Ying on April 26, 2018, and took her to the detention centre the next day. To protest the brutal treatment that she received, she went on a hunger strike and was forced-fed as punishment. She died from torture on May 8 in the detention centre. By the time the ambulance picked her up, she was already deceased.