(Minghui.org) July 20, 2023 marks the 24th year since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to suppress Falun Gong. Falun Gong practitioners in 44 countries submitted another list of perpetrators to their respective governments, urging them to hold these individuals accountable for the persecution of Falun Gong in China. The practitioners asked their governments to bar the perpetrators and their family members from entry, and to freeze their overseas assets.

Among the perpetrators listed was Liu Jiayi, the former secretary of the Shandong Provincial CCP Committee.

 

Perpetrator Information

Full Name of Perpetrator: Liu (last name) Jiayi (first name) (刘家义)
Gender: Male
Country: China
Date/year of Birth: August 1956
Place of Birth: Kai County, Chongqing, Sichuan Province

 

Title and Position

August 1976: Joined the Chinese Communist Party
March 2008: auditor-general and secretary-general of the National Audit Office of China
April 2017 – September 2021: secretary of the Shandong Provincial CCP Committee, director of the Shandong Standing Committee of the Provincial People’s Congress
October 2021: vice chairman of the Financial and Economic Committee of the National People’s Congress
March 2023 – Present: member of the Standing Committee and Director of the Proposal Committee of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference

 

Major Crimes

Since the persecution began in July 1999, Shandong Province has been one of the leading provinces in implementing the persecution policy, and the number of practitioners targeted there has also been high in comparison with cases across the country.

The 610 Office mobilised local police forces and community committees to directly harass and monitor Falun Gong practitioners and their family members. Some practitioners were also fined large amounts of money and/or had their pensions suspended. Some were subjected to brutal torture after being arrested and a number of practitioners passed away as a result.

Liu Jiayi, during his four-year tenure as the Provincial CCP Secretary, held one of the highest levels of command, overseeing the persecution of Falun Gong in Shandong Province.

On June 13, 2017, Liu Jiayi, as the Shandong CCP secretary and highest official in the province, delivered a speech at the 11th CCP Congress in Shandong Province. He said that the security of the regime should be the first priority and called for an “intensive anti-infiltration, anti-espionage, anti-separatism, anti-terrorism and anti-cult battle.”

On July 23, 2018, Liu presided over the second meeting of the Leading Group for Ideology and Propaganda and Ideological Work of the Shandong Provincial CCP Committee. At the meeting, Liu emphasised that the priority is to “comprehensively strengthen the CCP leadership over religious work and severely crack down on illegal religious dissemination and cult activities.”

On January 26, 2019, at the Shandong Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Committee Working Conference, Liu said, “We must unswervingly put the maintenance of national political security and institutional security as the core task, resolutely prevent the infiltration of hostile foreign forces and the spread and infiltration of illegal religions and cults, and intensify efforts to curb chaos and clean the Internet.”

Liu authored a commentary in 2019, titled “Strive to Be the Leader, Practitioner, and Promoter of the Communist Party’s Political Construction,” in the journal Communist Party Construction Research. He wrote, “[t]he Provincial CCP Committee actively guides CCP members and cadres… to deploy and carry out a three-year anti-cult campaign, with five special targets, including overseas religious infiltration and Christian underground meeting places.”

From April 11 to June 18, 2019, the Shandong Provincial CCP Committee held an inspection tour of Penglai City. After the tour, Penglai City CCP Committee passed on Liu’s directives and criticism. “It was the opinion of the inspection team that the city is weak on the crackdown on cults and illegal organisations… To correct the situation, the city must first step up to “transform” [brainwash] key people in Falun Gong and other groups and continuously reduce the number of people that are not trustworthy. Second, the city should conduct targeted crackdowns, including the 100-day campaign against Falun Gong and the Church of Almighty God to uproot cults and illegal organisations.”

 

Persecution of Falun Gong in Shandong Province

Persecution in 2017 

In the second half of 2017, 588 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested in Shandong, which was the highest in the country and represents 15% of the total 3,973 known arrests. Three practitioners died as a result of persecution during the time.

Persecution in 2018

In 2018, 1,006 practitioners were arrested and 107 were sentenced in Shandong Province, representing the highest and second highest cases of arrest and sentencing in the country, respectively.

Prior to the 2018 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Summit in Qingdao, Sun Qisheng, the secretary of the Weifang City Political and Legal Affair committee, publicly slandered Falun Gong during a video conference. Within two months, 153 practitioners were arrested in Weifang – 36 in April and 117 in May. Many of these practitioners were later sentenced.

Also in 2018, the CCP launched a nationwide “anti-crime operation” and Shandong Province carried out “Operation Storm.” The operation resulted in the arrests of 18 practitioners, whose homes were also ransacked. The cash confiscated from the home raids exceeded 500,000 yuan. At least nine practitioners were sentenced to up to four years.

On November 18, 2018, 36 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested in Qingyun County, Dezhou City. The oldest was over 80 years old. Prior to the arrests, local police had begun to monitor practitioners’ daily activities since July 2018.

Persecution in 2019

In 2019, Shandong Province also recorded the most severe persecution, with 124 practitioners sentenced (15.7% of the total number in the country). Another 16 practitioners died as a result of the persecution.

Among the twelve cities with the most sentencing cases in the country, five were in Shandong, including:
Qingdao (20 practitioners)
Linyi (16 practitioners)
Tai’an (15 practitioners)
Weifang (14 practitioners)
Yantai (14 practitioners)

Twenty-seven of the convicted practitioners were 65 or older. Forty-five practitioners were fined for a total of 641,000 yuan, averaging 14,244 yuan per person.

Ms. Zheng Quanhua, 63, was arrested at home on July 17, 2018. She stood trial in the Jimo Court in late July 2019 and three months later she was sentenced to seven years.

Persecution in 2020

In 2020, more than 2,000 Falun Gong in Shandong Province were persecuted in various forms, an increase of 44% over the previous year. Among those persecuted, four people died, 76 were sentenced, 785 were arrested (the highest in the country), 536 had their homes ransacked, 985 were harassed, 21 were displaced and forced to live away from home, 165 were detained in brainwashing centres, and 108 were fined.

Persecution in 2021

In 2021, more than 2,835 Falun Gong practitioners from Shandong Province were targeted in various forms, an increase of 42% from the previous year. Among these, eight were persecuted to death, 101 people were sentenced, 964 were arrested, 412 had their homes ransacked, 544 were detained, 1,562 were harassed, 28 were forced to live away from home, 234 were detained in brainwashing centres and 129 were fined.

In the “Zero-out” campaign in 2021, almost all Falun Gong practitioners on the government’s list were harassed and ordered to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. If the authorities could not locate the practitioners, they would harass their close family members and other relatives.

 

Selected Death Cases

1. Mr. Sun Pijin Dies One Day After Arrest, Body Forcibly Cremated Eight Days Later

Mr. Sun Pijin, of Mengyin County, Shandong Province, was arrested at work on June 18, 2021. His family was informed of his death the next day. The 610 Office claimed that he committed suicide by jumping from a tall building, but they did not allow his family to have an autopsy done. The family saw that Mr. Sun had lost an eyeball and that half of his head and his chest cavity were caved in. To cover up the crime, the police sent plainclothes officers to patrol the village and monitor Mr. Sun’s family members. The family was not allowed to hire a lawyer to seek justice. In the end, the family was forced to agree to cremate his body and destroy evidence of police wrongdoing.

 

2. Ms. Li Ling Viciously Beaten, Dies 16 Days after Arrest

Ms. Li Ling of Penglai City, Shandong Province, was seized by a village official and paramilitary soldiers on June 28, 2020, after being reported for possessing Falun Gong literature. She was taken to an empty house in a mountainous area and viciously beaten. Her mouth was severely injured and she lost a number of teeth as a result of the beatings. There was a contusion on her left ribcage and she had bruises all over her body. According to an elderly villager who was told to watch her, one of the soldiers also jabbed Ms. Li hard on the chest with a stick.

Ms. Li still refused to give up her practice or answer questions. One of her tormentors took her outside to “fix her up.” He kicked her so hard that she lost her balance and hit her hip on a rock. When it later started to rain, he made her stand in the rain for a long time. She went on a hunger strike to protest the abuse.

Ms. Li was rushed to a private clinic on July 13 for emergency treatment and was pronounced dead. She was 55.

 

3. Ms. Meng Qingmei Dies While Serving Three and a Half Years

Ms. Meng Qingmei, of Heze City, Shandong Province, was arrested on May 20, 2017, for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. She was later sentenced to three and a half years in the Shandong Province Women’s Prison.

Ms. Meng’s family received a call from the prison around June 13, 2020, that she was in critical condition. When they rushed to the hospital, she had already passed away. Her death certificate said she died from multiple organ failure due to electrolyte imbalance. The prison authorities said Ms. Meng went on a hunger strike for 28 days before she died, but they denied force-feeding or torturing her.

Ms. Meng’s family demanded that her body be brought back to Shan County, Shandong Province, where she lived, for cremation, but the authorities refused to allow it. They were forced to have Ms. Meng cremated in Jinan and took her ashes home on June 16.

 

4. Ms. Li Changfang Dies Under Suspicious Circumstances in a Prison Hospital

Ms. Li Changfang from Linyi City, Shandong Province, was arrested on October 23, 2018. She was sentenced to two and a half years in prison and fined 10,000 yuan on March 27, 2019.

Ms. Li began to have a stomachache in June 2019 while being held in the Linyi City Detention Centre. The pain later spread to her back and legs. Shortly after she was hospitalised on July 6, doctors operated on her without her family’s consent. She remained in a coma after the surgery and her eyes were taped shut the entire time. The doctors claimed that there were complications with her liver and kidneys and they put her on dialysis. She died on July 12 after the police removed the life support machines. Her body was cremated without her family’s consent.

 

5. Ms. Xing Ximei Dies 13 Days after Arrest

Ms. Xing Ximei, of Yi’nan County, Shandong Province, was arrested on November 7, 2017 at a local fair after she was reported for distributing materials exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. Her family was not informed of her arrest and detention until two days afterwards, when several officers, including the police chief, suddenly showed up and demanded that the family pay 410 yuan for her medical examination and 3,000 yuan for her bail.

When the family refused to pay, the police took them to the Linyi City People’s Hospital, where they saw Ms. Xing undergoing emergency treatment. Half of her body was paralyzed, and her abdomen was swollen. She was incoherent and only answered, “They are hurting me” when her family asked what happened. Seeing this, the police gave the family 3,000 yuan and left quickly.

Ms. Xing passed away on November 20. She was 66. She was diagnosed with a stroke and pneumonia, but she was completely healthy on the day of her arrest. Afterwards, the police confiscated her medical records and ordered the local village government to give her family 25,000 yuan in compensation.

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