Mother and Grandmother Repeatedly Surveilled, Arrested, and Brainwashed 

On May 21, 2024, Ms. Li Mengjun, a 71-year-old woman from Shizixiang Community, Dongping Town, Xiangtan City, Hunan Province, was arrested for circulating Falun Dafa materials. She was recorded by a surveillance camera distributing these documents on May 11, 2024 and reported to the Yuntang Police Station. 

Currently, Ms. Li lives with her son and granddaughter (who is in the first grade) in a rental home. Ms. Li supports the family of three with her spare pension, as her son is in debt despite running a small business. 

Ms. Li began to practice Falun Dafa in September 2005, during the sixth year of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of the spiritual discipline. Her previously broken family became harmonious after she picked up the practice, and she was always very healthy. 

This arrest is the most recent incident in a long history of Ms. Li being harassed and targeted for practicing Falun Gong. 

Ms. Li’s Recent Arrest

When Ms. Li left her house to buy groceries on May 21, 2024, three plainclothes police officers with the surnames Liu, Wang, and Xu, respectively, asked for her identity then demanded to speak with her at her house. Ms. Li responded that she was about to get groceries and that they could have the conversation in the hallway rather than in her home. In response, one of the officers demanded, “Go upstairs if I tell you to.” Wanting to avoid further confrontation, Ms. Li brought the officers to her home. 

The officers began to search Ms. Li’s home, where she lives with her son and granddaughter, who’s a first grader in elementary school. The female director of the Juhuatang Community Office was called as well as the head officer of the area, Officer Xie. They had a search warrant, had Ms. Li’s son watch a video of her distributing Falun Dafa materials, and searched their home. 

When she asked them why her house was being searched, they responded, “We are from the 610 Office and the Yuhu Police Station. You were reported for distributing Falun Gong materials.” Officer Xie added that Ms. Li was also reported for circulating Dafa materials in her own neighborhood, which she says she never did. 

The officers seized three copies of Zhuan Falun (the main text of the spiritual discipline), other Falun Dafa books, two audio players, 17 pamphlets with information on the practice, and Ms. Li’s tablet. They also confiscated clothes that Ms. Li wore when she circulated Dafa materials. 

Ms. Li was then taken to the location where she was caught on video tape distributing the Falun Gong materials. There, the officers forced her to stand near motorcycles where she would place the materials. They photographed and videotaped her in that position. Ms. Li was then taken to the Majiahe Administrative Law Enforcement Center, where the officers prepared paperwork on her case. She rejected signing the paperwork. 

In the afternoon, Yuhu Police Station’s Yang Zhenxing approved her ten-day detention. The officers gave her food, which made her vomit after just one bite. For a long time after that, Ms. Li had an upset stomach. 

The police tried to gather various biometric information from Ms. Li, including footprints, fingerprints, temperature, and a blood sample. They also tried to photograph her. Ms. Li strongly resisted all of these attempts at collecting information from her. In response to her resistance, seven officers grabbed her arms and forced the collection of her biometrics. The officers called Ms. Li’s son, daughter, and son-in-law into the station and pressured them to persuade their mother to allow them to draw blood. Finally, after much resistance on Ms. Li’s part, she relented and the officers took two tubes of blood from her. 

Close to midnight, Ms. Li was taken to the local lockup. She still refused to sign the officers’ paperwork, leaving her son to sign on her behalf. Ms. Li was detained for ten days and released on May 31, 2024. 

History of Being Targeted for Practicing Falun Gong

This recent arrest and detention is the latest incident in a long series of episodes where Ms. Li was persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party for her faith in Falun Gong. 

After just one year of practicing Falun Gong, Ms. Li began to be targeted for her faith. On August 10, 2006, Ms. Li was harassed and interrogated about where she acquired her Falun Dafa books. The female director of Shizixiang Community in Dongping Town, Xiangtan City, along with a police officer surnamed Chen, the secretary of Dongping Town surnamed Zhao, and her follower Luo Xiaohong all went to Ms. Li’s home and demanded her books as well as information about where she learned to practice Falun Gong. 

On May 15, 2007, she was arrested, her home was raided and ransacked, and she was forcibly taken to the Wujiahuayuan Brainwashing Center. At 7am, officers from the local police station and the secretary and director of the neighborhood community led dozens of people from the Municipal Public Security Bureau, the Joint Security Defense Office, the Civil Affairs Office, and the 610 office to break into Ms. Li’s home, seize items there, illegally search the home, and forcibly confiscate Ms. Li’s copy of Zhuan Falun. After being abducted and brought to the norotious brainwashing center, Ms. Li was kept in isolation and monitored by five staff members, who compelled her to view anti-Falun Gong propaganda every day (content that was composed of lies that slandered Dafa). The Xiangtan City 610 Office detained every Falun Gong practitioner in solitary confinement within the brainwashing center, prohibiting them from having any contact with the outside world. 

Ms. Li was arrested yet again on October 29, 2012, and again taken to the Wujiahuayuan Brainwashing Center. At 10am, two officers from Shizixiang Community in Dongping Town, Xiangtan City, commanded by the local 610 office, once again broke into Ms. Li’s home and demanded that she must stay in her home for 24 hours without exiting, otherwise she would be arrested. Ms. Li responded by criticizing this illegal restriction of her freedom. Seeing that Ms. Li would not budge on the issue, three police officers from the Dongping Town Police Station, someone surnamed Zhou from the Yuetang District 610 Office, and several unemployed people hired specifically for this purpose forcibly dragged Ms. Li out of her home. 

At the center during her 15-day detention, she had extreme nausea and upset stomach after her meals. She believed that the guards had contaminated her food with poison. On November 15, when her time was up at the brainwashing center, the police forcibly took her to the Xiangtan County Lockup, holding her there for another 15 days. The officers took Ms. Li’s blood samples and palm prints forcibly, as well as photographs. After this treatment, Ms. Li’s right arm was severely injured.