Family Tragedy: Father Dead, Mother Sentenced, Son Tortured and Daughter Displaced
Ms. Xu Jimei, a 73-year-old widow in Guan County, Shandong Province was recently sentenced to 15 months for distributing Falun Gong materials.
Xu’s family has also been targeted for their shared faith in Falun Gong. Her son fell into critical condition after being tortured and is denied family visitation, and her daughter has been forced into hiding after she escaped from police custody.
Moreover, Xu’s husband had suffered a heart condition induced by the persecution and died in 2005.
Family Ordeal
Xu’s husband, Mr. Zhou Ziming, was a locally famous doctor of Chinese medicine. Despite being a doctor himself, Zhou could not cure his own and Xu’s ailments.
Xu suffered cervical vertebra hyperplasia, which caused inadequate blood and oxygen supply in her brain and the subsequent necrosis of some brain cells. Zhou struggled with severe coronary heart disease and myocardial infarction. His leg varicose veins were also very serious.
In the spring of 1995, the couple was introduced to Falun Gong. In a few days, all their ailments disappeared, and they regained their health.
After witnessing their changes, their son Mr. Zhou Chunbao and daughter Ms. Zhou Chunling also took up the practice.
After the persecution began, Xu and Zhou were subjected to constant harassment, home ransacking, and extortion. Sometimes the couple was brought to the police station in the middle of the night for interrogation.
The persecution caused great duress to Zhou, relapsing his heart condition. He died in 2005, at the age of 63.
A year later, Xu moved to Beijing to stay with her daughter. Because people reported Xu after she talked to them about Falun Gong, she was arrested by officers from the Yongshun Police Station and given two years at the Hohhot Women’s Forced Labor Camp in the neighboring province of Inner Mongolia.
Xu returned to her hometown in Shandong after being released in 2008. She was arrested again in the spring of 2010 after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong and sentenced to one year. Because of her high blood pressure, induced at the Guan County Detention Center, she was released on medical parole.
Xu was arrested again in 2017, after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. The police confiscated 7,000 yuan from her home, and she was sentenced to one year at the Shandong Province Women’s Prison in Jinan City. She developed tuberculosis and stayed in the prison hospital for six months until her term ended.
Xu was arrested in late 2020 once more for distributing Falun Gong materials. Despite being released on bail after being rejected admission by the detention center over her high blood pressure, the police still submitted her case to the procuratorate and sought her prosecution.
The Guan County Court issued a subpoena for Xu’s arrest in early 2021. Upon learning that the police were planning to take her back into custody, she went into hiding.
On May 13, 2022, Chen Yong, an officer of Guan County Domestic Security Office, traveled to Fengcheng City, Liaoning Province, and arrested Xu at her daughter’s home. Her daughter’s 10,000 yuan in cash was also confiscated.
Ms. Zhou, her daughter, was also arrested by the police in Fengcheng for providing shelter to her mother. Her two cell phones, ID, and bank deposit card were taken away.
The mother and daughter were taken back to Guan County on June 11. The police kept them handcuffed during the 15-hour trip.
Two days later, Ms. Zhou escaped from the detention facility and has been in hiding since. Xu remained in custody and was later sentenced.
On May 15, Xu’s son, Mr. Zhou, a deputy director of Guan County Tax Bureau, was arrested. He was interrogated and deprived of sleep for three days. He held a hunger strike to protest the persecution and fell into a coma. He has been denied family visitation after being taken to the hospital for resuscitation and his family has been kept in the dark about his situation. His wife and child are very worried about him.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Zhang Xuehong (张学宏), secretary of Guan County Party Secretary: +86-13706356098
Zhang Zhigang (张志刚), magistrate of Guan County,: +86-635-5231139
He Shuxia (何书侠), director of Guan County Domestic Security Office: +86-13906355891, +86-635-5830033
(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)
Based on an Original Report from Minghui.org:
