(Minghui.org) Seven Falun Gong practitioners in Shandong Province were arrested on June 9, 2020 near a courthouse when they went there to support two other practitioners who were scheduled to be tried for their faith on that day.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Two of the seven practitioners, Ms. Han Fengran and Ms. Song Chengkui, are residents of Zoucheng City, Shandong Province. Ms. Zou, Mr. Qi Yong and three others whose names are unknown, hail from Jining City, Shandong Province and are in their 60s and 70s.
The two practitioners who were tried by the Rencheng District Court were Ms. Wang Xiuqin and Ms. Xie Yuxia. They were arrested on December 13, 2019, for talking to people about Falun Gong.
The plainclothes officers body searched Ms. Han and Ms. Song and confiscated their cellphones, wallets, IDs and bus passes. Only after the practitioners repeatedly asked who they were did the officers reluctantly show their police IDs.
After Ms. Han and Ms. Song were taken to the local police station, they were kept in the basement and interrogated in separate rooms for more than three hours. The police body searched them again, including their socks.
At the same time, officers ransacked their homes and confiscated their Falun Gong books, a photo of Falun Gong’s founder, their laptops and printers.
Both practitioners were kept in custody for more than 30 hours and released the next day on bail. The police in Jining summoned the two practitioners back to the police station a few days later. They refused to go.
The statuses of the other five arrested practitioners from Jining are unknown.
