(Minghui.org) A 75-year-old woman in Fuping County, Hebei Province, has been repeatedly harassed by local authorities since March 2023. On May 24 alone, three groups of people came within four hours to harass Ms. Fan Zhen at home.
Ms. Fan, a retired department store employee, began to practice Falun Gong in early 1999. She became a target after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong months later. During the past 24 years, she has been repeatedly arrested, harassed, and had her home raided. She was brutally tortured while in detention.
Her latest persecution episodes stemmed from her arrest in May 2020.
Punishment Escalated from “Released on Bail” to “House Arrest” in 2021
Jia Xiaohui, head of the Fuping County Domestic Security Office, led a few officers to Ms. Fan’s home on May 27, 2020. They raided her home and then took her to the county hospital for a physical examination. She was found to be in poor health, and the local detention center declined to admit her. The police then released her on bail.
The police took Ms. Fan to the county hospital for another physical examination in May 2021. The local detention center again refused to accept her after seeing her exam results. The police then escalated her punishment to “house arrest.” She refused to sign the paperwork as ordered.
In China, a person released on bail is allowed to live a normal life as long as they do not go out of town or violate other bail conditions. A person placed under house arrest, however, is not allowed to leave their residence.
“House Arrest” Changed Back to “Released on Bail” Without Her Knowledge
In November 2021, five officers, including Jia and Di Pengfei, showed up at Ms. Fan’s home and said they needed her to sign some paperwork to end her “house arrest” at the Shunping County Procuratorate. She went with them, and they took her picture at the procuratorate. The person in charge of her paperwork, however, was nowhere to be found. She was then sent home.
A few days later, Di led four other officers to Ms. Fan’s home again and took her to the Shunping County Procuratorate. Like last time, they took her picture outside of the procuratorate before returning her to Fuping.
Ms. Fan asked them, “You brought me here time and again but didn’t get anything done. Why didn’t you confirm with them ahead of time that you were coming to sign my paperwork?” Di claimed that the procuratorate was making things difficult for them.
On November 25, 2021, Di and another officer came with a few pieces of paper and asked Ms. Fan to fingerprint and sign them. She saw a title reading “Ending House Arrest.” She had grown impatient with all the harassment, so she just wanted to get over it. She thus signed and pressed her fingerprints on the document without reading its content. Di then asked her to sign and fingerprint another copy, which she also did.
Di then asked for her daughter’s phone number and called in the younger woman to sign the same documents. Her daughter initially refused to comply but relented when Di “assured” her that everything would be fine as long as she did as told and kept an eye on her mother [to stop her from going out to talk to people about Falun Gong].
The next morning Ms. Fan asked her daughter to call Di to request a copy of all the documents signed the day before. Di said he didn’t give them a copy because they ended her “house arrest” but put her back on “released on bail” again. Her daughter condemned Di for deceiving her and her mother. They had thought Ms. Li was cleared of prosecution with the end of the house arrest.
Ms. Fan said to Di on the phone, “Why didn’t you tell me that you put me back on ‘released on bail’?” Di said she voluntarily signed and fingerprinted everything, which meant she had agreed to the new punishment. He hung up the phone when Ms. Fan accused him of lying.
Harassed Repeatedly for Refusing to Be Fooled Again
In March 2023, Di and two officers came to Ms. Fan’s home and asked her to go with them to take a photo and close the case of her bail condition. She refused to comply because she suspected that they were going to deceive her again like in 2021 and their “closing the case” would only mean further prosecution of her. She said, “I absolutely will not be fooled again this time.”
She also reminded them that good and evil will be dealt with accordingly and that they’d face consequences if they kept following the CCP to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. She had urged Di to quit the CCP and its two junior organizations in the past and he said he knew she had exposed his persecution of Falun Gong online.
One day in mid-May, the police came again but Ms. Fan didn’t let them in. They claimed to be doing a welfare check and left after saying a few words.
At around 7:30 p.m. on May 22, seven people from the Fuping County Domestic Security Office, the police station, and the street committee came to Ms. Fan’s home. One person held a blood pressure monitor and wanted to check her blood pressure. She questioned if her health status had anything to do with them. She happened to be suffering some shoulder discomfort those few days. Upon noticing that she looked very uncomfortable, they gave up the attempt to measure her blood pressure and left.
At 5 p.m. on May 24, three officers came again. A female officer still attempted to check Ms. Fan’s blood pressure, but she didn’t let her. They left.
At 6:30 p.m. on May 24, officer Di showed up with four other people, bringing a medical doctor to perform a physical examination of Ms. Fan. She again asked if her blood pressure had anything to do with them. Her daughter warned Di that she’d held them responsible for her mother’s medical treatments should the doctor diagnose her with any illnesses. They left.
At 8:30 p.m. on May 24, three other people came, one of them holding a recording device. Ms. Fan’s daughter stopped them in the courtyard and condemned them for repeatedly harassing an elderly woman. She also accused the police of deceiving her and her mother last year. They said, “We were not here last year,” and left.
Related Report:
Fuping County, Hebei Province Police Persecute 67-Year-old Ms. Fan Zhen
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