(Minghui.org) After several brief detentions earlier this year, an undergraduate student studying at the Zhongshan City campus of Guangdong Pharmaceutical University was arrested again in June and held at a police station for 15 hours, simply because of her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Xie Xiaoting noticed that she was followed by the staff of her dormitory management office and campus police officers, when she went to the cafeteria and the library on June 4 and 5, 2024.
At around 10 a.m. on June 6, while Ms. Xie was attending a class, counselor Cai Jinghua summoned her to his office per the order from Li Nan, a school leader. About 10 minutes into Cai’s talk, more than ten police officers showed up, with several cameras. They produced a summons, which stated that they could take Ms. Xie away by force if she refused to go with them.
Ms. Xie refused to comply with the officers and was carried into the police car. Upon arrival at the Wuguishan Police Station, she refused to get out of the car. The police handcuffed her and carried her inside. Two female officers searched Ms. Xie and said they were going to take her photos, and collect her blood sample and fingerprints.
Officer Guan Shutong said, “I know you must intend to file a complaint against me later on and I bet you’d include my name in the next Minghui report about your persecution?”
Another officer Fan Zhichao asked to have Ms. Xie’s tablet. She refused to give it to him and demanded them to release her.
The police forcibly took Ms. Xie’s photos. Fan kept mentioning Ms. Xie’s tearing down the slanderous posters against Falun Gong on campus in January 2024. Ms. Xie told them that no law ever criminalizes Falun Gong in China and that Falun Gong is freely practiced around the country but only persecuted in its home country, China.
The police produced the Minghui article about her earlier persecution and asked her who wrote the report. She said that it was the police who arbitrarily arrested her in the first place, and why they were afraid of her exposing it.
The police later took Ms. Xie to an interrogation room and ordered her to sit in a metal interrogation chair with chains. With her strong protest, the police had her sit in the chair but without cuffing her. As Ms. Xie refused to answer any questions, the police fabricated answers on the interrogation record.
An officer who looked like a director came and threatened Ms. Xie that her school was considering expelling her, as the Minghui report about her previous arrests and detention had brought tremendous pressure to the school officials. The officer said that as long as she agreed to write a statement, promising not to practice or promote Falun Gong, and not browse the Minghui website, while she was on campus, they would release her. She firmly rejected it.
The school leader Li Nan came at around 6 p.m. and also tried to persuade Ms. Xie to write the statement. She still said no.
At around 8 p.m., a computer expert came. He claimed to be a professor at the Chinese People’s Public Security University and he also worked for the Zhongshan City Police Department. He asked to examine Ms. Xie’s cellphone, tablet and computer, in order to find out if she worked with other Falun Gong practitioners in submitting the article to Minghui.org.
The officers kept threatening Ms. Xie that if they saw reports on Minghui.org again about her with them listed as the perpetrators, they would arrest her again.
After about 15 hours of interrogation, Ms. Xie was escorted back to the school by the police and school leader Li.
On the next day, June 7, the dormitory management office staff began to monitor Ms. Xie again. She questioned one of them about who instructed them to monitor her. She said to that woman that she was wronged for practicing Falun Gong. Her father, Mr. Xie Yujun, 56 and also a Falun Gong practitioner, was arrested on April 25, 2024, and is still detained at the Xingning City Detention Center in Guangdong Province. He is facing prosecution for his shared faith after his arrest was formally approved on May 27. It’s not clear how that woman staffer responded to Ms. Xie and her father’s persecution stories.
On August 11, 2024, Ms. Xie mailed letters to the Zhongshan City Police Department, the Wuguishan Police Station, and the Shigu Police Station, urging them to return her personal items confiscated from her and stop participating in the persecution.
College Student Detained and Threatened with Expulsion, Her Father Implicated and Still in Detention