(Minghui.org) A 68-year-old man in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, is facing prosecution because he practices Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Zhao Xuemin, a former teacher at the Hebei Provincial Electric Power Employee Training Center, was arrested at home around 7 p.m. on November 20, 2025, by three officers from the Gaoying Police Station. The police claimed that someone reported him for distributing Falun Gong materials and searched his place. They confiscated his computer system installation disk and some scrap envelopes and paper as prosecution evidence against him.
Officer Qi Zhuang handcuffed Mr. Zhao and took him to the police station. The handcuffs were so tight that his wrists became numb and he had trouble breathing. The police didn’t loosen them until Mr. Zhao said he was going to file a complaint against them.
When the police took Mr. Zhao to the Shijiazhuang City First Detention Center, the doctor refused to admit him, due to his dangerously high blood pressure. The police took him to the hospital and forced him to take some hypertension pills. The detention center doctor still refused to admit him. The police held him at the case processing center overnight and released him on residential surveillance the next day. They continued to harass him at home once a week after his release.
On January 18, 2026, an officer with the Gaoying Police Station called Mr. Zhao and said they submitted his case to the Chang’an District Procuratorate. The officer ordered him to go to the procuratorate to sign his case file. Mr. Zhao refused to comply.
Mr. Zhao took up Falun Gong in 1996. His severe kidney disease that tormented him for many years disappeared in just ten days. Because he upheld Falun Gong since the onset of the persecution in 1999, he has been repeatedly targeted, serving a two-year labor camp term and a four-year prison term, before his latest arrest.
Developing Serious Medical Condition During Labor Camp Term
Mr. Zhao went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in December 2000 and was arrested at Tiananmen Square. After he was escorted back to Hebei, his employer held him at a hotel for 43 days and didn’t release him until January 31, 2001, the eighth day after the Chinese New Year. His employer arranged people to monitor him around the clock, with two people following him wherever he went.
Mr. Zhao’s manger, Qi Xiquan, ordered him to return to work in July 2001, on the condition that he continue to be shadowed by two people. Mr. Zhao refused to comply and Qi worked with the local police to give him a two-year labor camp term. He was admitted to the local labor camp on August 10, 2001.
Due to torture in custody, Mr. Zhao’s health deteriorated in late November 2001, and his blood pressure was very high. The labor camp proposed to release him on medical parole, but manager Qi insisted that he remain detained, with the excuse he hadn’t renounced Falun Gong yet.
The labor camp contacted Mr. Zhao’s employer in December 2001 and asked them to take him. They still refused. Weeks later, Mr. Zhao’s father-in-law became critically ill, so Mr. Zhao’s wife applied for his release so he could see her father one last time. Qi denied her request and accused her of “disrupting his work.”
Mr. Zhao’s health continued to decline. By May 2002, he was completely bedridden. Not wanting him to die in the labor camp, the guards had his wife take him home on May 27.
Secret Four-Year Prison Sentence
Mr. Zhao was arrested at home again on July 3, 2008, by officers from the Yuxing Police Station. He was admitted to the Shijiazhuang City First Detention Center the next day and was forced to do hard labor without pay, mostly by working with tin foil. Without proper personal protective equipment, he had a strong allergic reaction and was covered with rashes that itched. The guards then had him make paper bags and mooncake boxes, and he worked from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. or later. He developed high blood pressure due to the heavy work load, yet the guards didn’t allow him to have any breaks. The inmates also abused him and spent the money that his family deposited for him.
The Yuhua District Court held a secret hearing of Mr. Zhao’s case and sentenced him to four years around March 2009 without informing his family. He appealed, but the local intermediate court upheld the original verdict but still did not inform his family.
Mr. Zhao was admitted to the Jidong Prison on May 15, 2009. The guards forced him to work long hours, even though his blood pressure was 210 mmHg (a normal range is 120 or lower), and he had blood in his stool.
The Hebei Provincial Electric Power Employee Training Center also fired him, citing his prison sentence.