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Retired Schoolteacher Forced from His Home for 14 Months and Then Dies
(12/3/2002 2:26)Mr. Xiwen Liu was a 60-year old retired teacher from Zhenxing Elementary School in Suihua City. He died on May 20th 2002 after police being homeless for 14 months, and deprived of any income from his pension for 18 months. Beginning in July of 2000, police had searched his home and attempted to force Mr. Liu to write a guarantee statement that he would no longer practice Falun Gong. Mr. Liu was fined 400 Yuan for refusal to cooperate. The following December he traveled to Beijing to appeal for an end to the persecution and was beaten and arrested by police on Tiananmen Square, and illegally sent to a local detention center. A local former committee secretary who specialized in persecuting Falun Gong illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners such as Liu who refused to write a guarantee statement. Those who had health problems were allowed to go home to recuperate before being taken back to detention on their way to a labor camp. Liu’s school tried to bail him out, but the director of the Beilin District Educational Committee issued orders that nobody from his school was allowed to visit him again or bail him out, and listed Liu as a key target for persecution. Under these severe circumstances, Mr.Liu wrote a guarantee statement and paid 5000-Yuan fine for his release. Moreover, the Beilin District Educational Committee illegally deprived him of his entire pension. The Educational Committee director and his secretary pressured Liu’s school to harass him, and also targeted Xinhua Elementary School where his daughter works. The Xinhua Elementary School secretary verbally attacked and slandered Falun Gong and Liu’s daughter many times when speaking during morning meetings. The principal often gathered people to pound on the door of her home in the middle of the night.
On January 26, 2000, the Committee Director and Zhenxing Elementary School principal tricked Liu into coming to the school under the guise of forcing him to write another guarantee statement. To avoid further persecution, Liu and his wife spent the Chinese New Year away from home, but in April 2001, the Committee Director and school officials came to harass Liu again, and this time he fled his home for good. In April 2002, the Suihua City government staged a public safety incident in order to create an excuse to initiate a mass investigation of Falun Gong practitioners from the region. Police posed an axe with a Falun Gong CD and banner on the rail near Suihua Railroad. Liu, who had fled to Daqing City, was also targeted in the ensuing “investigation.” Due to intense persecution over a long period of time, Liu’s mental and physical health had become seriously impaired. On May 2nd, Liu’s daughter brought him home, and by May 20, 2002 he passed away.
(12/3/2002 2:26)
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