Gu Junqing:, "The law must use force and coercion to exert obedience."

China Aid Association
“The law must use force and coercion to exert obedience.”
Gu Houqing
My name is Gu Junqing (I am also called Wang Hua). I am 25 years old, female, and live in Tanghe county, Henan province.
            On the 2nd of August 2005 I was arrested during a family meeting in Lutouzhen, Zaoyang city. At around 9 in the morning around 20 to 30 police from Lutouzhen and Zaoyang and surrounded our meeting place. I heard a knock on the door downstairs. Then I noticed a middle aged man bursting into the house. The host of the house, aunty Daoyun, wanted to stop him and asked. “Who are you? What are you here for? Do you have any identification?” Another two people came in and said, “We are from the police. Don’t move.” The first one who came in rushed upstairs. Aunty Daoyun stopped him again wanting identification. He then grabbed her by the hair and pushed her aside. I saw it all from upstairs. I immediately went to warn the two teachers. “Quickly go into the bedroom.” While I was locking the door, I was pushed aside by two of the men who came upstairs. Without saying anything, they took the bibles out of the teachers’ hands and grabbed the teachers’ arms. Pushing them out they said, “Come with us.” When the two teachers who were bear feet wanted to put on their shoes they were not allowed. I then quickly went to take hold of teacher Daniel’s arm and with my other hand grabbed teacher Eric’s wrist not allowing them to be taken away. I said, “What are you doing? Explain what is going on before you do anything.” They just turned a deaf ear and took teacher Eric away. A plain clothes policeman took Eric downstairs. As he was taken downstairs, he cried out in Chinese, “Shoes! Shoes!” The person just ignored it. Instead, he grabbed teacher Eric’s arms and cuffed his hands behind his back. He then forced him into the police van outside. I ran after him and asked, “What kind of person are you? Without any identification you grab people and handcuff them. This is so much against the law.” He then took out a police badge and quickly flashed it before my eyes. After that he ran upstairs again.
            Upstairs several officers were surrounding teacher Daniel. They wanted to take him away. I angrily shouted at them, “You really are giving China a bad reputation!” They answered me sarcastically, “Is it only you that knows anything about China’s reputation?” Sister Zhao Yan and I then stood in front of the police so they could not take the teacher away. We were arguing with them, “You cannot treat foreigners like this. How can you without any investigation just take people away? This is very bad for China’s reputation.” Teacher Daniel didn’t want to go with them. He sat down to put on his shoes. More police arrived. Without a search warrant they searched the whole house. One of the men emptied the teacher’s black bag (in which were a passport, identity documents, and a computer) and wanted to take the bag away. Sister Zhao Yan and I intercepted him and said, “Where are you taking his bag? What if anything in the bag went missing? You need to make a record of its contents before everyone.” We wanted to take a hold of the bag and not allow him to take it away. He then gave the bag to two female officers standing by. At this moment sister Li Zhiyun went to the side of teacher Daniel to argue with them. When an overweight man (who called himself Dong Falu ‘understanding the law’) overhead me saying that I would not allow them to take away the bag, he said to the women who had the bag, “Don’t touch anything in the bag. Just have a look what is in it.” He also said, “We are dealing here with an international matter. We need to treat the matter carefully. We cannot really deal with it at our level.” After that the atmosphere was a little more relaxed. Then the head of Zaoyang Police Station, Wu Chuanhu, director Wang Zhiguo, and Xiangfan’s Police director, Yang Kaihu, arrived. They asked the police to bring Eric from the car upstairs and to release the cuffs. His wrists were bleeding from the cuffs. Yang and Wang then proceeded to question the two teachers. Sister Li Zhiyan was translating for them.
The police were surrounding the teachers and guarding the brothers and sisters. Some were also guarding the front and back doors. I saw them taking a brother’s mobile phone. I felt very angry and thought that it wasn’t fair. The two teachers and sister Li were taken away.
After that the brothers and sisters were also arrested. I was held tightly by one of the men. He held my arm behind my back and pushed me along. When I went out of the front door I noticed many onlookers. I also noticed someone taking a video. We were taken away like criminals to Lutouzhen police station.
The 42 brothers and sisters of us were separated and interrogated. In the room where I was questioned a man was sitting cross legged behind a desk. He said, “You want to become immortals, but for the moment you are still common humans.” I said, “We who believe in Jesus will always be ordinary humans. You arrested us and took our money and mobile phones. How can police do such things?” He said, “The law must use force and coercion to exert obedience.”

At around one o’clock we were taken to Zaoyang No 2 Detention Centre. The officers at the Detention Centre questioned us and registered our details, including our names, ages, addresses and details of the meeting. We had to sign a copy of a document entitled, “Register of Suspects Questioning”. They also took our photos and made finger prints. When we noticed that the sign we were holding while taking our photos had the words “evil religion” written on it, we strongly refused to cooperate. The first sister to have her photo taken protested, “I believe in Christianity, not in an evil religion.” The photographer then said, “Write Falungong.” “We are not practicing Falungong.” “Then write Christianity.” But then someone in their midst said, “We cannot write Christianity.” In the end they had no choice but to remove the words “evil religion”. When they were taking our fingerprints, I wanted to look at the content of the document, but was refused. I said, “If you don’t let me look then I will not have my fingerprints taken. You let us take our fingerprints and only afterwards fill in our crime. This is not right.” Then one person responded very angrily, “It seems you have a guilty conscience.” He then threatened to hit me and forced me to have my fingerprints taken.
When we were filling in a document entitled, “Register of Criminals”, one person said that we were conducting an illegal meeting and disrupting the social order. He told us very angrily, “It is illegal if two or three people gather together without the country’s permission.” He then yelled at me and told me to go away.
When I was interrogated again, a legal officer from Zaoyang Police Station, Lei Youxin, forced me to sign a document “Under Questioning”. Because my crime was indicated as “disrupting the social order”, I refused to sign. Lei then said, “The crime that we charge you with is not your concern. You only need to sign. Don’t concern yourself what we will write. Or would you like to receive a beating?” So under pressure I signed the form. When they investigated my name (Gu Houqing), Zhang Xujin (the director of Public Security), insulted me, “Are you a man or a woman? Perhaps you are bisexual?” Qiu Yunfei (the head of the criminal investigation’s unit) then took my hands and cuffed my little finger. He pulled me around the room, swinging on the cuffs. He then cuffed my hands behind my back, sat down of the sofa and callously laughed at me. He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to look at him. When I didn’t want to look at him, he kicked me on the back. I fell down to the floor. Smilingly he said, “Is it comfortable?” It was so painful that I cried. My heart just called out to the Lord. Since he couldn’t get anything out of me he took the cuffs off me.

On the 5th of August I was transferred to a Detention Centre in Tanghe county, Henan province. At the police station Cui Hanlin (form the Religious Affairs Bureau) forced me to sign several arrest warrants. I was not allowed to look at the contents. Evading questions I was informed, “This is legal procedure. Everyone must sign.” The people who were questioning me were Cui Hanlin and Bai Chunming of the Religious Affairs Department. Cui said, “You invited foreigners to come to you, wanting to gain religious freedom through Americans. Don’t even think of it! Freedom of religion is under the protection of the law, but it is only when it is recognized by the country. You don’t believe lawful religion and don’t go to recognized churches; instead you go around everywhere preaching religion. I tell you whatever the country has not sanctioned are illegal. Without the approval of the country you cannot go everywhere preaching religion. Your meetings are illegal.”
On the morning of the 8th of August a person brought a form for the extension of my arrest warrant. Standing against the window he wanted to take my fingerprints. I felt very surprised when I noticed the charge, “a bandit committing crimes everywhere”, was added after I signed my name. Therefore, I refused to have my finger prints taken. I asked him to explain the charge. “How come the person who handles my case never comes?” He then called for the disciplinary officer and threatened me, “You will be tortured when the disciplinary officer comes.” When the officer came into the cell, I had no choice but to have my fingerprints taken under pressure.
On midday of the 23rd of August while I was having lunch I was called out for interrogation again. I was afraid and thought how to answer their questions. I was brought into a room. I was informed, “Your South China Church has been deemed by the country to be an evil religion. It has been forbidden. It has become the object of extermination.” I said, “On what basis has it been deemed to be an evil religious organization? We adhere to the teachings of the Bible and believe in the Jesus of Christianity.” “You think that you are right just because you believe in the Bible and are not an evil organization? The Bible has been brought into China by foreigners to deceive the Chinese people.” I asked, “But doesn’t China also publish bibles?” “The book has been brought in from overseas to confuse uneducated people like you. The New China Bookshop does not sell bibles.” I said, “Christianity is a world recognized religion. China also recognizes it. To believe in Jesus is not illegal.” He said, “Why don’t you believing in Buddhism?” “It is false!” “Do you know the relationship between China and foreigners? Foreigners came to invade China.” “I don’t think so. This is not the case.” Then Cui Hanlin said that my attitude was not good. I asked again, “Why do you charged me as a ‘bandit committing crimes everywhere’?” “Do you think that only killing people is a crime? You went from Henan to Hubei to preach and to conduct meetings. These are crimes. Do you understand?” “Understand! I went to believe in Jesus, not to ‘commit crimes everywhere’!” He said, “Only on the basis of this crime you can be sentenced for several years of hard labor.”
After 4pm that afternoon Zhong called me to collect my things. I was brought into the office. They said they wanted me to sign some documents so I can be released. I asked to have a look at the documents. The officer on duty and Bai Chunming pointed to the basic content and said, “This is the release certificate. If you sign you can go home.” When they saw that I still was not signing they urged me to sign, “Quickly sign€¦, this will enable you to go home.” After I signed they took me to collect my things. I wanted my release certificate, but Bai Chunming had already disappeared without a trace. I asked the officer on duty, “Where is my release document?” He said, “It has been taken away. Go and ask at the police station.” The following day I went to the police station with my older sister wanting my release document and my felony certificate. Cui Hanlin and Bai Chunming said, “We have no copy of the criminal certificate. No one gets any. We never give any documents to those who are released. There is only one copy for the police and one copy for the Detention Centre.”
Gu Junqing (in my own hand)
9th of September 2005

Note:
Yi Dezhen(code name: Gu Junqing). Main name: Yi Zunming. She is female, 36 years of age,and live in Zhongxiang city, Hubei province. She joined the ministry team of South China Church in 1989.



China Aid Contacts
Rachel Ritchie, English Media Director
Cell: (432) 553-1080 | Office: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Other: (432) 689-6985
Email: [email protected] 
Website: www.chinaaid.org

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Gu Junqing:, "The law must use force and coercion to exert obedience."

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