In 1999 and 2000, at the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, many Falun Gong practitioners were detained in China for going to Beijing to appeal for their right to religious freedom. Since witnesses from China have come forward exposing the practice of organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners. Those who were detained during the early 2000’s have revisited their arrests with a fresh perspective. Chen Ying, who now lives in France, was arrested three times and jailed in the Chaoyang Detention Center in 2000 for practicing Falun Gong. There she witnessed some of her fellow practitioners being sent to concentration camps from which Chen Ying had a narrow escape. It is likely that many of those people have since become victims of organ harvesting.
‘Accused By One Of Their Own’
Chen Ying was born in Zibo City, Shandong Province in 1970. She was working as a secretary for the Office of China Clothing Groups Inc. She began practicing Falun Gong in 1996. In 1998 she went to Paris, France with her husband who worked for the Education Department of the Chinese Embassy. She was in Paris on April 25, 1999 when over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners appealed to the Chinese authorities in Beijing. On April 26, in solidarity with her fellow practitioners, she told the members of the Chinese Embassy in France about her experiences practicing Falun Gong in an effort to show them that the practice is a good one.
Senior members of the consulate did not react kindly to her presenting the truth about Falun Gong. “To use my husband’s words, the embassy officials saw it as ‘being accused by one of their own,’ which was something unheard of and very shaming for them,” said Ying. “For them, it was something that had never happened in Chinese diplomatic history.”
“Everyone in the Ministry of Education and Chinese embassies came to know my name because of this incident, and it earned me the hatred of the education minister Chen Zhili. It was she who had my passport and French resident permit revoked when I was arrested for the first time.”
Arrested Three Times, and Detained in Labor Camp for One Year
Ying was arrested three times after she went back to China in 1999. The first time was after going to Tiananmen Square to appeal before Chinese New Year in 2000. She went there to tell the government that Falun Gong practitioners are innocent people, and many people around the world are practicing Falun Gong. That time she was released with parole and placed under the watch of her company. The next arrest came at a fellow practitioner’s home in September 2000. The charge was “three people gathering illegally,” and she was again held in detention. She was released after her husband applied enormous pressure through multiple channels.
The third time she was arrested had much worse consequences.
“On the afternoon of November 23 in 2000, I was arrested in my home by the local police, who said they wanted to question me about my residential certificate. It was a trick and they held me at Chaoyang Detention Center for three months, and then sent me to Beijing Xinan Women’s Labor Camp for one year. When I was finally released I found that I had lost both my job and my husband,” said Ying.
She explained, “My husband was seriously brainwashed by the CCP. He thought I made him lose face and created troubles. I couldn’t continue to stay in China and had to go to France and continue my studies. We loved each other very much, but for the sake of his future, he was forced to divorce me.”
