Guo Yuetong is a six-year-old girl from Changli County, Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, China. In 2002, she was detained for over a year at the county’s brainwashing center with her mother because both her mother, Liu Aihua, and her father, Guo Yuting, practice Falun Gong. In May this year, her whole family was again sent to a brainwashing center. So far there has been no news of them.
According to a report on Minghui.net, when her daughter was less than a month old, Liu was arrested by the police and brutally beaten up to force her to give up the practice of Falun Gong. In January 2002, both she and her daughter, then one year old, were sent to the Changli County Brainwashing Center. Many Falun Gong practitioners are detained in rooms with no sunlight. They eat, sleep and have to relieve themselves in the same room. They are not allowed to leave this room unless they renounce their faith.
According to the report, in order to force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their faith, the 610 Office, the government arm responsible for “transforming” Falun Gong practitioners, forces them to watch videos and read materials denigrating Falun Gong. They also use physical torture such as: not allowing them to sleep, force-feeding them, shocking them with electric batons while they are handcuffed to doors or windows, and shocking them with their hands handcuffed behind their backs and with their mouth taped up.
Every time the police tortured her mother, Guo Yuetong would hide in a corner and cry in fear. When her mother was pulled out of the cell to be tortured, she would hold on to the iron rails in the room and wait for her mother to come back.
In August 2003, after their situation was exposed to the international community, Gao Yuetong and her mother were released by the 610 Office. She was 3 years old at that time.
When she was reunited with her father, she was unable to call him “father” because they had been apart for so long. Just when she did get used to calling him “father,” he was once again sent to a brainwashing class. Although he was subsequently released in May, the whole family was then sent to a brainwashing class again. Up until now there has been no news of them.
According to the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), Changli County is one of the places where the persecution of Falun Gong is most severe. The local 610 Office once spread their “ingenious tactics” of “transforming Falun Gong practitioner” to the whole country on the national CCTV station. However, there are still many Falun Gong practitioners in the county like Liu Aihua and Guo Yuting who refuse to be converted.
According to initial statistics published by Minghui.net, in Changli County alone, at least 14 Falun Gong practitioners have been imprisoned for years for practicing Falun Gong. They include: Zhou Xiangdang (9 years), Wang Hongping (8 years), Zhang Hongwu (7 years), Liu Shimin (6 years), Guo Jinghua (5 years), Zhang Weijin (4 years) and Li Xiangling, (3 years).
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