(Minghui.org) A Zhaoqing City, Guangdong Province resident has been detained since July 3, 2019 for refusing to renounce his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

One of Thirteen Arrested in One Day

No sooner had Mr. Yu Haohui's wife and their son stepped outside of their apartment building at 7 am on July 3 than two plainclothes officers seized her and snatched her home key. A few uniformed officers showed up at the same time and they went inside the building to ransack Mr. Yu's home. Two of Mr. Yu's laptops and several flash-drives were confiscated.

According to people familiar with his case, Mr. Yu's arrest was orchestrated by the Domestic Security Division in its attempt to fulfill the quota for the “gang crackdown campaign” that was started around the same time last year. Another 12 Falun Gong practitioners in Zhaoqing City were also arrested on the same day.

Mr. Yu has been held under criminal detention at Gaoyao District Detention Center and is denied family visits. The police told his family that they are planning to submit his case to the procuratorate and recommend that he be charged with “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” a standard pretext used to frame and criminalize Falun Gong practitioners.

Family Devasated

Mr. Yu's recent arrest and detention dealt a heavy blow to his father, who currently resides in Hongkong and has been seriously ill since earlier this year. Mr. Yu had planned to visit his father, but his application for a Hong Kong entry permit was repeatedly denied in March 2019. He filed an appeal but hasn't received any response. He suspects his practice of Falun Gong may be behind the rejection of his application.

Mr. Yu, a postal worker, was the sole breadwinner in his family. His daughter, who just graduated high school, worries about whether her father will be released in time to send her off to college and how she'll be able to afford school. Her younger brother, who is still in elementary school, struggles to cope with what happened to him and their mother, a stay-home mom, on the day when their father was arrested.

Past Persecution

Mr. Yu took up Falun Gong in 1997. After the communist regime ordered the persecution in 1999, he has been arrested and detained several times for not giving up his faith.

He was first arrested in 2000 when he went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. He was seized again in 2001 and sentenced to four years in prison for “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization.”

After he was released in March 2005, the police constantly harassed him and monitored his daily life. His passport application was denied, so was his application to immigrate to Hong Kong to live with his father.

In 2015, Mr. Yu filed a complaint against former Chinese Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin for initiating the persecution that resulted in his ordeals. He was detained for 10 days as a result.

A group of officers broke into his home to harass him in mid-July 2017 after receiving a tip that he'd “make trouble” by appealing for Falun Gong.

Prior to his latest arrest, Mr. Yu was once stopped and searched by the security guards while taking a train, after they scanned his ID and found he is a Falun Gong practitioner.