(Minghui.org) On my way home yesterday afternoon after talking to people about Falun Gong and the fact that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is persecuting it, I saw two people sitting on a bench in a park eating boxed lunches of steamed buns and cauliflower.

The weather was still cold, so it couldn’t have been comfortable eating outside like that. I said to them, “Why are you eating here? Better find a warm place.”

They looked at each other and told me they couldn’t leave because they were paid to stay there 24 hours a day and had to stay up all night long. “There is no place to sleep here and we are not allowed to sleep anyway—they [officials] do not want to see any banners here,” one of them said.

Only then did I notice that they were both wearing red armbands that read “Civilian Guidance Volunteers.” I realized this could have something to do with to the CCP’s annual “Two Sessions” that are held in March every year, namely, the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). They said they were from out of town and were working here temporarily to stop anyone from appealing wrongful cases or calling for justice.

I recommended that they buy some warm food in a nearby store or they might get sick from being out in the freezing cold the entire night. “No, we are new here and we don’t know any place. But thank you very much,” one of them replied. I had something else to do, so I said goodbye and left.

On my way home, I kept thinking about what those two were there for. Although the CCP tends to promote the Two Sessions as an example of “serving the people,” in reality it often becomes an excuse for the regime to ramp up its control over the people, including the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. There are many articles on Minghui about practitioners being harassed or arrested in March every year around such “politically sensitive days.”

It happened to me last year. Because I was out when officials came to harass me last March, they ended up installing a surveillance camera outside my door. I saw it and filed an official complaint. I also reported it to Minghui.org. Although the camera was later removed, officials harassed my relatives many times when they could not find me. They even threatened to arrest my relatives, citing an order from their superiors.

Before the Two Sessions this year, the community administrator failed to reach me because I had changed my phone number. He then contacted property management personnel to find me. Since more people here have heard the facts about Falun Gong and knew practitioners were good people, they brushed it off, saying they had not seen me for a while. The administrator had no choice but to leave me alone.

I heard that all of Beijing was also under tight monitoring and surveillance. When my adult children came to visit me from other cities, they said that incoming passengers were being inspected very thoroughly at train stations in Beijing. Not only were special areas designated to inspect all passengers, but the officials also went into individual cabins and searched every bag, throwing their contents all over the place as adults yelled and children cried.

Some people said, “Whenever the Two Sessions meet, ordinary citizens are suppressed.” Others said, “It is because the CCP is rotten to the core and corruption is everywhere. Officials are afraid the people might rebel.”

Among the groups that are persecuted, Falun Gong practitioners have suffered the most since the CCP began to suppress it in 1999. Many people have heard or witnessed the benefits of Falun Gong to both mind and body. In fact, a large portion of the population benefited during the pandemic because they support Falun Gong practitioners and their belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.

Even some who had doubts have begun to rethink the situation. As I was passing by a school, I met an elderly couple who’d come to pick up their grandson. They said there are bad people everywhere now and they were afraid for the child’s safety. They had heard about the persecution of Falun Gong, including the organ harvesting. They said some young people, including children, had gone missing, and some suspected this could be related to the organ trade. The situation in China is indeed frightening.

The regime’s atheism, brutality and lies have destroyed traditional values and people’s inclination to trust anyone or anything. Such a society will not last long.