I am a 28-year-old female practitioner from Heilongjiang Province. After I began practicing Falun Gong in March 1998, my chronic arthritis went away within 15 days. I have continued on my path of cultivation practice ever since.
On October 18, 1999, some practitioners and I went to the appeal office in our town to call for the release of fellow practitioners Gao Shuzhi and Wang Zhiqian. As we were appealing, the Director of the Public Security Bureau and several policemen suddenly came and took us to the Public Security Bureau against our will. They locked us in the main conference room overnight and forced us to sit upright on hard benches, not allowing us to sleep. Our families were prohibited from sending us clothes or food.
On the next day, they interrogated me and demanded that I stop practicing Falun Gong. They also tried to coerce me into attacking Falun Gong on a state-run TV show, saying that they would either release me if I did, or continue to detain me and sentence me to a labour camp if I didn't. I resolutely refused to comply with all of their demands. As a result, six days later, the local government sent me to the Meixi Forestry Bureau Detention Centre. I was detained there for 15 days.
After my detention was up, they sent me back to the main conference room in the Public Security Bureau, and detained me there for another 30 days. During the entire time, I was still not allowed to contact my family. They forced me to sleep on a desk without any blankets even though it was very cold in the room. When they tried to coerce me to attack Falun Gong on the TV show again and I refused, they sent me to the Jinshantun Detention Centre, where I was tortured severely.
In order to get the permission to sentence me to the labour camp, they went to the capital of the province but found that my name was not on the labour camp list. So one day around 7:00 p.m., some people from the Political and Security Office came and took several practitioners and me to their street office. Officer Lu Zhichao and the Secretary of the Political and Legislative Committee, Sun Hongxi, came in to talk with us. They told us that as long as we attacked Falun Gong on a TV show, they could have us released and we could practice secretly at home. We did not cooperate with them. Lu Zhichao then became enraged and cursed at us in front of all the staff members in the office. He threatened to sentence us to a labour camp and feed us rat poison if we did not attack Falun Gong on the TV show. We still did not comply. As a result, he gave the order for us to be sent back to the detention centre with the so-called crime of "disrupting social order." With still no one to care for our families and jobs, they sentenced us to the Jiamusi Labour Camp on March 15, 2000, a place well-known as "hell on earth."
As the police were trying to transfer us to the labour camp, we refused to cooperate with them and insisted on studying the Fa [principles of Falun Gong] and practicing the exercises together. As a result, the police and wardens beat us up. Once in the labour camp, they locked us upstairs and prohibited us from using the toilet and washing ourselves. Our toothbrushes were taken away as well. One morning, I had diarrohea and needed to use the toilet, but they didn't let me. I had to hold it from 5:00 a.m. until noon, and it was extremely painful. Faced with such dire circumstances, we had no other choice but to carry out a hunger strike in protest.
During the hunger strike, the labour camp officials, guards, and inmates (most of whom were drug dealers and prostitutes) tortured us severely. They kicked us and beat us with all kinds of things such as electric batons, tiger sticks, handcuffs, and ropes. They also inserted plastic tubes into our nostrils and force-fed us with chicken food, salty milk, and salt water. Knowing that it was very painful for our stomachs to digest such things, they tried to keep us from throwing up. Nevertheless, in the end, all of the practitioners eventually threw up. When I did so, the police unbuttoned my collar and pressed my head down so that I was forced to throw up on myself. We were not allowed to wash ourselves afterwards, and they did not give us water or paper towels to clean the mess up. During those dark days in the labour camp, the practitioners suffered all kinds of torture. Even the sixty and seventy-year-old female practitioners could not escape the torture from the electric batons and tiger sticks.
One time when I did not cooperate with the policemen's evil demands, five or six of them dragged me to a bed. They beat me and kicked me and held me still by my hair to force feed me. Both of my nostrils were badly injured and bled profusely afterwards. A little while later, they came again and dragged me to the bed. They tied me to the bed with ropes and handcuffs, and I was left there without any covering for two days. I was not allowed to use the bathroom either and had to go on the bed. One time when I managed to take the handcuffs off and use the bathroom, the policeman and inmate who were in charge of watching me were criticized severely and the inmate was beaten up. Afterwards, they both vented their anger towards me by slapping me in the face repeatedly. The director of the labour camp asked a doctor to come and replace the handcuffs with ones that would prevent me from escaping from the bed. When I told another director named Hou and a police officer named Liu Hongguang about the physical punishment and beatings that the Falun Gong practitioners were receiving in the labour camp, they laughed at me and encouraged such illegal actions to continue. They started to incite the labour camp inmates into beating and harassing us even more, promising to shorten their sentences if they did.
Good people have been put into detention centres and labour camps and tortured inhumanely. If I had not experienced such persecution for myself, I would not have believed it. The officials say nice things about themselves on TV but do despicable things in real life. During our hunger strike, a kind-hearted officer told me that I should not have been sentenced to the labour camp since I had not broken any laws, and suggested that I submit an appeal for my release. I took his advice and submitted my appeal for release. However, I did not hear anything even though three months had passed.
After my sentence was up and I was released, I appealed to an official from the Law and Legislative Office named Lu Jian. I told him about the violence, physical torture, and extortion of money from the Falun Gong practitioners in the Jiamusi Labour Camp. Regarding the extortion of money, he insisted that the Provincial Government had paid for the Falun Gong practitioner's food and fees during their hunger strike. In actuality, I was charged 380 Yuan in fees and 60 Yuan for the food.
I went to the Provincial Government to appeal to Director Zou for the release of the practitioners still in detention and for the return of the money that was extorted from me. He contacted the labour camp and asked them to return the money if this was indeed the case. As of today, I have yet to receive any of the stolen money.
My only hope is that by reading about such cases of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, those people with consciences still remaining can wake up to it and offer a helping hand!
March 4, 2002
Source: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/3/18/19981.html
http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/3/5/25985.html
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