Tsinghua University Student's Account of Being Persecuted in China

My name is Wei Han, and I started to practise Falun Gong in 1998. At that time, I was a high school freshman. My mother and many people in my home town practised Falun Gong.

During summer vacation in 1998, a nine-day seminar for Falun Gong was held at my home. I watched the Falun Gong lectures with some others and learned the exercises.

After the seminar, my mother asked me if I would like to practise Falun Gong, and I said yes. From then on, I became a practitioner.

During summer vacation, I participated in group study and exercises. At that time, many people were practising Falun Gong. Near my home there were two practice sites, with about 20-30 people at each site. On July 19th, 1999, my father suddenly came to the practice site and asked my mother to go back home. He said that there was an order banning Falun Gong. Perhaps because my father worked in the government, he knew something in advance.

On July 20th, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media suddenly started to defame Falun Gong, and the CCP forbade people to practise. Even though I heard slander everywhere, I knew in my heart that Falun Gong is good and wanted to continue my practice. I could not be scared away by the persecution. Later, some government leaders came to my home and tried to persuade my mother to write a statement renouncing Falun Gong. Many people came, and they talked until very late at night. Those leaders were acquaintances and friends of my parents, but in the persecution, they chose to execute the CCP's orders. I was still young at that time, and they did not pay attention to me. In the following term, I still brought a Falun Gong book to school to study.

In 2000, I enrolled as an undergraduate student at Tsinghua University, and in July I was admitted to the Thermal Engineering Department. In the beginning, I studied the Falun Gong book and did the exercises when there were no people in the dormitory.

But soon this was discovered by one of my room-mates. I told her that Falun Gong teaches people to be good, and what was broadcast on television was false. She said, "Well, you just go ahead and practise."

When I returned from winter vacation, I started to talk to my room-mates and acquaintances from high school. For a long time I could not convince a former schoolmate. It was spring of 2003, and SARS had already started to spread in China.

Even after news of SARS had spread among students, I still decided to go to the Beijing Jiaotong University to talk to my former schoolmate about Falun Gong. I was sure that I would not be infected. Before I went there, I told my room-mates the reason for leaving campus. At that time, Tsinghua University had not been quarantined yet, and nobody stopped me from leaving. But when I returned, a student leader in our class asked who went out last weekend. I did not know what happened and told him directly where I went.

Shortly after that, Assistant Yang Xiaoyong informed me that I would be quarantined for ten days because Beijing Jiaotong University was a seriously infected area. I thought that if I was quarantined, I could not talk to people about Falun Gong any more. I said that I was fine and refused to go. Yang then had the CCP Deputy Secretary for our department, Li Yuhong, persuade me to go there. I had no choice but to go.

My abnormal behaviour drew the attention of Li Yuhong. She made a phone call to my dormitory and asked them why I left campus. One room-mate told her that I went to tell people about Falun Gong. Then Li Yuhong reported me to the university's 610 Office¹. I was afraid at that time and wanted to go home. My parents also wanted me back home. I was told later that when my parents met with the university's 610 Office, they forced my father to write a statement to promise that he would persuade me to give up Falun Gong before sending me back to school.

I went back home. My father tried to persuade me to give up Falun Gong so that I could go back to school. I refused. My father then sent me to the home of my grandparents to separate me from my mother. While at my grandparents' home, I still refused to write any statement to give up Falun Gong. At that time, the final exams for the Spring term of 2003 were finished. They saw that I could not go back for the final exams and let me go back home. I saw my mother again and did the exercises with her. We distributed leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong when we had time. Once when doing the exercises, our legs got very sore. We realized that I should go back to school.

In August 2003, I returned to school and applied to continue my studies. However, the Director of the Education Section in our department, Duan Yuanyuan, said that he could not do anything and asked me to talk to Li Yuhong and people in the 610 Office first. I thought that I should not cooperate with the evil, and I continued to go see Duan Yuanyuan. At the same time, Li Yuhong and the 610 Office contacted me and wanted to talk to me, but I refused. Once Li Yuhong tricked me into going to our department office, and then she went to find Chen Yuxin, Director of the 610 Office.

I told Chen Yuxin that Falun Gong is good. During this period, one of my uncles called me and said that he was doing business in Beijing, so he wanted to visit me and have dinner together. I went. School began, but I still could not register, and I was very worried. At that time, my uncle contacted me again, and said his friends wanted me to have dinner with them at their plant, since they admired me very much for being a student at Tsinghua University and wanted to meet me. I did not want to do this because I was concerned about getting back into school, but I agreed to it to save face for my uncle.

When I got to the east gate of our university, my uncle called a van, and I got into it. Though I was with my uncle and his friends, I found the atmosphere to be pretty tense. His friends spoke very little and seemed to be afraid of something. After half an hour, we still had not arrived at our destination. I asked where we were going, and everyone looked really nervous. My uncle assured me that we would get there soon.

When we arrived, I found that the place didn't look like a plant at all. I looked around and suddenly realized that I had been tricked. Several people came in behind me, including Chen Yuxin from the 610 Office, my father and my aunt. I realized that my family members had cooperated with the 610 Office. I told Chen Yuxin to take me back to our university, but he refused.

Later on, I realized it was a brainwashing centre, perhaps in Liangxiang. There were several other practitioners detained here too. I was kept in a single room every day and watched over by two "teaching assistants". They were former Falun Gong practitioners who had renounced the practice. They forced me to listen to their words that twisted the principles in Falun Gong.

I thought to myself that I'd rather die than become like those people, and I would never write any statement to give up Falun Gong. I refused to participate in their morning aerobic exercises. When they went to do exercises, I did the exercises of Falun Gong in the room. After some time, some practitioners could not withstand the persecution, wrote a statement to give up Falun Gong against their will and got out. Many came and went. I did not think much about them. During my detention, the people in the 610 Office came several times and asked me to write down my thoughts on Falun Gong. I wrote only good things about Falun Gong and gave it to them.

Around January 1st, 2004, I found that the brainwashing centre's lease had ended and it had to move. The new place was more hidden--a rented house with many rooms. During the move, I thought of escaping but could not find any opportunity. Even if I did escape, I had nothing and knew no one. Where could I go?

The Lunar Chinese New Year soon arrived. At that point, my father and people in the 610 Office came again, and I was released. With a steadfast belief in Falun Gong, I finally got out. I later learned that my father was told to bring me back home or I would be sent to a detention centre.

At the beginning of 2004, I returned to continue my studies, but Chen Yuxin tried to block it. They asked to talk with me, and I told them how good Falun Gong is. Later I was told that I should write that I would "obey the laws of the nation" in the application. I said that I would write in addition that laws against Falun Gong were not included. Chen Yuxin said that wouldn't do. I thought again that the persecution of Falun Gong was not legal and not considered part of the laws of the nation, and it was not wrong to obey the laws, so I wrote that sentence as they required.

Afterwards, the 610 Office did not block my registration, and I returned to class. Later, even though I declared that I would obey the laws of the nation as they required, I had cooperated with the evil and that was wrong. After I realized that, I sent a solemn declaration to the Minghui website, which was published. I later got to know several other Falun Gong practitioners at Tsinghua University who were persecuted in prisons, and we studied together every week and shared our experiences.

In October 2004, my university started to recommend students for graduate work. My academic record was very good and I could be accepted in any research centre of our department. I asked Shi Lin about a position in the Thermophysics Engineering Research Centre, but she did not dare to accept me.

Lin Yuhong later told me that a political investigation of my activities was not good and I would not be recommended as a graduate student in our university. I then realized that the 610 Office never stopped persecuting me. But I had no time to argue and prepared to study abroad.

In April 2005, I was admitted to a university in the United States. In July 2005, as graduation approached, the new Deputy Secretary Li Yan contacted me and asked me to return to discuss my thoughts on Falun Gong, but I refused. So the university held back my diploma.

When I arrived in the U.S., I wanted to immediately send an account of my persecution to the Minghui/Clearwisdom website. But I was afraid that my family in China would be harassed if I did so, and I delayed doing it for a long time.

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/5/27/179100.html