A Child's Grief in China

I could not get the memory of young Bai Zhenyu, a victim of the ruling regime, out of my mind. Her image and voice haunt me. This is what happened: As Beijing Falun Gong practitioner Bai Shaohua travelled to Beijing by vehicle at around 3:00 p.m. on February 20th, 2008, police stopped and then arrested him, using the pretext of "keeping the Olympic Games safe."

Bai Shaohua's daughter Bai Zhenyu

In May 2006, young Zhenyu and her father Bai Shaohua lived temporarily with a friend while Shaohua's wife Ji Lei was held in a detention centre. Shaohua had just been released from the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp following a three-month hunger strike, and he was skeleton-like. Two months after his release, Beijing police transported him to the Xinjiang area. Because he was worried about his elderly mother and daughter Zhenyu, he returned to Beijing while barely able to move. Several days later, the police came again to harass the little family that consisted of Shaohua, his elderly mother, and his young daughter. As a result, Shaohua's mother went into hiding while Shaohua and his daughter went to live temporarily with a friend; for the father and daughter, this was a rare reunion.

I remember that adroit Zhenyu was lively and happy, but showed a large blister-scarred area around her mouth. Her father said, within six months, "This child has witnessed several police home invasions and home ransacking and arrests. She watched the police seize her father, mother, and grandma as well as her uncle and aunt, with whom she was very close. This happened because they practise Falun Gong. The barbarism and violence the police displayed has brought great harm to her mind and body."

During the several years of persecution of Falun Gong by Jiang Zemin [former leader of China and instigator of the persecution] and his gang, the three generations of people in Shaohua's family could not escape from the persecution. Regarding this, Shaohua's mother, Ms. Cao Qian, who is already 73 years old, wrote,

"In 1994, all members of my family started to practise Falun Gong, and we have thus come to understand the genuine meaning of life. My illnesses, which were age-related, vanished, and I became increasingly energetic. All of my family members have lived in the peace that comes from practising the tenets of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. I had never dreamed that Jiang and his gang would start the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999. Since then, our lives have no longer been in peace; even worse, the persecution has torn my family apart.

"Since the persecution started, my two sons have been repeatedly arrested and detained. My older son Bai Xiaojun went to Beijing to appeal in July 2000. He was subsequently sentenced to forced labour for one year. When his term was up, the persecutors extended his sentence by three years because he did not give up his cultivation. He was tortured to such a degree that he could not take care of himself. His body was covered with scabies, which looked extremely bad. When his life was in peril, camp officials informed the family of his condition. When I arrived at the labour camp, Xiaojun had already died.

"I only have my younger son Bai Shaohua left who was still detained in Tuanhe Forced Labour Camp where he had suffered much. I endured to the day when his term was up. Afterwards, in the days when my family stayed together, my son and I decided to stay away from home, to avoid further persecution. However, our reunion time would not last long. The police nabbed Shaohua and his wife Ji Lei on September 28th, 2005; only I have been left to take care of my granddaughter. We live on the several hundred yuan¹ from my retirement pension. My granddaughter is already eight years old this year. Her eight years of being in the world are exactly the eight years of the persecution. She has experienced the horror of her parents' several arrests, being separated from them, and the family being compelled to go into exile. She often asks for her parents late at night."

On the afternoon of February 20th, 2008, on the way to a Beijing suburb, Shaohua was stopped. Police arrested Shaohua in the name of "stabilizing the Olympic Games." The police chained him and beat him while hanging him up. The police instructed the head cell inmate at the prison to beat him until his life was in peril. He was sent to Beijing's Qinghe Emergency Centre for emergency treatment. Between March 20th and April 1, he was locked up in one of the solitary cells in the Beijing Forced Labour Camp's Distribution Center. Shaohua was given another labour camp sentence of one year and two months. A certain official declared that the two extra months of his sentence was to make up for the time he had missed while he was in hospital. On April 1st, Beijing regime officials sent him to the Baimiao Forced Labour Camp in Henan Province. Shaohua is very weak. He needs two people to support him while walking.

The lawyer whom Shaohua's family has hired has demanded to see Shaohua, but the labour camp officials have kept refusing the request; furthermore, their attitude was inexcusable. The lawyer wrote to the concerned government branches to reflect the labour camp officials' violation of related stipulations. Zhengzhou Judicial Department personnel investigated and found the labour camp officials' attitudes were indeed "deplorable" and apologized. However, they still do not allow the lawyer to see Shaohua, stating that upper labour camp officials have ordered that prior to and during the Beijing Olympic Games period, all visits to Falun Gong practitioners and the practitioners seeking bail for medical treatment are stopped and forbidden.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/7/13/181948.html