By a Dafa practitioner in China
I am a Dafa practitioner in China. I have been persecuted because I appealed to the government according the Chinese Constitution and exposed the facts of the persecution of Dafa practitioners to people. Now I want to sue Jiang and his regime for this persecution.
I had been unhealthy since childhood and suffered from many diseases including a rheumatic heart and bronchitis. Amazingly, after practising Falun Gong, all the diseases and the pains afflicting me for over 30 years disappeared. Falun Dafa gave me a second life.
On July 20, 1999, Jiang started the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. I wanted to ask for fair treatment for Dafa, so on the next day, together with two fellow Dafa practitioners, I went to the provincial government office to appeal. There were about 10,000 Dafa practitioners in front of the Party's Provincial Office. Police officers separated us into groups, shoved us into buses while kicking us, and detained us in an open stadium. For a whole day, we were exposed to the hot sun without any food or drink, and we were registered one by one. I really could not understand why the government treated Dafa practitioners who followed "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" in such a way. We just wanted to be good and better people.
On July 22, I appealed again but was treated in the same fashion. In the evening we were sent to the public security bureau branch and told that appealing for Falun Gong was not allowed, and we would be detained. Overnight, our constitutional right to appeal was taken away, and we were forbidden to practise our own belief. All the media in China started defaming and slandering Falun Dafa with lies, the whole country was covered in terror.
On October 11, 1999, four of us, including my sister, went to the National Appeals Office in Beijing. Before we stepped in the door, about six plainclothes police officers blocked us. They separated us and pushed us into a car, and then sent us to the provincial liaison office in Beijing, where we were detained in a basement along with many other Dafa practitioners. They forced us to squat down or they would beat us up. Every evening after they had finished supper, they would torture us in various ways. Male Dafa practitioners were hurt even worse than the female practitioners. There was a newly married couple. When the inhuman police officer tortured the husband, they forced the wife to watch and then asked her how she felt.
On October 13, I was sent to the Danan Detention Centre, where over 40 Dafa practitioners were already detained. I was repeatedly interrogated and coerced to write a guarantee to say that I would not go to Beijing to appeal anymore under the threat of imprisonment. They also made use of my relatives to try to shake my resolve. My 70-year-old mother was asked to travel 100 kilometers to try and persuade me, which broke my heart. I consoled my mother, my husband, my brother, and others, and told them that I was doing the right thing. What I did was legal; it was the dictator who was wrong.
On October 24, I was illegally sentenced to be held for 7 days because I refused to write a guarantee. My sister was detained until January 2000. My husband said that my term was 7 days because he had paid the exorbitant sum of almost 20,000 Yuan [Chinese currency, the monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500 Yuan] to the relevant officers to do me a favour. After the detainment, my employer escorted me back and kept on trying to brainwash me. The Party Committee tried to force me to give up Falun Gong. When I refused, I was fired.
The day after I was fired, the local police station officer Gao and the head of the residential office came to my home to talk with me and asked me again to write a guarantee. I reasoned with them based on the law: "To appeal is the right of a citizen. What to believe and how to live is a person's own choice and a human right. I have benefited from Falun Gong, so I wanted to ask for fair treatment for Falun Gong. I am not wrong, but you treated me like a criminal. I was detained and beaten, so what else do you need? You are the ones breaking the law." The police officer said that he was only doing his job. I felt sorry for him after hearing his words. He aids evildoers to hurt kind people for a living. What a pity!
Since then, my family has had no peace. When I was detained, my husband, my mother-in-law, even my children were harassed. Government officials threatened my mother-in-law, "Since your daughter-in-law practises Falun Gong, your grandson will not be able to enter a university." She was frightened out of her mind by all of their harassment and became nervous whenever someone knocked at the door. The street office head Gu went to my child's school to coerce the headmaster and the teacher to force my child to write a guarantee; otherwise, he would be suspended. He refused. For my son's sake and having no other choice, my husband wrote a guarantee. His company blamed him for not stopping me from practising Falun Gong. They forced him to try and "transform" me and do a self-criticism, so my husband was implicated for no reason.
The company delivered special documents to the whole company criticising me. The company broadcast station attacked me for a whole week. My husband, his two sisters and I worked at the same company. To relieve my load, he bore a lot of the pressure, but he finally collapsed. He started drinking excessively, then beating me up or cursing me. A happy family was torn apart by the persecution. On every holiday or special occasion, the street office, the local police station, and the "610 office" [a bureau specifically created by the Chinese government to persecute Falun Gong. It has absolute power over each level of administration in the Party, as well as over the political and judiciary branches] would come to harass me. My normal life was totally ruined. We had to send my mother-in-law to her daughter's home. My child had to go live at school. I had to go to my mother's home. My dear family was broken apart.
In June 2000, a local police officer and the street office went to my home to press me again to write a guarantee. I told them, "I did not blindly choose Falun Gong. I disciplined myself according to 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance' to be a noble person, I've done nothing wrong." The police officer said, "Your work place and neighbourhood know that you are a good wife and mother. You can just write a guarantee to say you no longer practise but still practise in your home. Won't that work? You'll lose nothing." I said, "No, I will not do it. I am cultivating 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance', doing so means that I am against truthfulness. Wouldn't that be deceiving you?" He couldn't figure out what to say, so he just insisted that I talk to his superior. I knew that if I did, I would be detained for sure.
The way to appeal was blocked, and the media widely spread fabricated cases and lies to slander Falun Gong, such as the staged Tiananmen Square self-immolation, and reports of suicide or murders. The public was being deceived. Fellow Dafa practitioners and I decided to clarify the truth to the Chinese people. We pooled our money and bought a copier, and copied a lot of Dafa truth materials and delivered them. On January 13, 2002, our materials site was discovered by police officers. A fellow Dafa practitioner and I were arrested. This was a terrible time. They did not allow us to sleep for four days and nights, interrogating us about the source of our materials and other people involved. To protest, I started a hunger strike and refused to answer their questions. They tortured me in response. They handcuffed me from behind to the back of a chair, and hit my face with a rolled up book. They also pulled my handcuffed hands up from behind, causing the handcuffs to cut into my flesh and my wrists to bleed. They also walked on my hands, and kicked my ankles and calves. I said nothing while enduring the pain.
The second day two new hatchet men came. They threatened that they would not beat me but will make me suffer nonetheless. They asked me to squat down, but I refused. So they forced me down by tightly holding my shoulders and neck. I still refused. Then one of them pushed me down by pulling my collar while the other one kicked my calf from behind. I still refused to squat. Then a tall man hit my back and neck hard. As he hit me again and again, I fell to the ground with ringing in my ears. But they did not stop, and pulled me up by the collar to force me to squat. I was too weak to stand. My legs gave way and I passed out.
The third day another two hatchet men from the public security bureau came. As soon as they saw me, one of them said, "It's me who tortured Song Hengjie to death." The other one said, "No responsibility is noted for torturing Falun Gong practitioners to death. If they die, it's counted as a suicide." Song Hengjie and I lived in the same district. He was tortured to death in 2001. Police lied by saying that he committed suicide. The murderer who killed Song Hengjie brutally dragged me to him, and then slapped both sides of my face in quick succession. Facing the murderer, I was not scared and kept a tranquil mind. The fellow practitioner who had been arrested with me suffered even worse. A cruel policeman repeatedly covered her face with a plastic film to suffocate her. They pressed her legs down with a metal bar while two people stood on it, so that she couldn't move her right leg. They drenched her with cold water, put a motorcycle helmet on her, lit two cigarettes, and forced her to inhale the smoke until she was vomiting. Finally she was shut up in a small storage room. It was the winter and dreadfully cold. Her face was swollen and bruised with vivid rings around her eyes.
On January 18, 2002, I was held at a detention centre. The local police station and the public security bureau worked together to charge us in the local court. I clarified the truth to them, "Falun Dafa asks people to improve themselves according to 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance', and that's not at all wrong. Our Teacher is innocent. The media reports are lies. I did not break any laws." They refused to listen. On February 9 when they informed me of my charges, I refused to sign. The procurator said that I would be sentenced even if I do not sign.
On February 17, 2002, my midsection was injured and I couldn't move my arms. Painful scabies covered my body and hurt me badly. I could not take care of myself. Until March 7, I couldn't move my legs. Only then was I sent to the jail hospital. On March 16, my situation deteriorated. I could not talk or eat, and became comatose. The hospital sent a critical situation notice. To avoid responsibility, the "610 office" extorted over 50,000 Yuan from my family before agreeing to let me be treated outside the jail. Even in this case, the "610 office" still coerced the local police station, the residential office, and my former employer to dispatch people to monitor me 24 hours a day. They wanted to stay in my living room, but my husband said absolutely not. Then they wanted to stay in the next room. They even removed the door of my home to make it easy for them to keep an eye on me.
On April 19, 2002, about 20 days later, their monitoring relaxed. I managed to escape with the help of my relatives. But the same day, my sister-in-law was interrogated in the police station, and the head of the residential office injured her arm. She was released that evening. Later they checked my mother's home, my brother's home, my sister's home, and my husband's sister's home. Almost all of my relatives' homes were searched. They also dispatched six people to stay in the city where my mother lives, and placed my mother's home, and my brother's home under surveillance. Now I am homeless.
After I escaped, they sentenced me to 16 years of imprisonment. In October 2001, my sister was arrested when she was delivering Dafa truth materials, and was sentenced to three years in a forced labour camp, where she remains today. In October 2002, my elder brother, sister, my sister-in-law's elder sister, and my brother-in-law were arrested simultaneously. They are not Falun Gong practitioners. They were arrested because they had helped Dafa practitioners who were forced to leave home to avoid the persecution. My brother was sentenced to 8 years.
My own experience is just one example of the persecution being endured by millions of Dafa practitioners in China. As a result of this brutal, unprecedented persecution, many practitioners have been physically handicapped, suffered mental collapses, or even lost their lives. Their family members are also under tremendous pressure and abuse. Here, as Dafa practitioners being persecuted, we launch a lawsuit against Jiang and his gang for their inhuman crimes against Dafa practitioners and human rights.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/3/20/46829.html
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