Female Practitioner is Beaten and Abused in Long Term Detention

When I was younger, I had to give up school because of severe illnesses. I recovered completely after starting to practise Falun Dafa at age 16 in 1998. In July 1999, Jiang started his persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Street Office and Police Station agents would frequently harass my family, demanding that I write a letter of guarantee to give up practising Falun Gong and other text that defamed Dafa. They seriously interrupted our daily life.

In the summer of 2000, when I went to Beijing to appeal, I was arrested and sent back to my hometown detention centre. During the detention, two lewd male police agents conducted a body search of me and another female practitioner, forcing us to remove our bras. They found and confiscated 600 Yuan [the monthly salary of an average urban worker in China is 500 Yuan], some clothing, and the book "Zhuan Falun" [the main text of Falun Dafa] (They were not returned to me after my release). Later, that female practitioner and I went on a hunger strike together and were released after three days.

Soon after I got out, the local police agents came to my home under the pretext of talking to me and persuaded me to undergo "monitored living" at a local security company, which was no different from prison. In order to achieve their goal of forcing us to give up our belief, the corrupt police agents charged us 108 Yuan daily for food. If we didn't pay, they would not allow family visits or release. (On top of that, the food was very poor quality and overpriced.) I was monitored there for 45 days. My family had to pay them 4,860 Yuan, of which 130 Yuan went towards the use of a shoddy tattered quilt. After I was released, the agents would use the same quilt to extort more money from other practitioners.

One day when I came home from work before Spring Festival in January 2001, the Street Office staff sent me to a brainwashing class in a suburban senior citizen's residential building for no reason. I was monitored by agents in turn. With the pressure of my family's demands, I was released on the eve of the Spring Festival (January 23). Since the Street Office kept harassing me, with great sorrow I had to leave my family and become homeless, looking for another place to stay.

In the summer of 2001, I went to Beijing to appeal again. I had just started to shout "Falun Dafa is good" in Tiananmen Square, when a few plainclothes police agents rushed over and knocked me down from behind, punching and kicking me. Because I was still shouting, "Falun Dafa is good", they were very scared. One of them tried to choke me, pulling up on my neck. I almost suffocated. Other police agents came and they dragged me to the police van parked at the other side of the Square. It was mid-summer, and my bare legs scraped against the concrete pavement, leaving streaks of blood. They disregarded what they saw, tied my arms behind my back, and threw me under the back seat of the police van. They sent me to the Tiananmen Police Station where I was locked in a small cell.

I was sitting on the ground cross-legged, when a corrupt officer broke into my room, kicking my legs loose and cursing. Later, a Falun Dafa practitioner in his 40s was brought in. Because he would not tell his name and address to the agents, he was taken to the next room, from which I heard the terrifying sounds of beatings. When I saw the practitioner again, I saw blood on the corners of his mouth.

I did not cooperate when questioned by the agents, so they beat me until I told them my address. They would slap me on the face and drag me by my hair. One time they punched my eyes, which swelled with a big lump. They manhandled me this way the whole lunch period. They also deceived me. Upon achieving their goal, they sent me to the Beijing Representative Office of my home province to be locked in a tightly controlled basement. I went on a hunger strike, but they did not care. They even turned off the light.

Upon being returned to my hometown, I was detained immediately. In the hot and humid summer, 15 people were shut in a small room of less than 10 square meters. With no holes or windows for ventilation, some inmates suffered from heat stroke and fainted. I was kept here for more than a month. Because I could not be transformed, I was transferred to a women's labour camp, where I had to go through a physical check-up to be admitted. When the prison doctor learned that I was practising Falun Gong to cure my illnesses and recovered, he would not take me. The angry police took me back to the Police Station and locked me in a foul, dirty iron cage with no use of the washroom and no food. A few days later, those villains tried to force me into a mental hospital. I was refused admission, so they sent me back to the Labour Camp.

The Labour Camp has a special person in charge of each of its 4 sub-divisions. As soon as I entered, five or six agents surrounded me to do brainwashing, even during meals. If you were determined about your belief, they would assign one or several drug addict criminal inmates to monitor you 24 hours a day, even while using the washroom. At night, the prison guards ordered us to sleep on the wooden slat between two inmate's beds. We were forced to do hard labour during the day, and no family visits were allowed. Some practitioners were kept here for a long time, even longer than their illegally sentenced terms. Because they were determined in their belief, they were detained indefinitely.

Because the Police Station refused to notify my family when I was in detention, my grandmother went looking for me several times. When I saw her again, her originally healthy, chubby face had become bony and haggard.

I was finally released due to poor health. The local police agent extorted 3000 Yuan from my family and a "loss fee" of 1200 Yuan for the head of the Street Office.

After I was home for several days, the local Police Station and the Street Office put me in a brainwashing class again, transferring me to several different places in order to keep my family from finding me.

In the brainwashing programme, we were deprived of freedom and forced to listen to their various false theories and propaganda. Worse yet, they would pressure practitioners' innocent family members to the point of suffering unimaginable mental breakdowns.

According to rough calculation, since the start of the persecution, police extorted 10,490 Yuan from my family, who wished to rescue me from detention! This was a huge financial burden to us: My single mother is jobless and the only income was a little retirement money from my grandmother.

After my release, police continued to monitor my telephone conversations and daily life. They have severely interrupted my life and infringed upon my human rights. I hope international organisations will see the facts presented above, and offer their assistance in ending the persecution.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/3/28/47296.html