I graduated from the Department of Computer Science and Technology in Tsinghua University. After my graduation, I worked for a high-tech company for five years. In March 1999, I left Beijing for Ireland to pursue further studies. At that time, I led a healthy, full and happy life and had complete confidence in my future. However, in July 1999, the Jiang regime started its persecution of Falun Gong, which left my life in pieces.
At the end of 1999, I went back to China for my Christmas holidays. I was arrested because I went to appeal for Falun Gong at the Appeals Office of the State Council. After being detained in Beijing for one day, I was shackled and sent to my hometown in Changchun. I was later released, but my passport was confiscated. In May 2000, I was at a friend’s house chatting with him when plainclothes policemen rushed in and kidnapped me. Without any legal trial, I was sent to Tuanhe Labour Camp in Beijing and was imprisoned for one year and ten months. During my imprisonment, I was brutally tortured by the guards. With rescue efforts from the international community, I was finally released in March 2002. During the entire process, I personally experienced the brutal persecution inflicted on innocent Falun Gong practitioners, and also witnessed how the Jiang regime employed all of its capital to persecute Falun Gong.
Ever since Falun Gong practitioners were first sent to Tuanhe Labour Camp, the international community has shown deep concern. As a result, the Jiang regime has invested abundant capital into the prison and police system, with labour camps being constantly reconstructed and equipped with new facilities.
For example, the electrified wire fence on top of the high walls of Tuanhe Labour Camp was replaced with infrared detectors and video cameras. The high walls were newly painted. The iron bars of the dorm windows were replaced with white iron bars with pictures of peacocks painted on them. Each dorm had a new fish bowl with goldfish swimming in it, some plants, and a TV set. Cooking utensils were replaced with stainless steel equipment and the original coal stove turned into a gas stove. In the yard trees and plants appeared, with deer, chickens and rabbits being raised there.
What was the purpose of doing this? Would the criminals who were guilty of robbery and theft turn their lives around just because of these new facilities? Would our society become more stable? Absolutely not! Those new facilities are even better than the ones in the famous universities and high schools in Beijing. The purpose of providing these new facilities is to try and convince the international community that the human rights situation in the labour camps is good. However, behind this shiny facade, the torture and persecution continues to escalate.
This peculiar phenomenon has occurred in other places as well as the Tuanhe Labour Camp. According to the labour camp guards, they paid a visit to the labour camps in Southern China and found that they were even fancier than the ones in Beijing. In addition, the labour camp guards usually have their meetings at tourist sites and heads of the labour camps, as well as some guards, often travel abroad. At the same time, many local governments in China cannot afford to pay the wages of their staff, and many remote and poorer areas cannot afford to build an elementary school for their children.
During my imprisonment, I had heard of some stories about forced brainwashing classes run by the “6-10 Office”. The “6-10 Office” is a Chinese Gestapo-like organisation that arranges brainwashing classes all over China. They are headed by local government officials and work closely with the local police and the armed police. Their main tactic is to lure Falun Gong practitioners to their workplace and then kidnap and detain them in a brainwashing class. “Re-education” (another word for brainwashing) methods such as beating, scolding, and sleep deprivation are used to exert mental pressure on practitioners and force them to give up practising Falun Gong. Generally speaking, hotel rooms are rented for this kind of brainwashing class, with armed police guarding the entrances. This kind of detention is totally illegal and extremely costly. Tuanhe Labour Camp makes a profit from conducting brainwashing classes for all district governments in Beijing. The district government has to pay Tuanhe Labour Camp seven or eight thousand dollars to “re-educate” one person.
In a labour camp, the supervisor of the “Re-education Through Labour” Bureau of Beijing City once told me that one district in Beijing spent 8 million Yuan on preventing Falun Gong practitioners from appealing during the Chinese Spring Festival in 2001. There are an enormous amount of districts in China. In the past four years, the Chinese government has spent maximum capital on persecuting Falun Gong.
At present, one of the main missions of China’s government agencies and party organisations is to attract more foreign capital investment. Why? If foreign investment was interrupted, it would lead to the overall collapse of autocratic power. The Jiang regime can only sustain its prosperity by depending on foreign capital and by sacrificing the interest of the middle-class and lower-class citizens.
On one occasion, police escorted me and another practitioner from the suburbs of my hometown on a train bound for Changchun. This practitioner was a farmer and told me about her family. She said that their self-grown crops were barely enough to keep the family alive. But after the crops were presented to the government authorities, there was nothing left to exchange for cash. Therefore, her family lived in poverty. As far as she knew, many county governments and city governments in small cities had not paid wages to their staff for several months. On the contrary, city governments in big cities were squandering money. We had personally seen the Beijing police in charge of arresting Falun Gong practitioners staying in hotels and indulging themselves in sensual pleasures, as well as extravagant eating and drinking binges. The police were willing to pay the equivalent of hundreds of pounds just for one breakfast.
The Jiang regime focuses most of its national capital on major cities where the streets are decorated with sparkling lights, and fantastic night scenes are created. All of these efforts are to leave a good impression on visitors and foreign investors. Nevertheless, this prosperity is built on sacrificing the interest of the middle and lower class citizens. China’s overall economy is facing a grave crisis. However, the real situation has been hidden by propaganda.
At present, corrupt officials in China are transferring capital to their personal bank accounts overseas. The annual figure transferred to these bank accounts is far more than the investment of foreign capital in China. On the other hand, in China the Jiang regime has been pouring maximum capital into the large-scale persecution of Falun Gong and in maintaining its police system and propaganda machine. Therefore, all Chinese and foreign investors should awaken to this fact: Investment in China will no longer bring benefit to the investors or the Chinese people, but only to the corrupted officials and the persecutors who will in turn be financially supported to continue their evildoing.
Besides the direct consuming of manpower and wealth, the persecution of Falun Gong has also caused social instability and chaos. This is because many talented people have been imprisoned, lost their jobs and left homeless, thus unable to lead a normal life and support their family.
In March 2000, when the National People’s Congress was being held in Beijing, I stayed at a fellow practitioner’s home. At midnight, the local police knocked on the door, saying that they would like to have a chat with this practitioner. He was then taken away by the police and detained for two days. The police were afraid that the practitioner would make an appeal for Falun Gong during the National People’s Congress.
I must have been followed by the police the second time I was arrested. Some men dressed in plain clothes rushed into the room to arrest me without any arrest warrant or search warrant. Even though they did not state that they were police, they still kidnapped me.
Between the time when I was released and the time I came back to Ireland, I stayed in Beijing for ten days. During those ten days, I was closely monitored by the police. Once when my father, my nephew and I were going to a market, a car followed us all the way.
Another Falun Gong practitioner, Mr. Liu Feng who also studied in Ireland, was illegally kidnapped when shopping at the market, and was detained in Yaojia Detention Centre. So far no one has heard from him and his family are no longer certain of his whereabouts.
Wang Chan, one of my friends in Beijing, was hunted down by the police, and was abducted at a bus station in Shandong province. Nine days later, his family were notified of his death.
I have personally experienced the terrible and widespread social instability in China resulting from the persecution of Falun Gong. Numerous innocent citizens have been living in terror, fearing that tragedy may knock at the door at any time, fearing that they will be deprived of freedom, subjected to persecution or even lose their lives.
In Western countries, where people enjoy democracy and social stability, economic growth is still very slow. However, what will China’s economy be like under this autocratic power? The Chinese market can be compared to a company in the stock market. The company is decaying, but investors still wish to profit from it, so they keep advancing share prices. Later, when the investors come to realise the facts and no longer have such high expectations, they will sell out their investment and the share prices will plummet. Only then will many investors realise that they have lost everything.
During my imprisonment, I met many other Falun Gong practitioners suffering persecution in the labour camp. I already knew several of them from before the persecution. Among them were a company manager, a university professor, a doctor, and some students. Many of them were talented and well-educated intellectuals, and they were also law-abiding and diligent citizens from all walks of life. Three of the Falun Gong practitioners I had known were persecuted to death. One was a communication technology engineer, another was a clerk in a bank, and the other was a doctor of Chinese medicine. This is a comprehensive persecution against citizens in the mainstream of the Chinese society.
What’s even more terrible is the moral corruption in Chinese society that has been triggered by this persecution. Slanderous and comprehensive propaganda has turned the public’s opinion against Falun Gong, and encouraged people to play tricks on one another regardless of social morality. At the train stations, the police even order passengers to stamp on the photo of the founder of Falun Gong as a means of distinguishing Falun Gong practitioners from others. Isn’t that the most evil and villainous behaviour? If a government acts indecently like a scoundrel and encourages its people to commit crimes, what will become of that society? Human rights are the foundation of all social activities. Will a totalitarian regime that abuses human rights really follow honest upright principles when dealing with its domestic economy and international trade?
In his statement at the 59th Session of the Commission on Human Rights, the Irish Foreign Minister stated, “Threats to, and violations of, human rights are the greatest source of insecurity in the world today...Where a State threatens human rights, it threatens not only the security of its own people but also the security of the international community. Therefore the whole international community is legitimately and rightly concerned at situations where human rights and human security are threatened or violated.” The Irish Foreign Minister emphasised that “A country which is not prepared to embrace a strong domestic human rights policy is unlikely to be a credible advocate for the promotion and protection of human rights in its external relation.”
No one thinks that the current persecution in China is normal. Leaders of all states and the heads of international companies should break their silence. You are obliged to do something to help stop this persecution. You should openly condemn China for this persecution and you should express your concern over the persecution during dialogues with Chinese officials. On the contrary, if you still pretend that nothing has happened and continue to trade with and befriend the political scoundrels whose hands have been covered with the blood of Falun Gong practitioners, you are committing a crime. In the future, people will see that continuing to do business with these human rights scoundrels will bring damage to their own reputation as well as to their company’s interest. This is a real shame.
Translated from Chinese at http://www.yuanming.net/articles/200304/19238.html
* * *
You are welcome to print and circulate all articles published on Clearharmony and their content, but please quote the source.
more ...