4. " Coercion Cannot Change People's Hearts "
Ms. Chen Yali, 32, a college graduate, suffered from brutal torture and humiliation. In September 2000, Shi Yingbai, who was in charge of the persecution against Falun Gong locally, chose to make an example of Chen and force her into giving up her belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. They applied huge pressure to her in various obscene ways such as using her relatives to pressure her, isolating her, and trying to brainwash her with the help of collaborators [former Falun Gong practitioners who have stopped practising due to brainwashing and torture and now assist in the persecution of Dafa practitioners] 24 hours a day. They kept on reading her materials compiled to defame Dafa, and did not allow Chen to take one step out of her room. She was watched even while using the toilet. Chen was not allowed to contact other Dafa practitioners for a long time.
Dafa practitioners' hands were cuffed from behind, and then they were hung up from the handcuffs. Determined Dafa practitioners were detained in mini-cells. Police officers claimed: "If you are not 'transformed,' you will be detained here forever."
Under such huge mental and physical pressure, Chen Yali wrote a "guarantee letter." But in her heart she felt so sorry for having done that, and asked Shi Yingbai and Zhangbin to return the guarantee letter--but at that time Shi and Zhang refused to do so. In January 2001, Chen Yali went on a hunger strike to appeal. At first Shi simply ignored her. On the eighth day of her hunger strike, brigade leader Lin Shunying tricked Chen into going to the hospital by telling Chen that Shi wanted to talk to her. On the 11th day of her hunger strike, Chen Yali fainted and fell to the ground, injuring the corner of her eye. Her pulse and blood pressure were very weak. Because of her determination, the guarantee letter was returned to Chen and she tore it to pieces. After coming back to the brigade from the hospital, Chen talked with and wrote letters to the camp head and the brigade head to ask them to return her Dafa books, but they ignored her requests. With no better choice, Chen Yali started another hunger strike. Dafa practitioners in the same group as Chen also asked for the return of their Dafa books. By the 8th day of Chen's hunger strike, she was emaciated and dying. Dafa practitioners in the Old-Group 3 realised that all Dafa practitioners should be one body. When one Dafa practitioner is persecuted, the others cannot just sit by idly. The persecution of one Dafa practitioner is targeted at all of us. So on March 8, 2003, 14 Dafa practitioners at the Old-Group 3 went on a hunger strike together to support Chen Yali and to resist the evil persecution together.
On March 9, 2001, Shi Yingbai ordered all policemen in the camp to surround the Old-Group 3. Police officer Wu Jinying tried to pull Chen Yali from the room, but Chen resisted with all her strength. Another policeman twisted her arms behind her back and forced her out of the room. While struggling, Chen fell down to the ground and was carried away to the hospital by several policemen. Shi Yingbai cursed Dafa and lied, saying that Chen intended to commit suicide. One Dafa practitioner stood up to the police officer's wrongdoing. She was cursed and dragged from the room, slapped in the face, and had her head slammed into the wall by her hair. It caused dizziness and a big lump on her head. She was then sent to a mini-cell. Zhao Yayun was tortured for saying "Falun Dafa is Good!", and then locked up in a mini-cell with her mouth taped. She was tortured again and then shackled to a steel chair. Liu Dongyun and Pan Xuanhua were punched for trying to stop the policemen from beating people. All 14 Dafa practitioners in the Old-Group 3 were locked up in mini-cells for one month. After being sent to the hospital, Chen Yali's health declined daily; she became thinner and thinner. Ignoring her weak condition, the Wanjia Hospital force-fed her. But Chen resisted and did not give up. On the 22nd day of Chen Yali's hunger strike, Shi Yingbai talked to her, and apologised by kneeling down in front of her. Chen Yali defended the dignity of Dafa practitioners with her life. On October 29, 2001, Chen Yali was released. She insisted on getting back her Dafa books before she left, but was forcibly removed from the camp by police officers.
5. Resisting Evil Persecution with Determination
On June 18, 2001, a meeting of Term Extension and Reduction was held at the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp. Lu Zhenshan, the Camp head, said at the meeting: "If you are transformed, then, you are transformed; if you are not yet transformed, you will be, by force." So another insane series of organised abuse of Dafa practitioners began. There were about 300 police officers on site, and some of them were helmeted anti-riot police. They carried electric batons and handcuffs, Sam Browne belts at their waists, and stood all around Dafa practitioners. The meeting place was very quiet and intimidating. 20 Dafa practitioners, each with their hands cuffed behind their backs and held by one policeman and one policewoman at either side, were forced to stand in front of a platform, where they were declared to have their terms extended for one year. Others' terms were extended either three months or half a year. These extensions were decided by the Camp, without any other legal procedures required. Shi Yingbai cursed Dafa and Dafa's founder. Shi incorrectly pronounced Xu Lihua's name. Xu gave the correct pronunciation saying: " My name is Xu Lihua, Falun Dafa is a righteous practice." She was immediately beaten up by police officer Li Ming, dragged from the second floor to the first floor by her feet, and was beaten until she had bruises all over her face. The soft tissue under her breasts was injured, and she could not sleep because of the pain. In the later part of the meeting, the atmosphere was even more tense. Anti-riot police walked back and forth while collaborators defamed Dafa on the stage. Yang Xiuli immediately stood up to stop them. Chen Yali, Gao Shuyan, Zuo Xiuyun, Wang Fang, Zhao Yayun also stood up and said: "Falun Dafa is righteous!" They were beaten. Gao Shuyan was knocked down by policemen and fainted. After the meeting, 17 Dafa practitioners, including 8 from the Old-Group 3 were detained in mini-cells, and were forced to stand up for a long time. A new round of forced "transformation" started.
Beginning on June 19, 2001, 15 Dafa practitioners were brutally beaten up one by one by male and female police officers. Zuo Xiuyun was unable to breathe after the beating. Chen Yali, Zhao Yayun, and Wang Fang were all hit in the heart area with electric batons. They were hung up with both hands tied behind their backs with both feet off the floor. No shoes were allowed. As time went on, the rope became tighter and tighter, and they were raised up higher and higher. The bitter heart-wrenching pain in their arms was unbearable. No sleeping, no talking, no using the toilet was allowed. Some urinated in their trousers. When Zhu Chunrong spoke out for Falun Gong, Wu Baoyun immediately started slapping her hard in the face with a shoe until her nose and face were bleeding. Then Zhu's mouth was taped. Police officers and the thugs hit Dafa practitioners' chests around the area of the heart, on their heads, and other parts of their bodies with electric batons. Li Ming beat up Dafa practitioner Pan Xuanhua several times, leaving Pan with loose teeth and vomiting blood. Li Ming pushed against Pan's back with all his strength, which caused Pan to cry out from the pain; then Li hit Pan with an electric baton. Seeing that she was still determined, he hung Pan up on a bamboo rod. Pan's hands were tied so tightly and for so long that they turned dark blue in color. Some of the Dafa practitioners sweated heavily because of the torture. Some vomited continuously, some experienced swelling all over their bodies and some of them had arms that went numb.
Yang Xiuli asked to use the toilet several times but was not allowed to, then urinated on the ground because she lost control. Enraged, Quan Minghao and several other thugs pressed her to the ground to wipe up the urine with her body. Still not satisfied, Wu Baoyun hit Yang Xiuli's face, head and body randomly with a mop soaked with urine. The inhumane Li Ming pinched Yang between the legs, and then grabbing Yang by the hair, banged her head on a radiator. The painful crying and the hatchet men's cursing and sneering filled the cell. It was truly a hell on earth. Shi Yingbai, and the head of the police, Wu Jinying both came to the cell to instigate those thugs. Liu Lun said ferociously: "No one will care even if we kill you. Even those male criminals were scared of us, let alone you people!"
Seeing that Chen Yali still did not renounce her faith, they used the most vicious methods to torture her. Li Ming tortured her in various ways: he pinched and stretched Chen's body, then pressed Chen to a wall to crush her, then dug into her ribs one by one with his fingers, then pinched her armpits and ribs forcefully. Chen struggled painfully. Li Ming brutally pinched her nipples. Chen Yali tried to stop him with a stern rebuke, but Li became more enraged and slapped her face. Chen resisted twice, but was slapped on the face twice until she quivered. Hours later, Shi Yingbai came to the mini-cell, Chen told him: "I have been hung up for 20 hours already. You are breaking the law, put me down!" Shi was unconcerned.
Quan Minghao stated many times: "If you do not write a guarantee right now, you will be sent to the Intensive Training Group and be supervised by male guards and male criminals." Could the tragedy that happened to the 18 female Dafa practitioners in the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp who were thrown into the male cells be happening again? The forced transformation happened not only in the mini-cells, but also in big groups. On June 19, 2001, Sun Xiuqin, the head guard of the Old-Group 3 said: "You all should be well behaved. Don't let yourself be sent to the Intensive Training Group." On June 20, the guards brought some 'guarantee papers' for us to sign. Some Dafa practitioners refused, and were sent to the mini-cells to be hung up in the "plane style." That's when an atrocity occurred in which Li Xiuqin, Zhang Yulan, and Zhao Yayun died from brutal torture. This tragedy shocked both Chinese and those abroad. Four female Dafa practitioners were sent to the male group and were supervised by policemen and male criminals. Another 8 Dafa practitioners lay there almost dead and in a mentally confused state suffering from incontinence.
On June 22, the Wanjia camp knew that investigators from the upper Ministry would come. Afraid that their crimes would be exposed, several doctors, headed by Song Shaohui and criminals restrained 8 Dafa practitioners on their beds and injected us with a kind of sedative that caused us to sleep 24 hours a day. On June 26, 2001, while we were still in a state of confusion with stiff and numb bodies because of the injection, we were moved back into the mini-cells. They blocked the passage of any information. They strip searched us and took away our money. Even buying daily items had to be approved through multiple levels. Sometimes the money we deposited at the brigade was taken as theirs. We were not allowed to go outdoors, or be visited by our family members. So nobody knew where we were or if we were dead or alive. That was in the middle of summer; the mini-cells were extremely hot, damp and dark, most of us grew pustules. We appealed many times but got no response. Several Dafa practitioners went on a hunger strike, but they still ignored us. Among the hunger strikers, Zhang Guirong went on one for 55 days, and was force-fed by inserted tubes over 100 times. Since the mini-cells were tightly sealed, it was hard for us to breathe. Pan Xuanhua was so deprived of air that she fainted. To evade the legal sanction and hide their crimes, instead of punishing the murderers, the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp used various ways to try to frame us, to confuse the situation, and coerced us to lie according to their intentions.
On June 26, 2001, a wicked police officer named Liu Lun said: "Are you still not talking? Do you need me to hang you up with a rope to help you to recall?" In mid September, Gao Shuyan saw a form entitled "Record of Gao Shuyan " at police officer Zhou Jun's place. One sentence read "If I fail this time in hanging myself, I will bang my head on the radiator." This shows how the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp had framed Dafa practitioners by lying in order to shirk responsibilities and to defame Dafa. When investigating the "6.20 "(June 20) tragedy, the special group did not record any facts about our persecution. They were just cold-hearted, servile followers of Jiang's regime who followed the orders of "No one is held responsible if Falun Gong practitioners are beaten to death, just say they committed suicide. No investigation is needed, just have them cremated." They used releasing us as bait, to coerce us into repeating the lies fabricated by them.
Yu Xiaoyu, who came to investigate the case said: "If you say what we tell you to say, you will be released. Otherwise, we may release you today and arrest you again tomorrow."
Hao Yunzhu was asked to sign a blank piece of paper, but when she went to check what the police had written on the paper, a police officer snatched the paper away. On August 28, 2001, the police ordered a TV station and the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp to make videos of us, trying to create a second "Tiananmen Immolation Event". We resisted together. Hao Yunzhu was forcefully taken away by police officer Li Xiuyun and two criminals, which caused Hao to faint, but they still took her video forcibly in a mini-cell. In addition to physical torture, they intensified the mental tortures by using long terms of detention and locking us up in mini-cells. Chen Yali, Wang Fang, and Han Shaoqin were called in for a talk and nobody knew where they were taken. Later we found out that Chen Yali was forced to live with others for 45 days, Wang Fang and Han Shaoqin were sent to a drug rehabilitation centre.
Thirteen survived the "6.20" (June 20, 2001) tragedy. The fact that we were released from the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp was the result of help from Dafa practitioners and kind-hearted people around the world. The police released us under the pressure. We are still all in dangerous situations. Zuo Xiuyun's case is an example. The survivors of the "6.20" atrocity and all Dafa practitioners in China want to use this opportunity to show our deep gratitude to all the people who have upheld justice.
When we left Wanjia, there were still over 300 Falun Gong practitioners illegally detained there. What is more worrisome is that Dafa practitioners who were detained in the mini-cells are still being tortured and their lives are in great danger. The above facts are just a fraction of all that Dafa practitioners have suffered in China.
Here, all Dafa practitioners in China earnestly hope that the "World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong" can uphold justice by helping the courts to punish the criminals according to the law. We also hope that all the governments, international organisations, and all kind-hearted people in the world will help us and stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
Home phone number of Shi Yingbai, the former deputy head of the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp, 86-451-2737856
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/4/8/47888.html
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