This all began because of years of Jiang Zemin's covert suppression of Falun Gong, which became even more violent in 1998, when more and more incorrect reports that slandered Falun Gong appeared in the news media in different regions in China. The same thing happened in Benxi City, too. A few individuals attempted to get promoted by suppressing Falun Gong. They published an article in the Benxi Youth Knowledge that slandered Falun Gong. This paper is a tabloid for elementary and middle school students in Benxi City, a political tabloid that was rigidly controlled. This particular article deceived many innocent students. Many Falun Gong practitioners went to the newspaper office to clarify the truth. Practitioners from Hengren County rented a bus and rode more than four hours to the newspaper office to tell pertinent individuals the facts. From Falun Gong practitioners' clarifying the truth in peace, the personnel in the newspaper office came to understand Dafa positively. These people were touched by practitioners' kindness and patience. Shortly after that, the newspaper reprinted an article of Economics Times, which positively reported about Dafa and clarified the truth. This helped the students in the city to see the fabrications for what they were.
But because of his irrational jealousy, the evil dictator Jiang quietly launched the persecution against Falun Gong. From the arrest event in Tianjin City to the mass appeal of 10,000 practitioners on April 25 1999, practitioners around the country endured the Jiang regime's unfair treatment with great tolerance. What they did was merely to tell the truth to the government, peacefully and rationally. The practitioners from Benxi City participated in the peaceful appeal. On April 25th, 1999, when 10,000 practitioners went to appeal, there were quite a few from Benxi City. Most of them stood near Beihai Park, and left at night after the issue had been dealt with. At that time, everyone was happy. We thought that the government had heard the people's voice, and that we no longer would be suppressed and disturbed, and that we would be able to practise quietly.
We never imagined that after April 25th, all volunteer assistants in Benxi City would be monitored and their phones tapped. The volunteer assistants in the assistant centres were listed as "important people" and monitored by agents 24 hours a day. Policemen monitored the exercise sites. Soon the policemen started to illegally detain and threaten practitioners. Then they started to block practitioners from exercising at the practice sites and steal practitioners' personal belongings. It was like the dark clouds bearing down. Because of all this, more than two thousand practitioners twice went to the city Appeals Office in Benxi City, hoping the city government could stop the police department's illegal acts against the practitioners. The Appeals Office supervisor told the representatives of the practitioners, "We are unable to solve the problem." That was at the end of May. More than a thousand practitioners quietly stood outside the Appeals Office, located at the busy section of Shifu Road. It was the first time that the people of Benxi had an opportunity to know the truth about the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners.
On June 10th, the "610 Office", which specialises in persecuting Falun Gong, was founded. Directed by Jiang, the police departments in different areas of the country hastened their preparation for the full-scale persecution of Falun Gong. Zhang Zhe, chief of police for Benxi City, was persecuting Falun Gong more or less openly at that time. Later, because he had rendered service to persecute Falun Gong, he was promoted to be the director of the city's political-judiciary department, which was the leading position in the "610 Office" criminal organisation.
How could the evil authorities frighten those people who had attained higher wisdom and truth? Many practitioners, especially the volunteer assistants, still attended group study and publicly practised the Dafa exercises despite the interference. On Sundays, all the practitioners in the city still came to the city government plaza to exercise and introduce Dafa to the public. In order to stop the group exercise and spread of Dafa, the evil authorities in Benxi City had dozens of trucks block the plaza. Dozens of practitioners were there who had attended Master Li's lectures. Master made himself an example. His every word and every action had deeply affected them. The practitioners, no matter when they had attained Dafa, tried their best to follow Master's requirements to be good people and even better people. Facing the unreasonable persecution, every practitioner was asking himself, "Do we dare to step forward to protect Dafa before the irrational acts of the authorities? As Dafa practitioners, where do we position ourselves within Dafa?"
Since every Appeals Office in Benxi City and in Liaoning Province refused to accept the appeal documents the practitioners wanted to deliver, some of the practitioners decided to follow the state appeals policy, to appeal to the upper level entities, the Appeals Office of the State Department in Beijing.
With the approach of the persecution from Jiang's scoundrel regime, those practitioners who were going to Beijing to appeal for Dafa were, of course, facing extreme pressure of all kinds, including pressure from their families and work units. It was a trial of righteous actions versus evil. The practitioners were going to Beijing to validate Dafa and the Benxi City Police Department planned to stop them using any means.
On June 18 1999, against all kinds of resistance, more than 1,000 Benxi practitioners set out to Beijing by train, motor vehicle or airplane. A few days before, Benxi City Police Department authorities had dispatched several hundred officers to monitor the train stations, bus stations, and all major roads, 24 hours a day. They set up checkpoints everywhere. Any person who looked like a practitioner and was headed into the direction of Beijing would be immediately abducted and would be forced to go to the appeals office of the city to register.
That day, June 18 1999, No. 28 Train to Beijing was delayed over one hour. More than 100 Benxi police officers boarded the train to check every passenger's residential ID, particularly the local ones. Police were everywhere, inside and outside the train station. It was filled with an atmosphere of terror. They abducted many practitioners in a brutal manner from the train without any valid reason. Although the evil had deployed all means they could think of, still, more than half of the practitioners broke through the blockade and successfully arrived in Beijing. It was a sleepless night. Solemnly and with tragic overtones, the Dafa music "Pudu" and "Jishi" resounded in the practitioners' hearts. The mixture of feelings about the hardship to validate Dafa, the compassion to sentient beings and the worry of watching the worldly people beginning to commit crimes against Dafa, made the practitioners toss and turn sleeplessly throughout the night.
Early in the morning of June 19 1999, the first group of Benxi practitioners arrived in Beijing. The Benxi City Police Department, to coincide with our arrival, had also sent some people to the State Department Appeals Office and informed them of the situation. The practitioners arriving at the State Department Appeals office located at Zhongnanhai were informed to go to the appeals office located at No.1 Jia of Taoranting to plead their cause. The appeal office at No.1 Jia of Taoranting was very well hidden, all the way down a lane, which made it difficult for many practitioners to find.
Several representatives for the practitioners, under the solicitous watch of the rest of the practitioners and realising the great pressure, walked resolutely into the appeals office. They represented the thousands of Benxi practitioners to express the voice of their hearts and their appeal to the government: One, "Falun Dafa is the righteous Fa. Falun Gong is beneficial to the country in many areas, without any harm"; Two, "stop attacking and oppressing Falun Gong and make the Benxi City Police Department stop the severe illegal actions against Falun Gong practitioners"; three, "allow the Falun Gong books to be published"; four, "allow the Falun Gong Associations in different places to be formally registered locally."
The people in charge at this office and those who had arrived from Benxi's city government slandered the group's appeal as "disturbing social stability." The practitioners' representatives were detained at the appeals office. Later, more and more Benxi practitioners arrived. At around 4:00 P.M., more than five hundred practitioners had congregated outside of the appeals office. Dozens of practitioners from Benxi City were arriving the next day in Beijing, on June 20. This was something the Benxi City Police Department could not have imagined - dozens of people at the beginning turned into several hundred. The practitioners had no intention of leaving without obtaining any concessions. With the strong will of several hundred of the practitioners, the people in charge of the appeals office eventually accepted the appeals materials from the representative group and several representatives were released from the appeals office after 4:00 p.m..
At 5:00 p.m., the Beijing government authorities sent large numbers of police officers and four long buses there. The Benxi practitioners were forcibly detained in the buses. With the police car leading, the practitioners were sent to the Beijing train station by bus. Two railroad cars on the No.27 Train from Beijing to Dandong City were emptied to carry the Benxi practitioners. Serenely and peacefully, the practitioners kept clarifying the truth to the police who observed them. Many practitioners had to stand on the train all the way due to the limited number of seats.
The train slowly started moving. Facing threats from the evil people, the practitioners were calm and peaceful. They didn't waste any time and started sharing experiences and assisting the train staff to keep the car clean. When the train stopped at Tianjin City, a young man who had been quietly sitting among the practitioners suddenly got up and requested to get off the train. Police officers in charge of monitoring the practitioners tried to stop him. The man showed his state security department ID and then was allowed to go. At that time, the practitioners realised why he was there. He tried to discern who the organisers were or to get any internal secrets. Instead, what he heard was all about how to look inward to improve one's character and coming to Beijing voluntarily. Later, we found out that someone regarded this group appeal as a "serious major event" and sent a special force to investigate whether there were any important "conspiracies" behind it. Of course, they couldn't get anything of importance.
Because this group appeal exposed Jiang's scheme to rush to persecute Falun Gong, the Benxi City Police Department, anxious to be a daring vanguard, got criticised.
Practitioners who took the trip to Beijing got through all kinds of obstacles. Some who were not financially well off had to borrow money to pay for the trip and others also overcame great difficulties to step forward; among them there were workers, farmers, teachers, students, self-employed and government personnel. There were also housewives, elderly people and children. Some practitioners came out as whole families. It was truly from their hearts that they wanted to tell the government what they had experienced from cultivating Falun Dafa and Falun Dafa's enormously positive impact. It was a dark night, and what was awaiting this group of fearless people was a fierce storm soon to come.
Just after 4:00 a.m., the No. 27 train slowly entered Benxi Station. We could see very clearly through the window that the station was packed with police. All Falun Gong practitioners stood up and tidied up where they had been sitting. When the train was about to halt, the carriage was made spotlessly clean, without a tiny scrap of litter. Slowly they walked through the passage lineup with police on both sides, and outside the station over a dozen motor coaches were already waiting. Within a very short time, all practitioners were taken to the ceremonial hall of the city municipality.
First of all, the city municipality declared initially that practitioners going to Beijing to appeal was a "very serious matter". Next they recorded the details of all practitioners' work units and their ID card numbers. Then, the Party secretaries from all state-run work units in Benxi City arrived and took back practitioners working in their units. Those who did not have a work unit were put under the administration of neighbourhood committees. The work units and neighbourhood committees considered them as key persons and put them under enormous pressure.
Not long after they returned, practitioners viewed a video recording of Master teaching the Fa overseas. At the end of the lecture, overseas practitioners presented Master with a calligraphy scroll, which read " Master, your disciples will follow you forever!" Listening to the solemn and moving Dafa music, practitioners all shed tears. Under adverse circumstances, they felt the boundless mercy Master was showing us to an even greater extent.
On July 20 1999, the unprecedented brutal persecution began. Without any hesitation, Falun Gong practitioners once again stepped forward to safeguard the Fa, and have never stopped their efforts since then, one stepping forward to fill the place of another who had fallen. For the last four years, they braved wind and rain, and have clearly demonstrated that Falun Dafa practitioners will not yield to the persecution of any power; however the sacrifices practitioners made were enormous. Two practitioners from Benxi City died as a result of the persecution; dozens were sentenced to heavy punishment; several hundred were illegally sent to labour camps and many others were forced to leave home and become destitute to avoid unlawful arrest. From 2002 to 2003, quite a number of Dafa truth-material sites were destroyed and many practitioners were illegally arrested and suffered from brutal torture at the hands of the authorities.
For a while the truth-clarifying work took a downturn. Practitioners in Benxi City may have heard this story: One elderly Falun Gong practitioner lives on her own, on a small "survival" allowance of 150 Yuan a month. She saved 150 Yuan over a period of one year and gave the money to practitioners who were making truth-clarification materials. She said, " This is from my heart." Indeed, no matter how brutal the persecution, it can never coerce Dafa practitioners' hearts. We have always been able to receive Master's new scriptures and materials from Clearwisdom.net.
Our great Master has recreated our brand-new lives with the immense Buddha Fa, and we once again heard our pledge made so long ago. Have we truly done all we can? Master teaches us to cultivate into selfless enlightened beings, who always think of others first. Facing those people who are in danger, shouldn't we do all we can to clarify the truth to them?
The glorious journey of Fa-validation by "Dafa disciples during the Fa-rectification period" will forever be recorded in the history of the cosmos.
I wish more precious Chinese people might be saved and practitioners in Mainland China and overseas truly become one body. I wish that "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" will forever stay in our hearts!
Postscript
When I picked up a pen and started to write this article, what happened four years ago was like yesterday, and the righteous thoughts and righteous actions of Dafa practitioners appeared in my mind from time to time. Recalling Master's merciful salvation, tears rolled down my face. I hope this period of history I witnessed will serve as an inspiration to the Falun Gong practitioners in Benxi City. We should do the three things that Master told us (study the Fa, send forth righteous thoughts and clarify the truth) solidly, conduct ourselves by higher standards and take our steps righteously in the last leg of our journey.
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