A Letter to Lawyers of Different Countries from a Lady who was Persecuted in China

Respected Judges and Lawyers,

I would like to tell you about the great harm that I have personally suffered. Please help me to obtain justice.

I used to be unfortunate. I was once robbed of the basic rights to freedom of speech, freedom of belief and the freedom of seeking legal protection. I frequently wake up from nightmares. Horrifying torture devices and chilling cries for help still echo in my mind.

But compared to those who are still suffering in China, to those who lost their lives for their beliefs, I am considered lucky. I came to Canada alive. Canada is a peaceful, friendly and beautiful country. I thank the Canadian government and citizens for saving me.

I find it difficult to remain silent. I need to take up my pen for the sake of my human dignity, for the sake of those who may lose their lives any minute now, and for the sake of suing the murderer who is solely responsible for this crisis.

Respectable lawyers, below is my story. You will be able to see the evilness of Jiang Zemin in the story. Please help me and other innocent people to uphold justice.

Firstly, I would like to explain my background. This will help you understand more about me.

Bitter times of growing up

I was born in Harbin City in Heilongjiang Province, China on December 31st 1956. When I was fifteen, the Cultural Revolution was happening. It was an era that drove countless people crazy. My father was imprisoned because he expressed dissatisfaction with the Cultural Revolution and interpersonal struggles instigated by the people in power. He was charged with being an anti-revolutionary. All of the valuable goods in our home were confiscated. There was a family picture of my father’s uncle with Russian friends. Solely because of this photo, my father was framed for committing the crime of “secretly communicating with foreign countries”. With a board hung around his neck reading “anti-revolution” and “secretly communicating with foreign countries”, he was dragged through the streets on a parade of public humiliation.

My mother took care of the eight children by herself. There was no stable income for the family, but we still needed to deliver food to my father who was imprisoned. Feeling angry about what my father had suffered, my mother fell sick and couldn’t do anything except lie on her bed. My elder brothers, both of whom were sixteen years old, had to scrub coarse fabric on the shore of the Song-Hua River to support the whole family. At the age of fifteen, I had to cook for the whole family.

Whenever I delivered food to the prison, being the one who took charge of cooking, I always tried hard to save the best part of the already deplorable food, and give it to my Father. Every time when I saw the love and perseverance emanating from my Father’s face and eyes behind the prison bars, I felt joyous even though life was very tough.

In 1976, the Gang of Four was overthrown, and the National Advanced Examination System was reinstated. Both of my elder brothers and my younger sister became freshmen that year. The fact that three university freshmen came from the same poor family caused a great sensation at that time.

A prosperous middle age

1979 was a lucky year in my life. The electronic company that I was working for indicated their willingness to pay the tuition fees for me to study at university. After graduation, I continued to work as a technical engineer in the same company. When this company went out of business in 1989, I started to establish my own computer company using the experience and money accumulated in the past. At the same time, the company also handled business and office supplies. Back then, computers were not popular in China. I was one of the few who earned a lot of money from the computer business in the early days. From there, I expanded my enterprise step by step.

Practising Falun Gong and regaining physical health

Because of business relationships, a customer gave me a copy of “Zhuan Falun” in 1998. The moment I picked up this book, I had no idea how drastically my life would change.

Before this, I suffered from several illnesses, including frequent headaches and swelling, feeling dizzy whilst reading, and being unable to walk normally. My legs felt so heavy, it was like sand bags were tied to them. Most noticeably, there was an odd trouble: from time to time, my legs could not move, as if they were clamped down by something. Sometimes it happened right in the middle of visits to customers. When it came, I could not take a single step. Even lifting my legs was impossible. The only thing I could do was to sit on the ground and rest for about ten minutes until the legs recovered by themselves. Neither western therapy nor Chinese medicine could cure me. However, it was only three months after I started to practise Falun Gong when the symptoms disappeared. I experienced the wonderfulness of being illness-free. Falun Gong saved me!

The reason why I started practising Falun Gong wasn’t solely because this cultivation practice cured my illness. From bitter childhood to my prosperous middle age, I have experienced too much misery. Whenever I calmed down, put aside the things in my life, and looked deep into my heart, I always saw an exhausted self.

When I opened the Falun Gong book, the first chapter clearly taught me that Falun Dafa is a cultivation practice of the Buddha school. Practitioners ought to cultivate their character in accordance with “Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance”, moving toward higher levels. I was pleasantly surprised by the realm of “Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance”. Although I did not understand in the past what it meant to believe in Buddha, I did know the culture of cultivation had existed for a long time in Chinese history. In other words, I did not consider cultivation to be superstitious. Deep inside my heart, I felt fortunate that I could have the opportunity to come across a true cultivation practice of Buddha.

Even since then, I studied the books of Falun Gong and did cultivation exercises with the friends whom I knew from our local exercise practice site. Cultivation practice started cleaning away my attachments accumulated in ordinary society. My mind and body reached unprecedented health and harmony. At that time, I felt my fatigued life became more and more pleasant and truthful.

The decay of the environment

As Falun Gong spread to people all over China, nobody could imagine that this man, Jiang Zemin, who held the highest position at the seat of government Zhongnanhai, would generate an overwhelming persecution campaign by resorting to his own power and will. On July 20th 1999, the persecution against Falun Gong began. At that time, the number of Falun Dafa practitioners in China exceeded 70 million people. In the blink of an eye, these 70 million people, including myself, became “enemies of the people”.

Since then, I have experienced the most terrible nightmare in my life. I was arrested and was imprisoned in a “hell on earth” three times.

Laws Are violated by the dictator in China

Falun Gong taught me the principles of being a human being. In daily life, I conduct myself according to the principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance”. I look inside myself whenever there is a conflict. I cultivate Falun Gong and maintain a righteous mindset. I trade fairly and deal with people peacefully.

I. Detention for Appealing

I know that the crackdown on Falun Gong by China’s regime is illegal. Article 41 of the Chinese constitution says: “Citizens of China enjoy the right to criticize or complain to any level of the administration or to public officers.” During the Spring Festival in 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal according to the rights granted to me by the Constitution. On Tiananmen Square, policemen beat me with their fists and kicked me with their boots. I was forced into a police van. Later, my hands were cuffed and I was taken by train to Harbin.

The local police ransacked my home, kidnapped me and took me to the local police station. The police chief tried to force me to write a statement guaranteeing that I would not go to Beijing and appeal. Since I was not in the wrong, I firmly refused. I didn’t write anything that was contrary to my conscience. The police chief then asked me to hand in 20,000Yuan Renminbi as “bail” for my release. My family and I firmly refused to pay. The police chief pointed a gun at one of my family members. The people around said that the police were worse than bandits and that Falun Gong is great!

Realizing that he could not squeeze anything out of us, the police chief said, “I am only obeying the orders of Jiang Zemin. Falun Gong is a X religion and you are an adherent of that religion. I can torture you to death and your family can sue Jiang.” Thus, he cuffed me and detained me unjustly. In the detention centre, I was forced to sit on the ground and prohibited from moving my legs or body. I wasn’t allowed to speak. Over 20 people were squeezed in a room of 15 square metres. A big screen TV was hung in the prison to play programmes defaming Falun Gong. We were forced to watch the lies. We were forced to look straight at the TV in order to subvert our thinking. Every day, the discipline officer came to ask me to change my mind and to give up Falun Gong practice. I was scolded and tortured for defending the actions of my comrades who all refused to sign anything. If I refused to recite the prison disciplinary rules, I would be made to stand 24 hours a day, and I was not allowed to go to the bathroom. At night, I felt sleepy but if I closed my eyes, the inmates surrounding me pushed me and beat me. My cheeks were swollen, my legs were swollen, and my heels ached from prolonged standing. It was painful. Every day, the disciplinary officer would come and ask me to change my mind and give up Falun Gong. They could do nothing to break my clear mind. To persecute more Falun Gong practitioners, they isolated all the steadfast practitioners. I was isolated for 7 days before being released. At the time I was released I could not walk properly.

II. Arrested for Printing Truth-Clarifying Materials

On July 15 2000, I was arrested while printing materials that revealed the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong. Article 35 of the Chinese constitution says: “Citizens enjoy the freedoms of speech, publication, gathering and association.” However, Jiang Zemin’s power is above the law. It’s as though the laws and citizens’ rights don’t count when it comes to Falun Gong. Lawyers are not permitted to defend Falun Gong practitioners. The evil police beat me with their fists and boots. My cheeks were swollen and my whole arm, including my hand, would not move. My body was covered with blue and purplish bruises. The rims of my eyes were black. The evil police forced me to sign my name on the arrest warrant and to admit my guilt. I refused to obey any instructions, requests or orders. Thus, the police forced me into a detention centre. I was shut in a damp, dark room without any sunlight and forced to sit on the floor in the same position without moving an inch. The meals I ate were made of coarse grain. I was surrounded by inmates such as drug traffickers, pimps and thieves. At night, I was packed with these inmates into the prison cell. I had to sleep sideways, pressed tightly against them. I couldn’t breathe in a normal fashion. I couldn’t understand why a person who conducted their self according to the principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance” was being tortured by these inmates nor why we had to be forced to watch so much propaganda. Good and evil were reversed in this place. Did the police and disciplinary officers want to “transform” good people into bad ones? Although they released me 14 days later, they constantly monitored me and harassed me, making me live under the constant threat of terror.

Wanted for a Reward of 50,000 Yuan

In October 2000, I printed 10,000 flyers that discussed the following points: 1) Ten crimes committed by Jiang Zemin during his illegal campaign to eradicate Falun Gong, 2) Jiang Zemin must be held accountable. 3) Jiang Zemin is the chief culprit in the persecution of Falun Gong. These flyers caused a big stir in my local area. The police department considered me to be their most important case. This case even caught the attention of the secretary of the Political and Judiciary Committee Luo Gan. I was placed on the most-wanted list at the Police Office. My picture and name were posted everywhere with an offer of 50,000 Yuan as a cash reward for information leading to my arrest. My family members were under surveillance and harassed. I was forced to live on the streets.

I was on the most wanted list for the 9 months following November 2000. They wasted a lot of money but failed to capture me. First, they started with my neighbourhood and posted my name and picture on telegraph and electricity poles. Whoever provided clues would be awarded 50,000 Yuan. They followed orders from higher authorities to take money from the national treasury to persecute Falun Gong.

One day in November 2000, I saw over ten policemen light up my home with search lights. I went out of my house, walked around their positions and evaded capture. I learned later that they kept three police cars parked in front of my house at all times. Over ten armed policemen took turns guarding my home 24 hours a day with search lights to illuminate the surroundings of my house as if they were after a formidable enemy. It was a bitter cold winter with the North wind blowing. Those policemen lived in luxury hotels. When I fled to Liaoning Province, the policemen tracked me to my relatives’ house and hid outside to capture me. They spent large sums of money to search for me everywhere. They were worn out because they had spent such a long time searching for me. They asked the local policemen to search for me too. The local police didn’t want to give up because they would also be heavily rewarded for capturing me. They searched for me everywhere they could think of.

What was even more outrageous was that my 12-year-old son also became homeless. I spent several days making arrangements for my son to enrol in a private school in a suburb of Dalian city. Unfortunately, my phone conversations were tapped by the police and they found out that my son was in this private school. Thus, the police cars went to the school twice a week trying to capture me at the school gate. My son was subsequently forced to quit school and became homeless. The teachers at the school asked me: “so many policemen came to see your child. Are your relatives police officers?”

I was illegally detained three times, and one million Yuan was spent investigating a false case

In order to pay for living expenses, on July 16 2001 I went to a bank to withdraw some money. I was recognized and reported to the police. Falsely accused of “conspiring with anti-China forces abroad”, I was arrested and thrown into jail. The Public Security Department of Heilongjiang Province sent more than 20 people. They broke into my relative’s home and stole my deposit certificate of US$150,000. They also took my computer and cell phone for their own personal use, and they froze my bank account. They even tortured and interrogated my family to get a confession.

Jiang Zemin attracts corrupt thugs with taxpayers’ hard-earned money. During the time I was illegally detained, someone reported me and my brother, who doesn’t practise Falun Gong, claiming we conspired with Falun Gong abroad to get hundreds of thousands of US dollars and took part in Falun Gong activities in China. The report was sent directly to the Public Security Ministry in Beijing, which shocked the Heilongjiang provincial government and the “610 Office” [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems]. It was listed as the second most important Falun Gong case in China by the Public Security Ministry and Liu Jing, the head of the Public Security Ministry in charge of investigating the case. The central and local government spent large amounts of money, resources and manpower to relentlessly investigate my whole family. All of my family members are law-abiding citizens and they have nothing to do with Falun Gong activities. They don’t practise Falun Gong. The money I used to make flyers to reveal the truth in China came out of my personal savings and was nothing to do with foreign powers.

I heard from my relatives in another city that spies followed them for several months. The spies even looked through their trash in hopes of finding something suspicious. My relatives came under watch by the government immediately after they returned to China, and spies followed them everywhere they went. When they could no longer stand it, my relatives went to the local police department and confronted the police, saying, “Why pick on us like this? Why persecute us so unreasonably?” They tried to clarify the facts to them.

The tremendous pressure my family endured during that half-year caused great harm and loss to their business and state of well-being. More than 40 telephones belonging to my family and relatives were tapped. The investigation lasted more than five months and it even extended overseas to the foreign country where my mother lives. My 74-year-old mother was forced to clarify the facts to the police many times. Six months later, it was proven that the report was an attempt to frame me. In order to achieve his personal goal and “annihilate Falun Gong”, Jiang abused the government’s resources. More than one million Yuan was spent on investigating my case, and this can be verified through the accounts kept by Harbin City Police Department. Jiang squanders taxpayers’ money to persecute the innocent and ignores cases of serious crime. This one million Yuan could have helped many workers who have been made redundant.

Force-feeding and brutal torture

I was detained for the third time at No. 2 Detention Centre in Harbin City. They didn’t allow me to see a lawyer and there was no formal trial. No arrest warrant or notice was shown and I was deprived of all my personal freedom and rights.

I was given only half a bowl of filthy porridge that resembled pig feed every day. At the bottom of the bowl was a layer of sand. I was not allowed to go to the restroom. In order to recover my health, I needed to do Falun Gong exercises, but they beat and cursed me. Several times they strangled me until I passed out. I am a good person and have not committed any crimes, yet I was thrown into a hell on earth. I didn’t want to tolerate any more of this inhumane persecution, so I held a hunger strike and demanded my unconditional release.

In China, the law is simply trampled on. My rights for living were deprived. I suffered tremendously during the hunger strike in order to awaken the police who were deceived by Jiang Zemin’s brainwashing. Force-feeding is a very brutal form of torture used in the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. When I was force-fed in the detention centre, the “doctors” were not professionally trained. We were their guinea pigs. They forcibly inserted a rubber or plastic tube into the victim’s nose or mouth, and then pushed it into the oesophagus. They did this several times a day. This kind of torture is very painful and hard to endure. When they stuck the tube down my throat, they often injured my trachea, lungs or stomach. Whenever I threw up or nearly passed out, blood gushed from my mouth and nostrils along with spit and the food they force-fed me.

The first time they tortured me by force-feeding was on July 18 2001. Every time they did this, a dozen people held me down on a bed and tied my hands and feet. In order not to let me see their faces and the tools they used, which had blood on them, they covered my whole body with a large piece of white cloth with a hole cut out around where my mouth was. They forced open my mouth with a steel opener used on horses and pried apart my teeth with steel pliers. They inserted a thick rubber tube more than two metres long into my mouth and then into my stomach. My mouth was filled with blood and my body was covered with bruises from being beaten.

One guard ranted, “We want you to die when we insert those tubes into your throat. We listen to our leader Jiang Zemin!"

Sometimes I was force-fed dirty porridge like they feed to pigs, and sometimes it was thick salty water that would burn my stomach and make me vomit. They were relentless. On several occasions, the porridge entered my windpipe causing blood and stomach fluids to be projected out over the surrounding people. They usually force-fed me two large bowls of corn porridge, and then pressed down hard on my stomach. They applied such force that it almost suffocated me each time. Whenever I pulled out the tube, as long as I had a little strength, I would shout, "Falun Dafa is good". Afraid my shouting would be heard by others, police would coerce criminals to stuff my mouth with mops. Each time they finished the force-feeding, they would quickly drop me back into my cell. They just threw me into the cell after opening the small steel door to prevent others from seeing the horrible scene. Injuries covered my body. I just lay there with my mouth and oesophagus bleeding. My bones felt shattered. It was very hard to even take a breath. Enduring the suffering, I fainted several times. I committed no sins; I was tortured just because of my personal belief in Falun Dafa. If it were not for the unfair treatment, who would even consider going on a hunger strike? Tortured whilst on a hunger strike; those were really horrible days.

Actually all people know that "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" is good. But in the face of great pressure and possible personal loss, many forget these precious principles. But Dafa practitioners will never forget.

I knew that if I surrendered and acted against my will, by writing a "guarantee to sever with Falun Gong" and by criticizing Falun Gong, then I would be spared some of the pressure from Jiang Zemin's regime. But I never considered that. I know as long as I am alive, I will follow “Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance,” I will never give in to lies and evil.

The true inside story of the hospital at Wanjia Forced Labour Camp

In 2001, after being detained at the Second Detention Centre in Harbin City for four months, I couldn’t stand and, my heartbeat around 150 times per minute. Lying on the damp floor, nobody even took any notice of me for a few days. Afraid of being held responsible for my death, finally the police sent me to a hospital for a check-up and treatment. But in December 2001, the Heilongjiang Province “610 office” and the Harbin City Public Security Bureau secretly sent me to Wanjia Forced Labour Camp. The torture and abuse continued. On December 6, I was sent to the hospital for so-called “treatment.”

In order to step up the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, Jiang Zemin's regime had allocated funds to construct a new building for Wanjia Forced Labour Camp hospital. Its facilities are the most up-to-date. Doctors and staff are on the first floor and there is a big monitoring room on the second floor. Most people on the wards of the second floor are female Falun Gong practitioners who have suffered serious torture. Male wards are on the third floor. There are male Falun Gong practitioners who were transferred here from the Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp. Doctors, nurses, and the clerks in the director's office are all involved in the forced-feedings. Forced-feeding is a violent, vicious method of torture. It is one of the methods used by police officers to torture Falun Gong practitioners. During the past four years, at least 16 Falun Gong practitioners were tortured to death in this place.

I was actually not treated at the Wanjia Hospital. Instead it was an indefinite period of detention. When I was first transferred to the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp, guard Yu Fangli tried to coerce me to write a “Guarantee Statement” [A statement to declare that he or she is remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practise Falun Gong again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and to never associate with any Falun Dafa practitioners again] to give up practising Falun Gong. I refused. Later she told me, “From today, you will not be allowed to see anyone. If you are beaten to death, we will say you committed suicide. The camp will cremate you directly. Your relatives will not even be able to see your remains. Jiang Zemin will back us.”

Before I arrived, several Falun Gong practitioners had died from torture. To regain my strength, I started doing the Falun Gong exercises, but the guards hit me across the face with mop handles and bounced me off the walls while holding me by my hair. At the same time they shouted, “Serves you right if you are beaten to death, there is no place you can sue us.” Batons, and mop handles were broken while beating us. Guards Hu Bo, Han Yushan, and Yu Fangli shouted while beating me, “We never beat you! We never beat you! Where can you sue us?!"

To force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their righteous belief and to mentally control them, Jiang Zemin's regime used scores of brainwashing tactics, including both mental abuse and physical torture. Torture included being forced to write the “three guarantees” [practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write these as proof that they have given up their belief. Created by the “610 Office,” the three statements consist of a letter of repentance, a guarantee to never practise Falun Gong again, and a list of names and addresses of all family members, friends and acquaintances who practise Falun Gong] Female Dafa practitioners were thrown into male jail cells. Practitioners were stripped and beaten, shocked with electric batons and bound with rope. The female practitioners had their nipples pierced with needles and then shocked with electricity. We were forced to sit on a steel chair, soaked with water and then shocked with electric batons. We were deprived of sleep, shut away in mini-cells and shocked with electric batons (a mini-cell has a temperature of over 40 Celsius degrees (over 104oF) in summer and extremely cold in winter - most detainees developed scabies in it). We were forced to squat or were bound in an aeroplane posture. We were hung up and beaten up. Scabies were scraped off with non-sterile knives. Handcuffs were so tight they cut into the flesh and practitioners were beaten up with clubs. We were not given proper clothing in cold weather and forced to remain out in the freezing cold. We could not move while being forced to sit on a small stool for a long time and we were brutally forced-fed.

Brutal force-feeding at the Wanjia Labour Camp

Most Falun Gong practitioners refused to give up their belief. We went on hunger strikes to protest our unlawful arrest and the inhumane torture and persecution. The police would then further torture us with force-feeding. They kicked and punched us many times. They insulted and handcuffed practitioners to the beds in order to force-feed them.

One day in December 2001, male doctors Jiang Chao and Chang Fan, along with guard Hu Bo, administered force-feeding on practitioner Shang Yuqiu. They grabbed her hair and knocked her head against the wall. I was in the same cell as her and she told me about the torture afterwards: “I became dizzy and saw stars in front of my eyes. My face, nose and mouth were all bleeding. The swelling on my head was as large as an egg. The scene was an unbearable sight. A nurse grabbed another practitioner and pulled her hair and pinched her face and body. As a result, this practitioner got black and blue marks all over her body.”

One day in January 2002, I saw female practitioner Guo Mingxia, one of my cellmates, have difficulty breathing with her entire body twitching after receiving “treatment” after a force-feeding. The so-called treatment she received was being beaten from the top of the stairs until she fell down to the bottom. She was then injected drugs that harm the central nervous system. After she was sent back to the cell, she spat out a lot of blood. I held her hands tightly and wiped off the blood. When I told the guards and doctors that she was dying, guard Yu Fangli pointed to the coffins in the courtyard, and said, “We have orders from 610 and higher up to put [the dead practitioners] in the coffins and cremate them!”

On another day I heard a man desperately crying in a room. It was the husband of practitioner Ding Yanhong. He had asked for all kinds of help to be allowed a visit to his wife. However, what he saw was doctors Chang Fan and Jiang Chao, along with guard Yu Fangli, force-feed his wife, who had been on hunger strike for over 70 days, right in front of his eyes. Ding Lihong struggled to resist the brutal force-feeding. Unable to bear to watch the scene, the man covered his face and cried out loud. I will never forget that day.

The guards often beat practitioners at will, yelling all day long, “we’ll beat you to death.” They also claimed, “We’re not afraid of beating you to death. We have more than enough coffins!”

On January 14 2002, practitioner Zhao Xiru was rushed to the hospital affiliated to the labour camp because he was in critical condition after torture. He was diagnosed as having a very serious “heart problem.” On the 17th, he was extremely weak. He had not been able to eat anything for seven days, and he would throw up even after drinking water. He could barely stand up on his own. At about 8 that night, he had a heart problem and his face was very pale. Even so, he was still brutally beaten by guards Hu Bo, Wang Junping and Han Yushan. Practitioners present all tried to stop the crimes. But the guards just beat them up instead. He Miao, who had been on hunger strike for 89 days, was knocked down to the ground. So was Kang Cuixian, a 53-year-old practitioner. Guard Han Yushan grabbed Zhao Xiru’s hair tightly and kept beating him.

Practitioners beaten on that night include Zhao Xiru, He Miao, Lu Huiwen, Sun Lizhi and Sun Yanfang. Therefore, the incident of Wanjia labour camp driving people towards suicide happened in the evening of January 19. The incident shook the whole Provincial Police and Provincial Labour Re-education Bureaus, yet none of the abusive police officers have been punished.

Treated as if I was in Hell

Due to the damp and dirty environment in prison, many Falun Gong practitioners have been infected with serious Impetigo; their whole bodies are covered with abscesses and blood, and the abscesses can be as big as a peach. It is unendurably painful in the day with pus and water continually flowing out, while at night it itches terribly, making sleep impossible.

Some experiences were totally unforgettable for me. A newly arrived prison doctor, who was a university undergraduate, washed and picked my sores one by one as was normal practice in treating the body of a Falun Gong practitioner. Upon seeing this, Song Zhaohui, the director of Wanjia Hospital, came over, pushed the young doctor aside, and began to chop at the abscess with a steel spoon.

Every Falun Gong practitioner infected with Impetigo was forced into a small room and pushed down onto the ground. The criminals imprisoned in the camp were ordered to dig out the abscesses all over the practitioners’ bodies with sharp steel knives and spoons. The spoons moved up and down in the practitioners’ bloody flesh, as they were pushed onto the ground. Some of them were miserably shouting, shivering and moaning, their faces covered with tears. After suffering such torture, those with blood on their bodies were asked to stand against the wall and be washed by having cold water poured on them. The water was not normal tap water, but dirty water, filled with rust. The temperature of winter in Harbin is about minus 35oC, and the cold dirty water, mixed with pus and blood, flowed down the practitioners’ tortured bodies.

Shi Yingbai, the director of Wanjia Forced Labour Camp, once claimed that “we have exhausted all the methods to deal with you practitioners!” It is the high level of protection from the evil Jiang regime, as well as direct encouragement from the camp director, that makes the employees of Wanjia Forced Labour Camp behave so terribly, and cruelly torture Falun Gong practitioners.

Forced brainwashing – brutal murder in Wanjia

Originally, there were male and female Falun Gong practitioners located in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp. Later, the male practitioners were moved to Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp, as Wanjia Forced Labour Camp had become overcrowded with Falun Gong practitioners. The total number of people confined at Wanjia Forced Labour Camp, who were mainly convicted of robbery, drug-related crimes and prostitution, was only around two or three hundred before the persecution of Falun Gong. However, from the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999 till April 2002, the time when I was released, the number of imprisoned people in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp increased sharply to more than one thousand, most of whom were Falun Gong practitioners. They were persecuted both mentally and physically to different extents. 189 confirmed and named cases of practitioners experiencing serious torture have been recorded. This labour camp, as implied by its name “the home of ten thousand evils”, has really become a “camp” for Jiang’s regime to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

The prison terms of Falun Gong practitioners were prolonged as long as they refused to be brainwashed into renouncing their belief in Falun Dafa and the principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance”. At each large-scale meeting of Wanjia Forced Labour Camp, Lu Zhenshan, the director of the labour camp, always delivered a speech using words that were popular during China’s Cultural Revolution. For example, he often cited that “this is a vital life-or-death battle which we must carry out to the end. The transformation of practitioners has to be fulfilled without any condition, and using any force required.”

A “Falun Gong practitioner prison term extension meeting” was illegally held on June 18 2001. Since the afternoon of June 19th, 15 Falun Gong practitioners had been seriously tortured by male and female police officers. The cruel methods consisted of beating the heart with an electric baton, being hung up with the body forced into the shape of a plane, and so on. When hung up, the practitioners were not allowed to have their shoes on, and their heels were forced off the ground. With time moving on, the hanging gets higher and higher while the banding of the body gets more and more tight. The arms became extremely painful.

Practitioners were not allowed to sleep, talk or to go to the toilet. Some practitioners had to urinate in their own trousers. Their noses and faces bled a lot, and their mouth was banded with sticky tape. The scene was just too miserable to witness. Under the instruction of Lu Zhenshan, the policemen increased the height of hanging three or four times and swore at the practitioners. They even pulled hard on the hair of female practitioner Yang Xiuli and dashed her head against the wall. Yang asked to go to the toilet several times but was always refused. She had to urinate in her trousers. The policemen soaked a mop in the urine and shoved it into Yang’s face and mouth, whilst continually swearing at her. Yang lost her consciousness when she was finally lowered down to the ground. A policeman insulted another female practitioner in public by touching her breasts and other sensitive parts, counting her ribs and so on.

A stunning brutal murder happened in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp on June 20th 2001, when 15 Falun Gong practitioners were brutally tortured, including Li Xiuqin, Zhang Yulan and Zhao Yayun, who did not survive.

Top leaders of Chinese Communist Party were worried and disturbed that news of this brutal murder case would reach the public and media. After the murder, all entrances to the camp were kept closed and even the mobile phones of the labour camp staff were forcibly confiscated. All employees, including temporary workers, were enclosed in the camp for a whole week. Despite the use of such methods to control information, news about the Wanjia brutal murders on June 20th did go abroad and was exposed, raising serious and critical public concerns from all kind-hearted people who heard about it.

It is estimated that at least 16 Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death at Wanjia Forced Labour Camp in the past four years.

I was on the verge of death, but the labour camp shirked their responsibilities

In Wanjia Forced Labour camp, I once again appealed by hunger strike and this time I would continue firmly to the end. In over one hundred days, they inserted plastic tubes by force into my nose to fill it with salt water. The plastic tubes were never sterilized - just rinsed in a basin. Every time after the forced feeding, I would vomit. Sometimes there was no any food at all in the “force-feeding”; they just stirred inside my stomach with the tube. I collapsed completely. Every time they put something into my stomach, I would expel it. After I had been forced-fed for over a hundred days, I was at the limit of my endurance: I cannot describe that kind of suffering. Every moment I longed to escape out of this Hell in the human world. For a long time I ate no food or water; every day was filled with physical and spiritual suffering. I collapsed in bed, feeling the sky darken and the earth revolving. My sight was dim.

In this movement suppressing the general public, I saw so many ordinary people standing up to the violent torture and killing. If these people who believe in “Truth, Compassion, Tolerance” are guilty, what will be left to human beings? Is goodness and evilness judged by power rather than by human hearts? We hold on to our own thoughts. What we want is just the right to peacefully and legally practise Falun Gong. What is our crime?

Confronted by slander and persecution, Falun Gong practitioners around the world are holding on with a peaceful and tolerant attitude. Though I, one of tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners, was imprisoned, I knew that hundreds of thousands of kind-hearted people were together with me. Prison bars may imprison my body, but how can they imprison my heart? If I had to choose between life and conscience, I would choose to hold on to the truth to the point of losing my life. I would never submit to the evil. At that time I had no concept of life or death, with no food or water. My energy was exhausted. You cannot imagine how much suffering and pain it was! At that moment I only had one thought in my mind - hold on till the end. There was a written regulation by Heilongjiang Bureau of Justice: people who are not sentenced to a labour camp should not be detained there. At that time I was not yet sentenced to a labour camp. The head of Wanjia Hospital, Song Zhaohui, pointed at me and claimed, “As long as Jiang Zemin is alive for one day, I will detain you until your death.” He was directly involved in torturing me.

Just one month before I was released my nose was blocked, which made the force-feeding pointless. Song Zhaohui personally organised people to cruelly force-feed me, pinching my neck and forcing my head down. Every time I struggled to pull out the tube, he would instruct the evil policemen to insert it into my nose again by force. This happened so many times that I was left in terrible pain. My tears and blood were dripping. I could not open my eyes. One staff member was too scared to look at me, and wore a pair of dark glasses. He did not dare to come into my room. Without practising Falun Gong, how would I have been able to get through this?! Song Zhaohui attempted to blackmail my family several times with bills for the force-feeding and hospitalisation, but my family always firmly refused. When I was finally released, Song still didn’t give up his. He extorted 3,000 Yuan force-feeding charges from some of my relatives who didn’t know the truth. He had been fierce when force-feeding the Falun Gong practitioners who were later tortured to death in Wanjia hospital. He often struck and kicked the practitioners, bombarding them with filthy words and often claiming, “It is futile to attempt to go home by hunger strike! Give some drugs to her - she needs a ‘rest’!” They forcibly injected practitioners with psychedelic drugs that damage the central nervous system. This left the practitioners in coma for a couple of days. In my room, Guo Mingxia, He Miao etc. from Team 12 were injected with such drugs. (Now Song Zhaohui has experienced his retribution, as he was sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment for corruption.)

Finally the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp released me in order to shirk their responsibility. At that time my nosed was blocked, which prevented them from force-feeding me. I had problems breathing, my body and mind were devastated and I nearly lost my eyesight.

Going abroad and suing Jiang Zemin

To avoid further persecution, I fled to the United Arab Emirates in exile on June 1st 2002. However, Jiang’s persecution of Falun Gong is not limited to China. It has been reported by several overseas media organisations that the Chinese embassies in other countries have pressured different governments to suppress Falun Gong on many occasions and have interfered with the activities of overseas Falun Gong practitioners. I went to the places where many Chinese visitors gathered to tell them the truth about Falun Gong being persecuted in China, as well as the mistreatments and sufferings that I experienced. The Chinese embassy said that I was a terrorist. The UAE police arrested me under pressure from the Chinese embassy and were going to deport me back to China. I was lucky that Canadian Falun Gong practitioners asked the Canadian government to rescue me just in time. Within two days I was granted a special visa by the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, which enabled me to come to Canada on November 11th 2002. I am so grateful to the Canadian government and the kind-hearted people who rescued me!

From then on I started to publicize what I suffered and witnessed in the prisons and labour camps of China through the overseas media, revealing many true inside stories about Jiang Zemin’s regime persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in China, making public the persecution I suffered, and exposing a great deal of crimes that the Wanjia Labour camp committed when I was detained there. Many international media organisations carried reports about this.

In November 2002, when the head of the “610 Office” (a Gestapo-like institution specifically created to persecute Falun Gong practitioners) Li Lanqing visited France, myself and some other Falun Gong practitioners submitted a complaint to the court in France to sue him.

My relatives were implicated

Because I revealed Jiang Zemin’s crimes in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners and launched a lawsuit against him in the international community, this made him extremely scared and angry. His regime committed a series of abuses against my relatives in China who are not Falun Gong practitioners, such as threatening and following them. My younger brother was illegally arrested on January 17th 2003 by Heilongjiang Public Security Bureau, my younger sister was illegally arrested in Guangzhou on March 19th and my older sister was illegally arrested in Manzhouli on the same day. My sisters were taken to Ha’erbin for detention. This implication of innocent people is unjust and ruthless. They held my relatives as hostages, attempting to stop me from revealing their crimes to the international community.

The suffering of my family aroused concern from the international community, particularly the Canadian Members of Parliament and international human rights organizations. They worked quickly and hard to rescue my brother and two sisters, writing letters to the Chinese government requesting their release. Tens of MPs also wrote to me by fax or email, expressing their deep concern for the suffering of my family members. They gave me a lot of kind support by writing to the Chinese authorities at different levels. On April 17th and 18th 2003, my sisters were released by the Chinese authorities, and my younger brother was finally acquitted on August 19th. Through the suffering of me and my family, we can see the painful suffering that tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners in China have experienced. We can also see how extensively this persecution has caused suffering for many innocent relatives of Falun Gong practitioners who do not practise Falun Gong. I would like to thank the Canadian Government and international human rights organisations, who have given me and my family great support.

Today, I publish my testimony to the lawyers and to the court. As a survivor of this persecution, I cordially request you, judges and lawyers, to uphold justice for me and the tens of millions of Falun Gong practitioners who are still suffering ruthless persecution; to stop these abuses of human rights and belief; and the stop the killing and imprisonment of the innocent.