The Cruel Persecution at the Shuiyin Homeless Centre in Guangzhou City

Since Jiang Zemin's regime started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, I have been kidnapped six times by the authorities. On New Year's Day of 2000 while practising Falun Gong in a public park, I was captured and detained overnight at the local police station. The next day my husband bailed me out. In May 2000, I went to Tiananmen Square to appeal for Falun Gong. I was captured and detained at the Tiananmen Police Center. To resist the illegal detention I refused to tell them my name and started a hunger strike. After a week, the policemen tricked me into telling them my name. They sent me to our local government's liaison office in Beijing. My husband paid a 2,000 Yuan fine [500 Yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China] and wrote a so-called "Guarantee Statement" for me to bail me out [a "Guarantee Statement" is 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 never again associate with any Falun Dafa practitioners]. I now state that any so-called "Guarantee Statement" written by my husband without my knowledge and consent is invalid.

In July 2000, the policemen from our local police station, together with the officials of the Neighbourhood Administration Office, kidnapped me and brought me to a brainwashing centre. They kidnapped many practitioners and brought them to the brainwashing centre at the same time. Not one of the practitioners cooperated with their demands. After staying there for a week, we were transferred to a detention centre and detained for 15 more days. When the detention period was over, the local policemen transferred us directly to another brainwashing centre. Because we refused to write any so-called "Guarantee Statement," many of the practitioners received a sentence without public trial. But I was released unconditionally. Afterwards I was told that the policemen searched our home and confiscated Falun Gong books and audiotapes without any warrants. In October 2000 I was again kidnapped and brought to the brainwashing centre by the policemen from our local police station and the officials of the Neighbourhood Administration Office. Over ten practitioners were captured and brought to the brainwashing centre. We refused to cooperate with the persecutors and started a hunger strike. Seeing our determination, they backed down. So after a week, we were all unconditionally released.

In December of 2000, I was kidnapped at the Guangzhou Railroad Station on my way to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. I felt that I should resist the persecution and refused to tell them my name. They transferred me to the Homeless Centre located on Shuiyin Street, in the Tianhe District of Guangzhou City. Most of the policemen there were very wicked. Inside the Homeless Centre, I heard crying and the noise of electric batons shocking people all day long. The policemen frequently sprayed red-pepper water on people. They refused to give the babies milk or water and when the babies cried due to hunger, they sprayed red-pepper water into the room where the babies and their mums were jailed. They constantly detained many practitioners at one time. Sometimes there were over fifty practitioners detained at once. The practitioners refused to tell the police their names or addresses. The policemen used all sorts of torture methods to try to force practitioners to cooperate with them. First they used electric batons to shock new practitioners. They even shocked the practitioners' faces, eyes, mouths, ears, and heads simultaneously with multiple electric batons. Sometimes the shocking might last over an hour. Even so they could not make the practitioners yield.

Then they put the practitioners in prison. Each prison cell was about 40-70 square feet. They kept over ten practitioners together in such a small cell. Practitioners had to take turns sleeping, as there was not enough room for everyone to lie down at once. Some of us had to sleep sitting up. Once the policemen locked up two practitioners in the same cell with a patient suffering from serious psychosis. The patient was crying, laughing, swearing, or tearing things to pieces, and kept harassing the two practitioners all day long. There is a concrete bed and a toilet in each cell. The policemen shut off the water supply to the cells where practitioners were held, so the toilet could not be flushed. The small prison cell was filled with the stench. In winter time the policemen didn't give out enough blankets, and they took away practitioners' own warm coats. Practitioners had to squeeze together to keep warm. The policemen supplied the practitioners with very little toilet paper, even during female practitioners' menstrual periods. The policemen also refused to sell toilet paper to them. We asked some good-hearted people to pick up some discarded beverage boxes made of layered paper. We tore three layers of the boxes apart for our toilet paper and sanitary napkins. At each meal we were only given food the size of one egg and very little water. The water was not enough for drinking, not to mention washing or rinsing. Each practitioner was just skin and bones due to being starved for so long a time, but practitioners kept encouraging and caring for each other. Some elderly ladies shared their food with the younger practitioners, and for themselves, they picked up the food or vegetable leaves dropped during deliveries.

After I had been detained for over five months and some other practitioners had been detained illegally for over one year, all of us practitioners started a hunger strike to protest the persecution. The policemen encouraged the criminal drug addicts to drag us to the first floor to force feed us. Some practitioners were dragged upside down, with their heads bouncing against the floor and stairs. Their heads were injured and were bleeding. Those policemen forced-fed the practitioners by pressing them against the floor, stepping on their arms and legs, pinching their noses closed, and prying their mouths open with a bottle opener. The practitioners' mouths were full of blood, and food was sticking everywhere on their faces and necks. When the policemen force-fed me, I clenched my teeth very hard. At last the bottle opener broke my teeth. Sometimes when they couldn't pry our mouths open, they used electric batons to shock our mouths. My mouth was full of blisters from the shocking. The persecutors force-fed us twice a day. It happened very often that our clothes were soaked during the feeding in the morning and hadn't yet dried, when the policemen started force-feeding again for the second round.

On the thirteenth day of the hunger strike, the police sent us, group by group, to a mental hospital. There, the practitioners suffered more cruel persecution. Doctor Zhang ordered a few criminal drug addicts to beat three practitioners with a steel cable for about one hour, although those practitioners were already very weak after the long hunger strike. They literally beat the practitioners half to death.

I want to expose the behaviour of Jiang Zemin's regime, telling my own experiences of persecution during the past few years. I want to expose their cruel persecution against those kindhearted practitioners who always conduct themselves according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. I want to awaken the people's conscience and clearly show them who is good and who is evil.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/10/30/59773.html