Article in Spanish Newspaper "El Mundo": Chen - Another Martyr for Falun Gong

In early July, one of the two major Spanish newspapers El Mundo, well-known for its investigative reporting, interviewed Falun Gong practitioner Ms Dai Zhizhen. On Sunday the July 18th 2004, the day of the week that the newspaper has the largest circulation, El Mundo used an entire page to report the tragic story of how Ms Dai’s family was ruined and her husband was tortured to death. The following is the entire content of the report.

Chen: Another Martyr for Falun Gong

Chen, a Falun Gong practitioner, was illegally arrested and had been subjected to continuous torture such as brainwashing and electric baton shocking all over his body for 168 hours. Eventually, he was brutally killed because of his noble belief in Falun Gong. So far, at least 117,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been imprisoned in forced labour camps and psychiatric hospitals, and over one thousand practitioners have been tortured to death.

At that time Fadu (Chen’s little daughter) was only a fifteen month-old baby. Her mum is 38-year-old Jane Dai with her abundant jet-black hair. She had been in Sydney for three weeks staying in the house of a friend, also a practitioner of Falun Gong. She was sleeping in a room with Fadu when on July the 24th at 7 o’clock in the morning, she was awakened by her friend before going to her office. “Come here! Jane, come to look at the computer!”

The anxiety and grief on her friend’s face made her feel unusually uneasy. Instinctively she did not wake up her little daughter.

On the computer screen was an article published on Minghui.net entitled “Chen Chengyong, a Falun Gong Practitioner Who Had Been Forced to Become Homeless, Was Persecuted to Death.” Ms Dai’s body started to shake with fear. Never in her life had she shivered ceaselessly like this.

Chen Chengyong, male, thirty five, was Dai’s husband and Fadu’s father. At the very beginning of 2001, he was kidnapped by the police who forcefully broke into their house, and this was his fourth arrest in the same year. Ms Dai never heard of him after that.

At that moment when she just got the news of her husband’s death, her little daughter Fadu was still fast asleep in the adjacent bedroom.

Next Saturday will be the third anniversary of Chen’s death, and this Tuesday marked the fifth anniversary of the persecution against Falun Gong by China. Under pressure in the face of a record high unemployment rate and public dissatisfaction with his former leadership, Jiang Zemin started fearing the growing popularity of Falun Gong, a cultivation method with slow moving exercises and meditation to improve one’s health, that had become popular around China and attracted over 70 million practitioners in only few years since its introduction to the public in 1992.

The government machinery to persecute Falun Gong started its operation in no time. Over 30,000 people were arrested during the first three days of the persecution. Today it is verified by Falun Dafa Information Centre that 111,700 Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned in psychiatric hospitals or forced labour camps, and over one thousand have been tortured to death by the police during their imprisonment.

“My husband was an honest and kind person,” Ms Dai explains with her fragile appearance resembling a lotus flower growing out of mud but unpolluted, and with her genuine inner beauty shining through. Her jet-black hair has turned prematurely grey. She said that her hair turned grey overnight after hearing about the death of her husband.

Beside her the four-year-old Fadu was playing just like a restless butterfly among flowers. She was born in Australia. When she was only eleven months old, she lost her father forever in China before she could get to know him.

Her mother keeps narrating the story in her low voice, “He had started practising Falun Gong in 1996. He worked for a state-run factory in Guangdong. He used to smoke cigarettes ceaselessly, one cigarette after the other. But when he started practising Falun Gong for the first day, he completely quit smoking.”

Everything appeared very perfect. Chen Chengyong first met Jane of Australian nationality at one group-study meeting and got married in 1998. The husband worked for a factory, while the wife worked in a hotel.

Then in 1999, when the persecution against Falun Gong was launched, “my husband decided to write a letter. The very brief letter stated, ‘Falun Gong is very good. My family and I benefit greatly from it.’” Chen took this letter and set out for Beijing, together with the director of the local radio station in Guangzhou.

It was on January the 7th 2000, a date from which Ms Dai recalls everything with hair-raising precision.

“As soon as they arrived in Beijing, they were arrested. The police deported them back to Guangzhou. In the fifteen days of his detention, I had never been informed of his situation. It was winter at that time. My father-in-law went to the detention centre in Guangzhou in his attempt to send him some winter clothing, but was denied the chance to see his son.”

Two weeks later they were released. At that time Ms Dai was pregnant. After Chen came back home, he mentioned nothing about his arrest because he did not want Dai be worried about him.

However, unfortunate things happened to them one after another. “Since the first arrest of my husband, we did not have a normal life anymore.” The head of the factory were Chen worked pressured him to give up his cultivation or be fired.

In Beijing there were Falun Gong demonstrators being beaten by the police every day. Often, even up to three policemen encircled and attacked one practitioner. There were practitioners being kidnapped or disappearing nationwide every day. For the safety of the baby in her womb, Dai returned to Australia to wait for the birth of their baby.

On April the 3rd 2000, little Fadu was born in Sydney. Under worsening conditions this was their only good news.

“One day in July I called my family. My father-in-law answered the phone. He said that the police forcefully confiscated our house and took away my husband for no reason. At that time, I started to apply for a visa to visit China. But I did not arrive in Guangzhou until August the 15th.”

At that time Chen Chengyong had already been released. “During the seven-day detention, they kept forcing him to watch Falun Gong-slandering videotapes. They brutally beat him. If he fell asleep, they kicked him or poured icy water on him to force him to tell the names of other fellow practitioners and to sign a statement to renouncing Falun Gong.”

These are just few of the minor punishments. Human rights organisations, such as Amnesty International, have pointed out that the commonly used methods in China’s legal system include electric baton treatment, deprivation of sleep for a long time, the physical punishment of maintaining the same pose for a continuous twenty three hours, and no permission to use the toilet. Besides these terrible torture methods, the Falun Dafa Information Centre exposes numerous more terrible and most unspeakable torture methods such as blazing hot iron plates being used to burn practitioners, the security guards taking turns raping female practitioners, and practitioners are forced to walk barefoot on snowy ground.

Chen Chengyong was released again, but this time he was laid off from his work. “Jobless and worried that Fadu and I might be affected by the persecution, my husband was forced to leave home and become homeless. Sometimes he would rent a room with other Falun Gong practitioners who were suffering from the same situation. We rarely met each other. Even if we had the chance to see each other, we just had a cup of coffee together or took a short walk. Even during our short time together we were worried that we might be followed or found by the police. Because our phone at home was tapped, I had to walk to the public phone booth to call him.”

On the first day of 2001 Chengyong was again arrested, this time in Tiananmen Square. “At that time Fadu and I were staying in a hotel in Beijing. He and another two practitioners held up a yellow banner, and were immediately arrested on the spot. The police beat them and sent them to a detention centre twenty kilometres from Beijing, where hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners were being detained.”

“On the afternoon of the next day my husband was carried back to the hotel by the police. His body was destroyed. All over his body were wounds and scars left by the electric batons. We hurried back to Guangzhou and stayed in our own home, as the merciless beating had left him almost unable to move.”

“On the afternoon of January the 10th, when he was still recovering from his wounds, a group of policemen broke into our home and dragged down my seriously wounded husband from the bed. At that time I was breast-feeding my baby, and the baby become scared and burst into crying. I never saw my husband again.”

And Fadu never saw her father again. Seven months later, his corpse was found in the suburban areas of Guangzhou. Because his body was so decayed, it was hard to know the exact reason for and the exact date of his death. Fadu will for sure never forget the day of her father’s birthday, the 28th of December - a sad and most tragic day.