An Open Letter to Those Wishing to Know the True Facts Regarding the Persecution of Falun Gong in China

Ladies and Gentlemen:

I am writing this letter because I have heard that international human rights organisations are going to send investigators to discover the truth of the situation regarding the persecution of those who practise Falun Gong in China. I personally know what is going on in China as I am one of those who has being on the receiving end. I know how evil the perpetrators of this persecution are and have seen that their capabilities for lying and distorting things often surpasses what good people are even able to imagine. I want to help the investigators learn the true facts.

I will describe what happened when both Chinese and foreign reporters visited Tuanhe Forced Labour Camp in 2001. This camp is located in the Daxing District of Beijing.

After learning that the media were coming, the entire forced labour camp went into a period of intense preparation. In the education section, they first made up a list of over one hundred questions that reporters might ask, and then prepared "standard answers" to these questions. For example, to the question, "Do you have political offenders here?" The correct answer was, "No, because thinking is not a crime." The preparation was extremely detailed, and included all the anticipated questions that the reporters might ask. From there, the education section organised a series of study sessions via closed-circuit television. Every brigade had to study and memorise the questions and answers. There were also other aspects to the preparation.

On the day the reporters were to arrive, camp officials transferred steadfast Falun Gong practitioners and people without specific tasks, to a remote section of the west building until the reporters had finished their inspections. Many people wanted to tell the reporters what the real situation was, but they were blatantly denied the right to do so.

The guards organised a group of people to study and read in the multi-purpose hall, an activity unheard of prior to that particular day. A person who is over 50 named Gong Wang, from Tongzhou, also answered the reporters' questions just as he had been instructed. The camp officials also arranged for a group of people to appear to be learning about computers in the computer room. The purpose of this was to give the reporters something to talk about and take photos of. Once the reporters had gone, the "computer students" were removed from the room. Some detainees were also made to perform outdoor activities, such as practising gymnastics on the single and parallel bars. These people had never before so much as touched the sports equipment. The officials also took the reporters to visit the kitchen; on that day the meals were much better than the usual fare. In summary, nothing that the reporters were shown was part of our normal daily routine. Everything was staged.

Another example of deception was where a television station conspired with the forced labour camp to make things look a certain way. The television station wanted to make a program slandering Falun Dafa, and notified the forced labour camp what its contents would be many days in advance. They asked camp officials to prepare for it. The television station provided interview questions to the forced labour camp, along with all the answers they wanted to hear. Camp officials then handpicked a group of compliant prisoners and ordered them to memorise the answers. Once this was done, they chose one person from the candidates to be interviewed by the reporter. When they filmed the visiting scene, guards wore casual clothes to look like civilians, and those from the selected group changed from prisoners' uniforms into normal street clothes.

To put it bluntly, what the media presented to the public was a carefully orchestrated pack of lies. This was a totally evil act.

Under the command of the former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin, the camp brutally persecuted stalwart Falun Gong practitioners both mentally and physically. Several guards would take turns tormenting practitioners, sometimes depriving them of sleep altogether, or only allowing shorts naps over long periods of time. Some practitioners were punished by being made to stand for extended lengths of time; others were tortured with electric batons. The deputy chief of No. 3 brigade, surnamed Song, along with other guards, would tie a practitioner tightly to a bed with no space to move, while several other guards tortured the person with electric batons. They shocked all parts of the practitioner's body, sometimes using more than ten electric batons at the same time. Among the many practitioners suffering these tortures were Mr. Wu Yunchang, Mr. Zhao Ming and Mr. Qin Wei.

Because the officials usually commit their atrocities in secret, it is difficult to know exactly how many people have been tortured. Sometimes, the guards gathered all steadfast practitioners together and forced them to sit on small stools for long periods of time. They forced the practitioners to stay in one position; if they moved at all they were beaten or cursed. While this was happening, the guards loudly blasted a cassette recorder, repeatedly playing tapes with vile comments disparaging Falun Dafa day after day. The less determined practitioners could easily be made to mentally collapse this way. I also witnessed the guards forcing practitioners under a bed that was less than less than twelve inches off the floor. Changzhou practitioner Lu Yuming was tortured in this way for a long time. Mr. Guo was pushed to the ground, where the police pried his mouth open with chopsticks and then poured cold water into it, one pot after another. Mr. Yang Ruqiang was held under the tap with freezing water pouring over him until his whole body shivered from the cold. Mr. Duan Bingchen's ribs were broken while he was being tortured. Sometimes people ganged together to beat up practitioners: one would hold the door, another would turn the volume of the television up really loud to mask the noise of the beating, and others would beat the practitioner.

Tuanhe Forced Labour Camp goes even beyond other facilities with its brainwashing techniques. There are many books and other materials containing lies and slanderous statements against Falun Dafa. The guards force practitioners to study these daily, threatening that if they don't comply, their prison terms will be extended. Many practitioners' terms have been extended more than once for refusing to study; Mr. Wei Rutan was one of these. The guards also have all kinds of brainwashing videos, approaching this task from every angle they can think of. When there are television broadcasts attacking Falun Gong, the guards make practitioners first watch them, and then write reports on what they have seen; sometimes this occurs several times in a single week. Another sad fact is that the collaborators in the forced labour camp are usually even more vicious than the salaried guards.

The above are only some of the true inside stories that I know. Even these few, however, show how totally different the truth is from the propaganda that Jiang's regime would have the world believe. From just these simple and brief facts it is very easy for an investigator to find out what is really happening. Those responsible for these horrible crimes are deceiving people with their lies. They do everything in their power to keep the victims hidden, and even if you find one, they may not dare to speak out because of their fear of what they have been threatened with. In spite of all of this, I believe that the truth will eventually be revealed to the world, and that the power of evil will never surpass the power of what is right and true.