I Was Persecuted for Six Years

Ms. Wei Jianyu, a Falun Gong practitioner from Shaowu City, Fujian Province, was a lecturer at the Fujian University of Technology. Since July 20th 1999, Ms. Wei has had her home ransacked on many occasions and has suffered brutal persecution. In April of 2000, she was arrested and detained for her belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance." She was sentenced to four years in prison at the Fujian Province Women's Prison. In November 2003, Ms. Wei became very skinny and emaciated due to the torture at the prison. In November of 2004, after she had been home for about half a year, Ms. Wei was once again taken from her home, simply because she practised the Falun Gong exercises outside. She was detained in the Fuzhou Forced Labour Camp for a year.

Ms. Wei's eldest brother, Mr. Wei Jianhui, gained a second chance at life after he started practising Falun Gong. However, after the persecution of Falun Gong began, the police continuously harassed him and detained him. He died in September 2004. Their mother, Ms. Yu Meiying, who was once also detained for appealing for the right to practise Falun Gong, died in December of 2004 from the shock of her son's death and her daughter's re-arrest after having already suffered four years of forced labour.

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My name is Wei Jianyu. I am 40 years old and from Zhaowu City, Fujian Province. I was a lecturer at Fujian University of Technology, but because I firmly insisted on practising Falun Gong after the persecution started in July 1999, I have been illegally detained, sentenced, and had my home searched many times. Because of the pressure and terror, my husband divorced me. On April 18th, 2004, I returned to my hometown after four years in prison, but only half a year later, on November 4, 2004, when I went to a park to practise the Falun Gong exercises, I was reported to the police who searched me and my home and detained me under the charge of "disrupting social order." I went on a hunger strike to protest and was set free on the sixth day. However, at noon on November 15th, the police suddenly came to my home and took me to a detention centre. Early the next morning, I was sent to Fuzhou Forced Labour Camp for one year of forced labour.

After I started practising Falun Gong, both my body and mind became better and I started doing better at work. Every morning I would go to the park to practise the exercises to keep fit, but because I persisted in practising Falun Gong, and believed in the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance," I was thrown into a labour camp. In order to peacefully express my thoughts, I felt I had no choice but to go on a hunger strike. However, after four days, the labour camp even deprived me of my right to reject food. With no regard to the condition of my health, they force-fed me using all sorts of cruel methods.

(1) First, they used a device to pry open my mouth and inserted a thick medical stomach tube. My mouth was cut and bleeding from the contact with the device and it became swollen. When the stomach tube was inserted, I felt horrible and vomited out all the food they force-fed me.

(2) The mouth-opening device was used to pry open my mouth and they forced a stainless steel soup spoon deep into my mouth while five to six camp personnel clamped my nose, cheeks, head, hands and feet to keep me from moving. They even randomly scratched my armpit and the private and sensitive parts of my body. Sometimes, they would shove spoonful after spoonful of food into my throat. Food overflowed and flew all over my body until I vomited.

(3) They also force-fed me with a tube inserted through my nose and kept it inside of me for days. Each time they force-fed me, they would insert very little food, but they kept the tube in for a long time.

In February 2005, I became all skin and bones from the torture. The special team of the labor camp was afraid that I might die, so they told the duty staff that monitored me during the day to scrutinize my every movement. The staff was even put on duty at night to check whether or not I was alive. I could not sleep well at night and often woke up. I was even forced into hospitalisation twice, costing me several thousand yuan¹. In order to make my family pay the money, they asked my little sister to visit me, although they always refused her visits previously.

Because I refused to submit to the persecution they put me through, I was often punished. They made me stand for a long time, and I was subjected to "physical training." For a long time, I was force-fed twice a day. I was also scolded and cursed. Government officials from the special team and an individual medical guard cursed at me at will and the labour camp personnel went along with the officials and doubled the abuse. Some even started beating me.

Since the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20th, 1999, over the course of the last more than six years, I have been unlawfully detained, put into various prisons and suffered all sorts of brutal torture. However, no matter how harsh and brutal the torture methods, our principles and beliefs should not be cast aside.

The power of Dafa has no boundaries. Even after severe torture and abuse, my body healed over the course of one year, almost as if it had been completely remolded. I became kind hearted and open minded, I had a better posture, and I became stronger. I was not easily fatigued.

On October 24th, right before they were going to let me out of the forced labour camp, they stopped force-feeding me [while I was still on hunger strike]. Captain Wu Pinyu said to those that had been "transformed²" "Look at her now. Wait three to five days, and see what she will look like. Everyone is a witness." However, what happened was completely contrary to what she expected. Several days later, I looked exactly the same as I had before. Not even the doctors understood why. They force-fed me once on October 27th, then they stopped for three days. From October 31st to November 3rd, they force-fed me once a day. After those 11 days, however, I had not changed at all.

Modern medicine can't explain what happened to me. Falun Dafa is supernatural, and countless practitioners have gained healthy bodies and minds.

My younger sister came to pick me up on November 4th. It was then that I learned that my mother could not bear the shock of my second arrest and passed away towards the end of December 2004.

My mother was also a Falun Gong practitioner. After the persecution began in 1999, she became overwhelmed with grief.

(1) My second eldest brother was deeply poisoned by media propaganda, and upon seeing me being persecuted and helpless with nowhere to go, it caused him to become hostile and belligerent towards Falun Gong and its practitioners. In the years I was in prison, my brother blamed my mother as the cause of the persecution. My mother tried reasoning with him but he refused to listen, so she silently endured, trying her best to do housework for him, and hoping that he and his wife would become clear-headed.

(2) Towards the end of 2001, my mother and eldest sister-in-law (also a practitioner) went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. The plainclothes police at Tiananmen Square asked mother whether she was a Falun Gong practitioner. As soon as she answered "yes," they arrested her. My sister-in-law was arrested afterwards. They were detained at the Shaowu Detention Centre for 15 days. The police extorted more than 2,000 yuan from each of them.

(3) After my eldest brother started practising Falun Gong, his terminal liver cancer disappeared without any medical assistance and he understood that his life was extended for his cultivation in Falun Gong. Since childhood, he had been weak and feeble, constantly relying on medicine to stay alive. After he started practising Falun Gong, he no longer took medicine and his body gradually recovered. However, less than two years after he started practising Falun Gong, the persecution began. During the years of persecution, my brother suffered many hardships. He was arrested and tortured for telling people the truth about Falun Gong. The torture he went through was far beyond his endurance. After he came home, the local police constantly harassed him. When they saw him reading Falun Gong books, they searched his home without a warrant and took him to the police station for interrogation. His wife was also interrogated and cuffed and hung up many times for refusing to answer questions. After the police searched for and confiscated his precious Dafa literature, my brother, who suffered mental and physical harm, became nervous and terrified. On the morning of September 2nd, 2004, when he was fighting his illness with all his strength, three police officers came again. After 5 p.m. that day, my eldest brother passed away. His death devastated my mother.

(4) I have been arrested many times since the persecution began. While my eldest brother and I were being persecuted in prison, our mother was constantly worried about us. Before she died, when I was forced to stop eating, my mother still worried about my safety. Before my 70-year-old mother started practising Falun Gong, she was emaciated. After she started practising she became strong and healthy again. The evil Communist Party's brutal persecution of Falun Gong eventually caused both my mother and eldest brother to pass away.

After I walked out the iron gates of the labour camp on November 4, 2005, I had to clean up my home, which was riddled with litter like a dumpster. Upon seeing the situation I was in, my kind-hearted relatives and neighbours cared for me and tried to help. Despite everything, my second eldest brother blamed me for our parent's deaths. My father was terminally ill and died in June 1999, at the age of 75. When he was alive, he approved of Falun Gong for teaching people to be good. Not only did my brother break our father's will, deprive me of all the property I was to inherit, and seize all property, he even turned nothing into something in order to curse me over it, treated me with belligerence and even threatened to kick me out. From my brother's actions, I realized the agonising suffering my mother went through when I was in prison. The lies the Communist Party mobilised to carry out the persecution consumed my second brother, destroying his conscience and basic sense of humanity

The evil party caused the death of my family members and shattered those remaining. Practitioners oppose the persecution and stand by the truth. Dafa gave me a new life. The truth is eternal; the turning tide of history is inevitable; Falun Dafa will be one day be praised by all beings.

Attachment: Wei Jianyu's personal information

Wei Jianyu's lecturer certificate

Wei Jianyu's "Outstanding Teacher in Charge" award

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

2. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/12/28/117197.html