The Police Robbed Me on the Street and Hit Me on the Head with A Shovel, Almost Blinding Me

I was born in Fengrun County in Hebei Province. Because of my belief in Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, the local officials and the police have persecuted me over the past few years. I was arrested and sent to a forced labour camp many times. I was beaten so severely that I almost lost my eyesight. The police from the Zuojiawu Police Station stole eight thousand yuan from me in broad daylight. Village head Wang Zhaotian of Zuojiawu Village poured petrol on me and threatened, "We will burn you with petrol and call it self-immolation."

I began to practise Falun Gong in 1997. As a result, both my physical and mental health improved greatly. The change was especially evident in my moral character.

Through cultivation, I truly realised that to be a good person, one must be true to oneself and be dignified and clear-minded. I eliminated many past deficiencies from the bottom of my heart, always trying to be selfless and unselfish, and always to think of others first. I used "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance" as the standard to check my speech and behaviour.

In the beginning my wife was opposed to my cultivation. But gradually, as she saw the dramatic changes in my physical and mental health, she was also moved by Falun Gong's principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance," and switched from opposing it to supporting it. This illustrates clearly that Falun Gong can truly touch a person's heart and inspire sensible thoughts.

When the Chinese government began its full-scale persecution of Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, I, trusting the government, went to Beijing to appeal so that I could say something fair for Falun Gong and the government could know the true situation. On July 23rd, 1999, my wife and I and some other practitioners went to Tiananmen Square. When the plainclothes police found out that we were practitioners, they beat and kicked us. Each of us was beaten by a group of policemen. My nose was injured and kept bleeding. Another practitioner was injured in her lower back, with a scar remaining even today. Then they forced us into a police car. Another practitioner and I saw a few plainclothes policemen beating a pregnant practitioner, and we jumped out of the police car to protect her with our bodies. The policemen hit us on the head and showered blows on our bodies with their leather shoes.

Faced with such irrational violence, we did not retaliate in kind. On the contrary, we stuck to, "Not hitting back when attacked, and not talking back when insulted." (from Zhuan Falun¹: "We have said, however, that as a practitioner one should not fight back when being punched or insulted, but should conduct oneself with a high standard.")

We would not buckle under their violence and betray what we believed in, because our belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance" is absolutely correct. Faced with the persecution from the government, all we wanted to do was to reflect to them the true situation. We were only trying to uphold one of our fundamental rights as citizens.

On May 27th, 2000, when my wife and I went to visit a friend's house in Beijing, the police suddenly broke in. They arrested me, put me in the Tongzhou Detention Centre in Beijing and held me there for over 10 days, claiming that I was attempting to "organise the group." Through this incident, I clearly saw that so the called "govern with the law" advocated by Jiang Zemin was a blatant lie.

When I got back home, some local personnel who persecuted Falun Gong practitioners began to harass me non-stop. In July 2000, the village police station in Zuojiawu Village, Fengrun County, Hebei Province conspired with the police station at the Zunhua Steel Company to arrest me for the second time and take me to the Fengrun County Detention Centre. To force me to give up cultivation, they used all sorts of cruel methods, including: wearing shackles, holding prolonged awkward positions, hanging and beating, hitting the head with a blunt object, forcing me to stand bare-foot on burning hot steel pipes under the scorching sun.

They attempted to interrogate me to get a record. My only reply was, "Falun Gong does nothing wrong by asking people to be good." The policeman tore up one page after another. Finally he wrote, "Falun Dafa is a righteous practice," and said to me, "Now you can sign it." I said to him, "You persecute Falun Gong and you do not deserve to interrogate me." So I still did not sign, and got out of the detention centre after being persecuted for 108 days.

On December 23rd, 2000, the village head Wang Zhaotian of Zuojiawu Village came to my house. He brought some oil and rice to me to show his niceness and tried to get some information from me. I did not accept his gift. He said ferociously, "Don't blame me for not being nice to you this time." On the morning of December 27th, my wife, children, and I were having dinner at home. Suddenly Wang rushed in with a few other people. He yelled, "Isn't he practising Falun Gong now?" Then they arrested me and took me to the brainwashing centre to persecute me.

I was put in a dark room. Later I learned that Wang Zhaotian, the head of Zuojiawu Police Station, and 5 or 6 other people were discussing how to torture me but not cause external injuries. Wang said to me, "Don't think I am afraid to hurt you. Higher authorities have said, 'If we beat you to death, it will be counted as suicide.' If we strangle you with a rope, it will be regarded as you hanging yourself. If we pour petrol on you and burn you up, it will be regarded as self-immolation." As he talked, he picked up a container of petrol and poured it over me to threaten me.

I looked straight into his eyes and advised him not to commit crimes lest he be punished. Finding that I was not intimidated, he found a rope to strangle me hard, cursing me at the same time like mad. In the following days, they took turns torturing me, beating me with wooden sticks on my ribs and naval area, crushing my fingers and toes, and even hitting my head with a shovel, causing bleeding in my eyeballs so that I almost lost my eyesight.

Faced with this persecution, I told them sternly, "Don't persecute Falun Gong. You will receive punishment for what you do." Once, the chief, Mr. Zhang, said to me, "Didn't you say that Falun Gong is good. Let me read this book and you can answer some questions." He began to read Zhuan Falun in front of me. As he went on, suddenly, he said, "Hum, there is nothing truly wrong here. It only teaches one to be a good person. I am not going to keep on reading it. If I do, I will become a practitioner too." Another time, Mr. Zhang beat me, while cursing me like mad. I said to him, "Our Teacher told us to follow the principles of 'Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.' You should not curse." He would not listen, but he rushed out as though he had suddenly turned crazy. He yelled while running, "I cannot take it. Send me to the hospital. Quick." From then on, he would never dare to do anything bad toward Falun Gong.

Not getting what they wanted they could not help but send me to the Fengrun Detention Centre to let the police there persecute me. The police directed and manipulated the inmates to persecute me. Once, a few of them beat me. They also kicked me so much that they broke their leather shoes. I was released in September 2001.

One day in 2001, while I was on the street, a few policemen appeared suddenly and surrounded me. They robbed me of all my money in broad daylight. They also attempted to take the videotape of Falun Gong from me but I would not let them. Five or six policemen lifted me up by my arms and legs and threw me onto the ground. My head hit the ground and swelled badly. That night, they broke into my home and arrested my wife and me and took us to the Zuojiawu Police Station. They held us overnight, trying to force us to give up cultivation. I rejected them firmly and was released the next day.

In early Spring 2002, another practitioner and I went on a motorcycle to distribute materials exposing the persecution. When the police discovered us, they chased us down with a police car. They arrested us and put us in the Dangyu Town Police Station in Zunhua City. We were cuffed with our hands pulled to the back and put in a small room. The fellow practitioner forced open the handcuffs, jumped out of the window and escaped. I was taken to the city detention centre where the director directed the inmates to persecute me. A few of them covered me with a quilt and began to beat and kick me. My head and chest were severely injured and they have not recovered to this day. When I asked a policeman why they directed the inmates to harm me, he said, "Who saw it? I did not see it happen." Later I was transferred to the Fengrun Detention Centre. I went on a hunger strike for 9 days and finally I was released.

They did not stop persecuting me after my release. Three months later, around July 15th, 2002, they broke into my home again. They knocked me and my wife to the floor, arrested me and took me to the Fengrun Police Department. They sentenced me to three years in a forced labour camp and put me in Team IV in the Hehuakeng Forced Labour Camp in Tangshan City. Policemen Liu Xiaodong and Wang Yulin directed inmates to persecute me with very mean and dirty tricks. They sharpened wooden sticks to prick my ribcage, chest, and belly, squeezed my fingers and toes, poked my eyeballs, kicked my genitals, jumped on my body, tied my arms and legs while pulling them toward the back, hit my chest with blunt objects, deprived me of my sleep for a long time, forbade me to go to the toilet and put me in solitary confinement.

I refused to write the three statements to betray Falun Fong. Due to prolonged persecution, my body was badly harmed. The police in the Hehuakeng Forced Labour Camp were afraid that I might die. In March 2003, they secretly planned to send me to the Baoding Forced Labour Camp in Hebei Province. When the car came to get me, I refused to go and demanded that they be punished, but they forced me into the car.

At the Baoding Forced Labour Camp, the police forced me to have a physical check up. It was found that my heart was functionally impaired and I had lump the size of a ping-pong ball at the end of my penis. They rushed to arrange a medical parole for me and released me on March 21st, 2003.

During the few years that I was persecuted, the police would do whatever they could to cause practitioners to give up their belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance." They even went as far as to try to trick practitioners into having dinner or a banquet, get them to drink or gamble, or trick them into prostitution. When they met with practitioners' firm rejection, they would then get angry, arrest them and torture them.

The above is the persecution that I personally encountered. Even today, thousands and thousands of practitioners are still being tortured and persecuted. All this is evidence of the persecution that has happened or that is happening under Jiang Zemin and the Communist regime in China. It is also evidence of practitioners' peace and strength stemming from their belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance," when they were faced with cruel persecution and malicious lies.

Note

1. Zhuan Falun: This book comprises the principal teachings of Falun Dafa.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/12/29/117510.html