A Mother's Sorrow: My Son Died as a Result of the Persecution, Our Whole Family Has Suffered from the Party's Cruelties

After the 2004 Chinese New Year, my son was vomiting, shivering and in great pain all over his body. I held his daughter and called out to him again and again, "Our road is not yet finished! You must stick it out!" But it was no use. My son was gone.

The news of my son's death shocked the neighbours. He died so young. Why? Through my tears, I told them of the persecution my son had been subjected to. The neighbours showed their sympathy after they heard the truth. These people's kindness made me feel grateful from the bottom of my heart.

Before the persecution of Falun Dafa started on July 20th, 1999 my son was mentally and physically healthy. But after having been subjected to several years of persecution and "illegal detention" he exhibited strange symptoms. The day after he passed away his nose started bleeding. Even the doctors couldn't explain the symptoms. We didn't think too much beyond that either, so there wasn't any evidence collected. But what did the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) perpetrators really do to my son?

Over the past six years, my whole family has continued to practise Falun Dafa, and because of this we have suffered severe persecution by lawless personnel from the Communist regime. On July 20th, 1999, people at my son's workplace detained him. The local police were also harassing me 24 hours a day. I felt at the time that even the sky had turned dark. I wrote to the authorities at various levels, following the principles Teacher has taught us and expressed my opinions with kindness: "We are kind and innocent people. We follow the principles of 'Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.' We are not guilty of anything." But what awaited me was arrest by the Party's perpetrators. I was taken from my home on November 8th, 1999. They made up lies and accused me of "having a three-people gathering," and sentenced me to one year of forced labour.

We were subjected to inhumane treatment during detention. It was in the cold of winter, and more than 10 practitioners were forced to squeeze together to sleep on a damp floor in a very tiny place. During the 60 days in the detention centre I had to always sleep next to a toilet. Some kind-hearted inmates tried not to use the toilet during the night in order to make it a bit easier for me.

The guards tied eight of us together and forced us to wear shackles weighing over 24 kilos. Later they even tied our hands and feet together. We couldn't walk and could only crawl. Even so, they often beat and kicked us at will.

In the forced labour camp the tortures were even more severe. We were forced to work over 15 hours every day. When we were done with our assigned work, we were forced to work overtime. The guards assigned three prisoners to watch one practitioner and used all kinds of abusive methods on practitioners. They beat us, verbally abused us, took away our clothes, refused to let us sleep, and cancelled family visits. I witnessed many practitioners being beaten so severely that they ended up with bruises and misshapen faces. Some of them were tied up and hung by their handcuffs for several days and nights. Some were forced to stand for a long time under the hot sun in June. Some had broken arms. Some were injected against their will with unknown drugs that cause mental disorders. Some practitioners were locked in very dark, tiny rooms for a very long time without any chance to talk to anyone. The evildoers attempted to turn healthy people into insane and disabled people. There are still practitioners detained in the labour camp who have been abused so cruelly that they weigh only 25 or 30 kilos [66 - 55 lbs.]. The authorities still refuse to release them and we don't even know if they are still alive.

In August 2000, several former practitioners who had gone astray at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp came to our labour camp to start so-called "brainwashing work" to try to deceive practitioners. I realised then that the forced labour camp was not a place where we should remain! We had to get out. Unfortunately, I let myself be "reformed¹" instead of using righteous thoughts. This is a practitioner's shame.

When I returned home from the forced labour camp, I found out that my son was being denied any personal freedom at his workplace. He only came home for a night once in a while under close watch by three policemen. He was also in very poor health and weighed only 45 kilos [99 lbs.], although he was 180 cm tall [5 ft. 9 in.]. I wrote to his workplace and told them the principle that "Good is rewarded with good and evildoing provokes retribution" and asked them to treat Dafa practitioners kindly. I also told the forced labour camp officials that I intended to continue practising Falun Dafa. The authorities attempted to illegally arrest me again. I had to leave home to avoid further persecution.

The CCP ordered a nationwide manhunt for my arrest. They also put pressure on my workplace, causing my workplace to suffer financial loss. They also harassed my family and friends. They went to my sister's home and threatened her, making my sister's family live in fear. They also threatened my elderly uncle in the countryside. He was in such shock that he became seriously ill. These same people never stopped harassing my daughter-in-law when she was pregnant, during the birth, or after the baby was born. They even bothered my neighbours and disturbed their lives.

The persecution my son was subjected to was even crueller. When my son was extremely weak, he was still locked up and tortured in the detention centre, even after his term was up. The guards instigated prisoners to beat him brutally. They didn't give him food or clothes and made him suffer starvation and coldness. In addition to his already having endured long-term pain, my son was tortured for nearly two years. The perpetrators just wanted to torture him to death.

Not until May 2001, after my son had been persecuted to the brink of death, did the authorities let him go home. By then my granddaughter, Ruyi, had been born. The whole family was relying on my 500 yuan² retirement subsidy. But even so, the 610 Office³ agents and other evildoing people still didn't stop harassing us. They did not allow my son to go out. They would call in the middle of the night to interrogate him or other family members, saying it was according to instructions from their superiors.

My practitioner daughter-in-law worked really hard at different temporary jobs, but the income was very little. Seeing the difficult situation at home, I had to go out and do some baby-sitting and housework to help support the family. We are all practitioners and always follow the principles of Dafa, so everywhere I worked people liked me. When they learned of our family's suffering, they offered financial assistance, but it didn't go well for long. When local police chief Wu heard that I was doing housework for people, he came to the house where I worked and refused to let me do my job. Even the people I worked for were annoyed with him and defended me, "They have difficulty making a living. Why can't you let them to do a little work like this? You've got to let them find a way to survive!"

In June 2002, the local police ransacked my son's home again, saying that somebody had reported him. They arrested my son along with my granddaughter. When I went to pick up my granddaughter, my son was again sent to a detention centre for persecution. My one-and-a-half-year-old granddaughter cried for her dad. Lots of people at the scene also shed tears of sympathy. In October, my son was sent to a brainwashing centre. My granddaughter lived in fear and missed her dad every day.

The following year, in order to make a living, my son had to keep looking for jobs despite his frail condition. He did construction work, was a waiter, delivered newspapers, worked as a security guard, and did other odd jobs. After he had worked for only a few days at each job he would be sacked simply because he practised Falun Gong.

My son had an introverted personality and never talked much about his sufferings. Due to the physical and mental torment caused by the evil Party's long-term persecution, he died on February 9th, 2004, only 34 years old. I had to watch my son leave me like that.

My granddaughter was only three years old then. She missed her father every day and asked everybody she saw, "Where did my dad go? My dad will come back." She called her father every day using her toy telephone, hoping he would come home soon. She is now five years old and will start going to school next year. I brought my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter to my house, and we live together. In order to take care of my granddaughter, I decided to transfer my granddaughter's residence registration to my place. But the local police said there were instructions from higher up that I needed to be fingerprinted and go through other inconveniences. How unreasonable this is!

My son is gone. I now live with my daughter-in-law and my granddaughter. I know there will still be difficulties on my cultivation path. Today I emerged from my suffering and wrote down what our whole family has been through during the persecution. We are not asking for anything. We only wish that the persecution would soon come to an end. We must stop the CCP from continuing to persecute kind and innocent people.

Note

1. "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")

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

3. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/1/3/117659.html