Where Are You, My Loved One? Part I

Index

Foreword

They Never Returned
Their Whereabouts are Unknown During the Persecution
Secret Transfer and Death Camps
I'm Calling out to You from the Other Side of the Ocean
Please Help Rescue Disappeared Children
Endnote

Foreword

My husband is a Falun Gong practitioner. He conducted himself according to Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance after he started practising Dafa. He didn't indulge in gambling or drinking like other men, nor did he spend too much time and energy on making personal connections for the purpose of gaining a back door in business. He was always sincere, worked hard and didn't want anything in return. Our daughter was very young, and we didn't have anyone help us take care of her. My husband took over shopping, household chores and childcare. He also took care of his parents and was the most caring husband in the world. My friends and colleagues were envious that I had a "role model husband." My mother also said, "There are not too many young people like him nowadays. You are so lucky!" I felt I was the happiest person on earth, because I had a husband who truly loved me and a great family.

In July 1999, the persecution against Falun Gong started, and our life was shattered. TV and newspapers were filled with blasphemous words, claiming Falun Gong practitioners commit suicide and murder and don't care about their families. I knew none of it was true, because Falun Gong practitioners like my husband are kind, upright and selfless people. My husband said to me, "There is an ancient Chinese proverb, 'if you receive a drop of water, you should return a spring.' Falun Gong gave us a happy life. Now it is being treated unjustly. Do I not have the courage to speak a fair word, as someone who has benefited from it?"

With an altruistic conscience, many Falun Gong practitioners went to Beijing to appeal. Many of them disappeared; many were arrested, beaten, were sent to prisons, yet they never gave up.

On the first day of the 2001 Chinese New Year my husband got out of bed. He didn't turn on the light because he didn't want to wake our daughter or me. He moved around on tiptoes. I woke up long before, but I didn't open my eyes, fearing I would lose control. I choked back tears and kept my eyes closed. I felt my husband looking tenderly at me and our daughter, and he left after lightly kissing our daughter on the cheek.

This is the beginning of a story that took place in China after July 20th, 1999, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Jiang Zemin's group drove the entire government machinery to carry out genocide against hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners. They issued the policy to "ruin their reputation, bankrupt them financially and annihilate them physically." Prisons and barbaric tortures await Falun Gong practitioners who persist in their belief in Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, who went to explain the truth to the government and the people. Their families sometimes travel hundreds of miles to the facility where the practitioners are held. They beg and beg, and yet the authorities would not let them meet with their loved ones, who they have not seen for a long time. Sometimes, all they get to see are the scar-covered bodies of their loved ones, and sometimes they are not even permitted to see the body and merely receive a box of ashes. Their anxiety while waiting for news and the grief when the practitioner is dead is beyond words.

Since March 2006, the secret Sujiatun death camp run by agents of the CCP was exposed, and the whole world was shocked. Since 2001, Thousands of practitioners were held at this camp. Most of them have had their hearts, kidneys, corneas and skin removed and sold for profit before they were taken to the crematorium to destroy the evidence! Sujiatun is only one of 36 camps in China. Investigation by the World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) shows that live organ harvesting and sale has happened and still is happening in many places in China including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Shandong Province, Liaoning Province and Guangdong Province. This explosive information brings endless mental torment to the family and friends of Falun Gong practitioners and also tugs at the heartstrings of kind people in the world.

The CCP and Jiang Zemin's group have been cold, brutal and inhumane in their persecution of Falun Gong. The victims and their families have suffered far more than people can imagine. What's exposed in this article is only a tiny portion of incidents of disappeared practitioners. This information is provided by Falun Gong practitioners who broke through the information blockade and risked their lives. We don't know how many more crimes still remain hidden under the CCP's high-pressure blockade, lies and cover-ups.

II. They Never Returned

Since the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong, Falun Gong practitioners from all parts of China went to Beijing to appeal in accordance with the law. They peacefully appealed in Tiananmen Square and told the government and people that Falun Gong is good. They hoped to end the persecution and restore people's birthright of freedom of belief. All channels of appeal, however, were blocked, and the State Bureau of Letters and Calls and Tiananmen Square became places where Falun Gong practitioners are arrested. Practitioners who appealed were unconstitutionally arrested, detained, savagely beaten and even tortured to death. Many practitioners never returned home and have lost touch with their families.

Due to Jiang group's implication policy, which punishes the local officials for appealing Falun Gong practitioners within their precincts, an effort was made to suppress civil appeal. In some large state-run enterprises, the officials are punished and demoted and all employees at these companies have their year-end bonuses cancelled for one Falun Gong practitioner who went to Beijing to appeal. Falun Gong practitioners are unwilling to involve people in the local area, or their superiors, the local police, their families and friends, so they refuse to tell their names and addresses. Maybe we will never know exactly how many Falun Gong practitioners went to Beijing to appeal, and how many of them were tortured to death because of it.

The death of "L25"

In the evening of November 26th, 2000, 14 Falun Gong practitioners who went to Beijing to appeal were sent to the Qianan City Detention Centre in Hebei Province. They came from all over the country and were taken to the detention centre because they didn't want to implicate other people. To force them to give up their belief and provide their personal information, the guards savagely tortured them. They forced the practitioners to kneel on the ground, pulled their arms behind their backs and tied them up behind their neck; they grabbed the practitioners' hair and hit them with belts and shoes. Blood streamed down their heads and faces.

"L25" is the number assigned to a young woman Falun Gong practitioner. Inmates who shared the same cell with her said that she wore a suit when she was brought to the detention centre. She was kind and modest, and even the worst inmate liked her. She was given only a palm-sized corn cake for lunch but always shared it with others. She gladly gave her clothes and things to the inmates when they asked for them.

One morning in early January 2001, the guards wanted to force her to give up Dafa and to reveal her name, and they scorched her nose with a cigarette lighter. They grabbed her hair and banged her head against a wall; they tore out her hair in bunches; they plucked out her eyelashes and crushed her feet with their hard boots until her toenails came off and her feet were turned into two unrecognisable balls of blood and raw flesh. She always said, "I'm being a good person according to Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. I didn't commit any crimes." The guards tortured her for 14 hours before carrying her blood-covered body back to the cell. She never told her name or address, even before she died, but everyone who met her remembered her.

Wang Zilin from Jiangbei Tree Farm in Jilin City remains missing for six years

Dafa practitioner Mr. Wang Zilin from Jiangbei, 44 years old, was employed at the Jiangbei Tree Farm in Jilin City, Jilin Province. He was a quiet and kind man who took good care of his wife and daughter. After the persecution started, he felt greatly tormented after he saw the regime's slander and lies against Falun Gong. Out of conscience, he decided to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. He left home on November 19th, 2000 but didn't tell his wife about it because he didn't want her to worry about him. He has never been heard from again.

In the past six years, his families went to many places looking for him. His brother-in-law went to Beijing twice and paid bribes and gave gifts to related government agencies in charge of handling Falun Gong practitioners from outside Beijing, but he found out nothing. According to a Falun Gong practitioner who was once held with Wang Zilin at the Xuanwu District Detention Centre in Beijing, he remembers Wang Zilin saying, "I will not tell my name, even if I die." He was interrogated twice and didn't return the second time. No one has heard from him since.

"If you don't tell us your names, we'll send you to concentration camps"

In the last two days of the year 2000, practitioner Zi Fan went to Beijing to appeal and was arrested in Tiananmen Square. Similar to the plight of other practitioners, she was savagely beaten, handcuffed and put in a fully loaded bus, which took her to a prison in Hebei Province. Zi Fan was sent to the Sanhe City Detention Centre. Below is an account of what she saw and heard at the detention centre.

"More than 100 Falun Gong practitioners from Sichuan Province were held there. Their outfits were very thin and plain. Some were even carrying baskets and they were very poor, but they were all steadfast and determined. Although the police beat them with electric batons, they refused to say where they were from. One group after another of practitioners was brought to the detention centre. The guards and officials from the Sichuan Province Liaison Office in Beijing said, 'There are concentration camps for detaining you guys in Northeast China and near Xinjiang Autonomous Region. If you don't tell your names, we'll send you there and you can forget about ever getting out. No one will know where you are.' Later, I saw bus loads of practitioners who refused to tell their names being taken away. Several hundred practitioners are brought in each day and soon taken away."

On March 18th, 2006, a practitioner with the alias Xiao Yun wrote to the Minghui website [Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net] and said, "On January 1st, 2001 we were arrested in Tiananmen Square and taken to a police department. The police exhausted all of their tactics but still could not get our names. Around 3:00 a.m. they called for an emergency meeting. The police said in a strange tone, 'we'll send you to Masanjia [labour camp], and if you don't reform¹ there, we'll send you to another place.' All practitioners were put in a bus that drove off at a high speed."

"It was snowing and the road was blocked. The bus drove for nearly one day and stopped at around 6:00 p.m. I saw rows and rows of buses, both in front of and behind our bus, and I couldn't see the end of it. I heard the police say that there were about 60 buses, each carrying more than 40 practitioners. After we arrived at the destination, the police that took us there and the officials at the site conducted a very formal and eerie ceremony. Many practitioners were not heard from since then."

Dafa practitioner Ms. Yu Guiping from Lanzhou City disappeared after appealing in Beijing in 2000

Dafa practitioner Ms. Yu Guiping from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province was born on December 26th, 1946. She has a bachelor's degree and worked at the Gansu Province Research Institute of Educational Sciences. She was very sickly before she practised Falun Gong. She had stomach cancer and underwent surgery, was chronically bedridden and could not work. After she started practising Dafa in 1998 she quickly recovered. She was able to take care of herself and could also work and do house chores. She became very healthy and happy, and so did her family. Once she participated in a trip her employers had organised. She helped her colleagues carry their bags and things. Her colleagues were surprised at her boundless energy and praised Dafa.

After the persecution started on July 20, 1999, groundless slanders and lies were launched against Dafa and Teacher. Yu Guiping said to her husband, "Falun Gong gave me a second life and helped me learn the meaning of life. I received so much from Dafa, how can I live in ignoble existence? I must tell people that Falun Dafa is good with my personal experience." On January 25th, 2000 she went to Beijing to appeal by herself and has never returned. No one has ever heard from or seen her. Her husband and other family members went to all of the prisons and detention centres in Beijing but did not find out anything about her.

Some incidents of practitioners who disappeared after appealing in Beijing

Mr. Sun Biao, around 50 years of age, worked at the Huanggang Water Treatment Facility in Hubei Province. He often worked underwater before he started practising Dafa and suffered from numerous illnesses, such as severe schistosome-induced illness. He felt his life was coming to an end. He started practising Falun Gong in 1994, and soon all of his illnesses were healed. He strictly conducted himself according to Falun Gong's principles. He was always thoughtful and helpful, and was well liked among his relatives, colleagues and neighbours. After the CCP started persecuting Falun Gong, Sun Biao went to Beijing to appeal in October 1999. He never returned and was never heard from. The local police extorted 3,000 Yuan² from his wife and said they were going to Beijing to look for him.

Mr. Wang Xingjun lived in Taipu Village in Bingcao Township, Shenzhou City, Hebei Province and is 55 years old. He experienced tremendous physical and mental improvement after he started practising Falun Gong in 1995. After the persecution started Wang Xingjun said to his daughter, "What's said on TV does not match real Falun Gong practitioners! I'm a farmer who makes a living with my hands. I want to get healthy and believe in Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. What's wrong with being a good person?" In order to speak the truth he set off for Beijing on December 8th, 1999. Nothing was ever heard from him, and we don't know if he is dead or alive.

Ms. Zhang Cuirong, 70 years old, is a relative of an employee from the Diesel Engine Manufacturing Company, Shanxi Province. On December 12th, 2000, Zhang Cuirong and some other practitioners went to Beijing to appeal. She was arrested the morning of December 13th and taken to the branch office of the Tiananmen Police Station, where she registered herself as Zhang Zhen from Erdaohezi, Changchun City, Jilin Province. Other practitioners who went with her don't know her whereabouts after they were separated from her. Her son went to 18 police branch offices in Beijing to find her, but to no avail. Her family posted a missing-person advertisement with the Tianjin TV Station, and they also went to look for her at Heizuizi Forced Labour Camp in Erdaohezi, Changchun City, her hometown, but the guards said rudely, "There are over 1,000 people held here. How can I go look for one person for you?"

Mr. Fu Guiwu lived in Houbanla Village, Ershilipu Town, Dalian City, Liaoning Province. He graduated from Chengdu University of Technology in Sichuan Province and worked at an environmental protection agency in Anshan City, Liaoning Province. He disappeared during the early stage of the persecution, soon after July 20th, 1999, and his whereabouts are unknown. He became a very kind person after he practised Falun Gong and never fought with people. His mother said, "I can guarantee that my son is a good person." He is an only child, and his parents cry whenever they talk about him, as they miss him terribly.

II. Their Whereabouts are Unknown in the Persecution

Ms. Wei Xingyan, 28 years old, was a graduate student majoring in High Voltage Continuous Current Transmission and Simulation Technology at Chongqing University. Wei Xingyan was arrested on May 11th, 2003 for explaining the true situation about Falun Gong. In the evening of May 13th, the police took Wei to a room in the Baihelin Detention Centre and ordered two female inmates to strip off all her clothes. Then a police officer in uniform came into the room and pushed Wei Xingyan to the ground and raped her in front of the two inmates. Wei Xingyan sternly warned the police, "I have seen your police badge number. You won't get away with this." After the assault, Wei Xingyan went on a hunger strike to protest. The police officers badly damaged both her trachea and oesophagus while force-feeding her. As a result of this, she was unable to talk.

After the rape was exposed in the international community, the Shapingba District police not only didn't punish the perpetrating police officer, but instead arrested a dozen Falun Gong practitioners. The Chongqing City 610 Office³ and the Chongqing University officials tried their best to cover up the truth. They claimed that there was no such student named Wei Xingyan, and they denied the existence of the field of specialisation called high-pressure direct current transmission and simulation technology (or high-pressured power transformer) at the university. The female students who shared the same dorm room and lived on the same floor as Wei Xingyan also disappeared. The police officers who knew the truth were transferred. Everyone who talked about Wei Xingyan became a target of arrest for the "610 Office" agents. Her current whereabouts are still unknown.

Ms. Xia Aixiang, 42 years old, lived in Qiujiahe Village in Wutu Town of Changle County in Weifang City, Shandong Province. Before she started practising Falun Gong in 1995 she suffered from numerous illnesses, but she was completely healed after she started the practice. She got along better with her mother-in-law and had a great relationship with her husband. She often said that Dafa has given her life! In the evening of August 16, 2001 she was arrested for distributing Falun Dafa materials to her fellow villagers. She was taken to the Wutu Town Police Department and hasn't been heard from since. Prior to the arrest, the local officials and police from Wutu Town savagely tortured her many times.

After Xia Aixiang disappeared, her family looked for her everywhere. According to workers at a crematory, the police took a female corpse to the crematorium several days after August 16th, 2001 and secretly cremated the body. The crematory said that the body was wrapped from head to toe; there was no family member present and the police watched the body the whole time. The workers thought it was strange, and someone quietly told them, "It's a Falun Gong practitioner."

Dark scheme at the Baiyun District Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Guangzhou City

According to a source who had been imprisoned at the Baiyun Drug Rehabilitation Centre in 2001, the "doctors" there often ordered inmates to savagely beat Falun Gong practitioners from other cities who were held there, but the doctors told the drug addicts to preserve the integrity of the practitioners' organs. He personally saw several drug addicts beat a Falun Gong practitioner. A doctor told the torturers, "Do not hit the lower back. The kidneys are useful." Several young and middle age male Falun Gong practitioners with northeast accent who were held with him were taken away and never returned. He said that because their homes are not in Guangzhou City, after they disappear, their families would never think to go there and look for them.

To be continued

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/2006/4/5/124494.html