Testimony by Falun Gong Practitioner Living in Norway: How I Was Persecuted and Tortured in China

My name is Dai Ying. I am 48 years old. I am in Norway.

First of all, I would like to thank the international human rights organizations for providing me with this opportunity to reveal how I was persecuted in China’s detention centers, prisons and labour camps.

The Chinese Communist Regime has been persecuting Falun Gong for seven years. In these seven years, I was illegally sentenced to a three-year term in a labour-reform camp, then another two-year term in a labor-reeducation camp. During the five years I was imprisoned: I was mercilessly tortured by the evil communist party and suffered from a total loss of vision in my left eye, and upper and lower tooth migration and dislocation.

Today, I will reveal to the international society how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) used the government to mercilessly torture and persecute me. I hope the international community and people all over the world will discover the truth about how the CCP persecuted Falun Gong, clearly understand the evil nature of the CCP, and abandon any illusion about the evil Party. I hope you will not be cheated by the Chinese Government’s lies and enjoy freedom from its manipulation.

Discovering Falun Dafa (Falun Gong)

I began practicing Falun Dafa in 1997. Before practicing, I suffered from many illnesses including: erosive gastritis, atrophic gastritis, enteritis, gynecopathy, constipation and psychasthenia. I had a poor appetite and did not sleep well. My whole body ached. I went to see many doctors without any improvement. Every day of my life held suffering for me. Every month, I cost my company 1,000 to 1,500 yuan in medical expenses. The company leaders were unhappy about it: they said, “You are one of the youngest, yet your medical bills cost us the most.”

In October of 1997, my husband was introduced to Falun Dafa. Later, I joined him in the practice. Only one week after I began practicing Falun Gong, a fellow cultivator at the practice site said to me, “Your dark complexion has turned pinker.” I experienced how it felt to be energized from head to toe, without illness. Such experience was so wonderful. I have never fallen ill in the last nine years-- ever since I started practicing Falun Gong. I appreciate Teacher Li Hongzhi from my heart. It was Teacher Li who saved my life. At our practice site, I knew many people who got well after practicing Falun Gong. Not only their health conditions were improved, their characters also improved. Tens of millions of people have benefited from practicing Falun Gong in China. Despite its good nature, Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan initiated a comprehensive persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999.

Detention

On July 21st, 1999, my husband and I appealed to the municipal government of Shenzhen city, Guangdong province, in the name of Falun Gong. There, the Shenzhen police illegally arrested us. The police department detained my husband at a secret location until he successfully escaped ten days later.

On September 29th, 1999, the police in Shenzhen City illegally arrested my husband and me for the second time. We were detained at Futian District Detention Center. My family tried to rescue us. I was released on bail fifteen days later, but my husband continued to suffer persecution under detainment.

My husband, Li Jianhui, persisted in cultivating Falun Dafa and believing in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The Shenzhen municipal government reported his name to the 610 Office of Guangdong province, and the 610 Office’s Central Committee as well. The persecution was escalating. A prosecutor in the Shenzhen Procuratorate told my husband that he was innocent; however, the court was ordered by higher authorities to sentence him for political reasons.

Before the court hearing, I appointed an attorney named Ms. Qu Ci from New Century Attorney Office in Shenzhen City, and my brother-in-law appointed another attorney named Ms. Xu to work with her in defense of my husband. After they studied the files, they both believed that my husband was innocent. Attorney Qu Ci brought the files to Beijing and invited authoritative experts in the legal circle to discuss the case in a forum. The experts comprehensively proved, from constitutional and legal points of view, that my husband was innocent. So attorneys Qu and Xu decided to plead my husband innocent.

Two days before the court hearing, Shenzhen City Court heard that the attorneys planned to plead innocent. Shenzhen City Police Department acted on behalf of Shenzhen municipal government to stop attorney Xu from defending for my husband. Shenzhen City Judicial Bureau also forced attorney Qu Ci to terminate her contract with me, thus preventing her from defending my husband. Neither attorneys, nor family members were allowed to attend the hearing. The court assigned another attorney to plead my husband guilty.

China’s constitution stipulates that every defendant and his/her family members have the right to appoint attorneys to act on the defendant’s behalf. However, Shenzhen City Court knowingly violated the law. Put directly, the government was persecuting Falun Gong. Law has never applicable when they persecuted Falun Gong. At the end of February 2000, Futian District Court in Shenzhen City illegally forced a four-year prison sentence on my husband. The entire judicial process completely violated the constitution and had no legal basis.

I decided to go to Beijing to appeal to the State Council, as the Chinese Constitution grants every citizen the right of appeal. I wanted to appeal for justice against the persecution of Falun Gong and Falun Gong practitioners. On March 5, 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal. I was arrested by police and sent back to Shenzhen to be detained at the Futian District Detention Center.

Torture and Persecution

Under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), there are no human rights. The CCP chieftains often claimed, in their public speeches overseas, that the CCP spoke of the rights of survival instead of human rights. The rights that the CCP grants Chinese people are the so-called survival rights of an animal. These rights will be taken away from a citizen if he or she refuses to be obedient. The court can violate the constitution and laws, and pronounce an innocent person to be guilty without any evidence. It became a crime for me to appeal to the government in attempt to clear the name of my husband. I was detained and waited for a court sentence.

To continue protesting the persecution, I had no choice but to go on hunger strike. During my third day of hunger strike, the guards at the detention center began to force-feed me. Force-feeding has become a means for prison guards to torture Falun Gong practitioners.

They dragged me out of my cell. Four or five people pressed against the ground to prevent me from moving. They inserted a very thick rubber tube into my nostril, causing my nose to bleed. When the tube failed, they used a screwdriver to pry open my teeth and inserted a thick, sharpened bamboo tube into my mouth. It hurt so much that I felt as if they were splitting my mouth open. This force-feeding consisted of either food or dense salt water. I felt suffocated. Food and blood kept spurting from my mouth and nose. Every time they finished, I felt as if I had died. They force-fed me every two or three days, not out of concern for my life, but for the purpose of torturing and devastating me. Once I gritted my teeth and tightly closed my mouth. Doctor Zhou in the detention center used the largest screwdriver to pry open my teeth. My two front teeth were pried off, and the rest of my upper and lower front teeth were pried loose.

A fellow practitioner, Ms. Jiang Xiaowen, was detained in the cell next to mine at the labor camp. The guards pried off her two front teeth. Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Xue Aimei was detained in the same cell as I was. I witnessed how the guards brutally force-fed her chili oil and chili powder. Every time she came back from force-feeding, her nose and face were covered with blood, and chili oil and food covered her body.

Since we were illegally detained and had not committed any crimes, we refused to wear prison uniforms. Over a dozen of Futian District Detention Center’s policemen and policewomen came in and forced over twenty female Falun Gong practitioners to strip. One female practitioner was dragged in front of male prisoners naked in order to humiliate her.

We were also forced to do slave labor in the detention center every day. We manually sewed leather shoes, which caused blood blisters to form on our fingers. Our fingers also became deformed and curved from this labor. All the products we made were exported to America and Europe. We were forced to work from 7:30AM until midnight or 1:00 AM. In addition, we had to take a night shift of one to four hours every night. We worked on weekends, as well. Thirty people would live in a room of about 30 square meters (or 330 square feet) and a squat toilet. When we slept, we had to lie on our sides to save space, with one’s head next to another’s feet and vice versa. Our meals consisted of mildewed rice. In the labor camp, no one treated us as human beings.

The evil CCP soon sentenced me to three-years of imprisonment. On March 8th, 2001, I was transferred to Shaoguang Prison (currently known as Guangdong Province Women’s Prison). I refused to give up my belief of Falun Dafa, and refused to plead guilty. Because of this, Instructor Luo, Director Dai, Chief Zheng Zhu’e, Chief Cai Guangping, Clerk Lin and Clerk Yang lectured me in turn everyday. They coupled threats with promises. They threatened me, verbally abused me, and brainwashed me. They often forced me to watch programs that slandered Falun Dafa and Teacher Li. When I refused to give up my belief of Falun Dafa, they punished me and forced me to face the wall. I was not allowed to move, sit down or sleep. Every day consisted of speeches, writing reports, and punishment. On the third day, I couldn’t stand anymore any more and my legs gave out beneath me. They woke me up and forced me to stand again. I fell down again, and they forced me to stand once more. This process repeated until I could not stand up again. They allowed me a short nap, but soon made me face the wall once more. They didn’t allow me more than two or three hours of sleep for many days. Even during those two or three hours, they ordered two prisoners with infectious diseases to supervise me as my “personal cangues”. One had pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and the other one had a skin disease. My naps were used a means to torment and threaten me with the contagious diseases.

During a large-scale meeting, the guards took me onto the stage. Instructor Luo told everyone that I practiced Falun Gong and no one was allowed to talk to or share anything with me. They did not allow me to buy daily necessities. I could only drink water from the bathroom.

Every day, I had three or four personal cangues. Whether I had meals, used the toilet or took a bath, they followed me everywhere I went. They deliberately created trouble, abused, and insulted me. On top of this, they reported my every word and action, throughout all 24 hours of the day, to their chief.

As I refused to be “transformed,” the guards frequently shocked me with electric batons. They often threatened me, “If you don’t transform, we will send you to the Northwest.” Northwest referred to the concentration camps in the remote and secluded regions of northwestern China. Many people imprisoned there vanished.

After only being tortured for one month, I suffered from a high blood pressue of 220 and escalating, even though my it had alway been normal before. I was in a trance-like state. My blood pressure remained high. Even so, I still did 14 hours of slave labor a day. I couldn’t rest if I didn’t finish my assignment. We made all kinds of leather sandals and stringed lights for Christmas trees. The high labor intensity and ultra long work hours exhausted me. I always felt as if my limbs were falling apart.

When instructor Luo found out that I still refused to give up practicing Falun Dafa, one day she told me that she was too nice to me. She threatened to lock me in a cell with a mental patient so that the patient could spread her body waste on me. She gave me 15 minutes to consider it. I told her, “I am not afraid.”

Disabled Vision

A few days later, around 10:00 PM, Secretary Lin and three prisoners with heavy sentences came in and dragged me to a basement. The three prisoners pressed me into the ground and held me so tight I could not move. Secretary Lin began to shock me with an electric baton. She pressed it onto my acupuncture points and sensitive spots, including my temples, the Renzhong acupuncture point (philtrum), the central nervous system at my cervical vertebra and other places. I cried out in pain. It felt like my head had split open from the shocks. I could hardly endure the pain that permeated my body. After thirty to forty minutes of this torture, I could no longer stand.

The morning after, I found my vision to be blurry. Everything looked cloudy. This was a direct consequence of the electric shocks. Under my strong request, Chief Zheng and Clerk Yang took me to Lishi Hospital (outside of the prison). The examination showed that my optic nerves were bleeding in many places. I was losing vision in my left eye. The doctor said that it would not recover, and would soon become blind. My right eye was also affected. Now, my right eye has a vision of 0.1 and my left eye vision has a vision of zero. (Normal vision is 1.5.)

The CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong has caused great harm to my family. My husband and I were imprisoned. My daughter was only 14 years-old and had no one to take care of her. My mother died in the persecution. There is no way to recover these losses.

Prisoner Liu Cheng participated in persecuting me in the prison. He told me, “You are nothing compared with Song Ping. She was tortured even worse. What you have endured is only 1/10th of what she has suffered. When Song Ping was shocked with electric batons, they poured water on her until she was soaked. Then they used several electric batons to shock her simultaneously. When she was shocked, she bounced against the wall, then bounced back to the ground. And then the shocked her again. She had bruises all over her body. She was very miserable. Afterwards she could not eat at all. She was sent to a hospital.”

My eye was blind after the electric shock. However, I was still forced to work overtime every day, until two months before my term expired when the prison agreed to release me, under the conditions of bail, for medical treatment. My family came to bring me home.

Only two months after I returned home: 10:00 PM, February 27th, 2003, policeman Wang Xiang and over a dozen others from the Shenzhen 610 office broke into my home and abducted my husband and me. They took us to the Futian Detention Center again. In the detention center, I met Ms. Wang Suqin, a 67 year-old Falun Gong practitioner. She told me that when the police from Shenzhen 610 office interrogated her, they cuffed her in a small, solitary cell. They continuously blew her with a fan i for two days and two nights during the freezing winter, and didn’t allow her to eat or sleep. She said her daughter Li Xiaoqiu was also detained in Futian District Detention Center. Her daughter was mercilessly tortured by Shenzhen 610 office. She asked someone to pass a note to her mother, telling her that she would not commit suicide and, if she died, it would be due to torture.

Torture in Sanshui Women’s Labour Camp

Because I was not “transformed,” I was illegally sentenced to another two-years of labor reeducation only two months after my release. I was detained in the third brigade of the first district at Guangdong Province Women’s Labor Camp in Sanshui.

At the Sanshui Labour Camp, I was locked up in a small cell. All the windows and doors were sealed with paper so people couldn’t see from outside. Warden Xie, Warden Tang, Section Chief Ge, Section Chief Chen, Chief Sun, Chief Tang, Chief Zhang and Guard Liu Ai persecuted me. They did not allow me to write to my family, nor did they allow my family visit me. Every day, they brainwashed me, gave me lectures, forced me to watch television programs that slandered Falun Gong and Teacher Li, and forced me to write reports. They did not allow me to sleep or relieve myself in the lavatory. The spiritual torture and brainwashing were the most painful. They forced you to tell lies against your conscience, to confound good and evil and to slander God and Buddha. The pain of such spiritual torture was beyond description. I had seen some practitioners become seriously ill right after they were “transformed.” Some could not even walk. More than 30 practitioners were persecuted and suffered from high blood pressure. I knew a female practitioner who was persecuted and became mentally disabled; the prison didn’t notify her family. Some practitioners were persecuted into nothing but skin and bones.

Some practitioners were transported out of the prison when they were persecuted into critical conditions. When the prison transferred such practitioner, the guards drove everyone else into another room and locked the door. Then guards and drug-related prisoners wrapped the dying practitioner in a blanket, carried her downstairs and secretly transferred her. No one knew where she was sent. What shameful thing were they doing?

Our slave labor consisted of sorting trash. The trash was shipped in from Hong Kong. It was dirty and smelt awful. We had to sort out plastic and metals from the trash. No one outside the prison would do such a filthy job. However, we were forced to do it. Everyone had a daily quota. The reeducation term would be extended if we fail to meet the quota.

One day in May 2004, they assembled about 160 Falun Gong practitioners together. Doctors from People’s Hospital of Foshan City came to give injections to the us. We did no know what kind of injection was being given. I asked Chief Sun why only Falun Gong practitioners, but no other prisoners (such as drug addicts), were given the injections. She answered, “We would not give them injections even if they wanted them. This is the government’s special treatment for you.”

Several guards held a practitioner and injected her by force. The practitioner fainted at the scene. Seeing that, many practitioners resisted the injections. I also resisted. Despite the struggle, some practitioners were still given the injections. But overall, the guards gave up when we resisted the injections.

A few days later, they changed tactics. The guards took a few practitioners at a time to the labor camp’s clinic. The doctors from People’s Hospital in Foshan City came to give physical exams, and take blood tests, electrocardiograms and x-rays. All the equipment was brought from the People’s Hospital and installed in a large bus.

When a doctor examined me, he inquired about my heart condition in detail. He asked if I had ever had any heart problems before. During the physical exam, the doctor especially pressed and tapped at my waist (kidney region), and asked me if it hurt. Every practitioner was given a physical exam and had a blood sample taken, including the practitioners who had mental disorders. However, prisoners who were not Falun Gong practitioners were not examined. In light of the CCP’s recently revealed crimes regarding the organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners, the underlying cause of the physical examinations becomes clear.

When people came to visit or inspect the prison or the labor camp, all Falun Gong practitioners were locked in a secret room, except those who had given up cultivation. They were interviewed and told the lies that the instructors told them to tell.

I was on the verge of collapse from the long-term persecution in Sanshui Women’s Labour Camp. My blood pressure was as high as 250, and I often fainted. I was constantly in life-threatening condition, and the labour camp was reluctant to take responsibility if I died, so I was released on bail for medical treatment on September 20th, 2004.

Escaped from the CCP’s Clutches

The wicked Shenzhen 610 office started another round of persecution. On the evening of September 7th, 2005, we were informed before they came and immediately left home. We left just in time, as they arrived soon after. They failed to arrest us, but did not give up. They searched for us in many places, tracked us through means of telecommunication, and used the video cameras at the major entrances and exits of Shenzhen city to pursue us.

We were destitute and homeless for nearly two months. Our arrival in Thailand came after numerous untold hardships. We went to the United Nations’ Refugee Agency and told them the true situation of Falun Gong in China and of our own experiences. With the help of the UN Refugee Agency, we finally escaped from the CCP’s clutches and arrived in Norway.

My husband and I would like to thank the United Nations and the Norwegian Government for their support and help. We would also like to appeal to all kind and righteous people around the world and all righteous governments, to work together to stop the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.

March 10th, 2006