My name is Dai Ying and I am 48 years old. During the past seven years of the Chinese regime's persecution of Falun Gong, I was sentenced to three years of forced labour. After that, I was taken to another forced labour camp for two more years. During the past five years, I have suffered cruel torture by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Due to the persecution I suffered, I have lost the sight in my left eye, my upper and lower teeth loosened, and my body is deformed.
I wish to expose the cruel torture I suffered at the hands of the CCP regime to the international community, so the world will hear the truth about the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong.
Imprisoned
On July 21st, 1999, fellow practitioners and I went to the Shenzhen City appeals office to appeal to the government. Instead of finding help, the police arrested us. My husband was secretly detained, but 10 days later, he successfully escaped.
On September 29th, police officers from Shenzhen City arrested my husband and me. They ransacked our home and detained us at Futian District Detention Centre. With our family's help, I was bailed out 15 days later, but my husband was still in detention.
Because my husband, Li Jianhui, remained firm in his belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance", Shenzhen government officials reported him to Guangdong Province officials and the 610 Office1 of the Central CCP. The prosecutor from the Shenzhen City Procuratorate told my husband, "You were not guilty, but we had to sentence you. This was dictated by higher authorities."
Before the trial began, I hired a lawyer named Qu from the Shenzhen City New Century Lawyers Office to represent my husband. My husband's brother hired a lawyer by the name of Ms. Xu. Both of them were supposed to defend my husband. After they read everything in his file, they didn't think that he was guilty. Lawyer Qu took this file to Beijing and, during a law seminar, discussed the constitution and other laws in regards to my husband's case. Those experts agreed that my husband had not committed any crime, so Attorneys Qu and Ms. Xu decided to defend my husband and prove his innocence. However, before the trial, Shenzhen City Court learned that lawyers would defend my husband and plead not guilty. Shenzhen municipal government officials used staff at the police bureau to stop Ms. Xu. They did not allowed her to defend my husband. In addition, they had the Shenzhen City Juridical Bureau force Ms. Xu to void her contract with me and barred her from representing my husband in court. They did not allow the two lawyers or any members of our family to be in the courtroom. Instead, they appointed a lawyer who pleaded guilty.
Futian District Court "illegally sentenced2" my husband to a four-year term at the end of February 2000. The trial was illegal under China's Constitution and the procedure was not based on any legal grounds.
Therefore, I wanted to go to the State's Council at Beijing's appeals office. I wanted to speak up for Falun Dafa and its practitioners. (Appealing to the government is also a right granted to every citizen under the Constitution.) On March 5th, 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal. Police officers there detained me and took me back to Shenzhen City, where I was detained in Futian District Detention Centre.
Cruel Torture
In order to resist and protest the persecution, I went on a hunger strike. Three days later, police officers from the detention centre began to force-feed me. Forced-feeding has become a means for guards to torture Falun Gong practitioners.
They carried me outside. Four or five guards held me down. They put a very rigid tube into my nose until I bled. When the tube did not reach my stomach, they forced my teeth open with a screwdriver. Then they put a bamboo barrel with a very sharp end into my mouth with a lot of force. My mouth hurt immediately. After that, they force-fed me with food or condensed salt water. I felt like choking. Food and blood came from my mouth and nose and went all over my clothes. After they finished the forced-feeding, I felt as if I had died. I was force-fed every two to three days.
One time during the force-feeding, I held my teeth closed very tightly. Doctor Zhou from the detention centre used a large screwdriver to force my mouth open. I lost two front teeth and my upper and lower front teeth became loose.
Practitioner Wang Xiaowen also lost two front teeth. I witnessed practitioner Ms. Xue Aimei being forced-fed with chile oil and chile powder. After she returned to her cell, her nose and face were all bloody and she was covered with chilli oil and food. Because we hadn't committed any crimes and were being detained illegally, all of us refused to wear the detention centre uniforms. Guards Li Xiaozheng, Zhang, Meng and others, about a dozen in total, stripped over 20 female practitioners. The guards pushed naked female practitioner out of her cell to show her to male prisoners, just to humiliate her.
We also had to do hard manual labour daily. We made leather shoes. Our fingers developed blisters and became deformed. These products were exported to the US, Europe, and other countries. We were forced to work from 7:30 a.m. to midnight, and sometimes until 1:00 a.m. We weren't given any breaks during the week or on weekends. A cell was just a little over 30 square metres. There was a washroom, but there were over 30 people in the one cell. We had to sleep on our sides and often with our head next to another's feet. For food we were given mouldy rice. The treatment in the detention centre was inhuman.
I was sentenced to a three-year term. On March 8th, 2001, I was transferred to Shaoguan Prison (currently Guangdong Province Women's Hospital) for further persecution. Because I refused to give up Falun Dafa, Political Instructor Luo, Dai, Team Leader Zheng Zhue, Team Leader Cai Guangping, and Assistants Lin and Yang took turns talking to me daily. They used hard and soft tactics, threatened and cursed me, and attempted to brainwash me. They often forced me to watch TV programmes defaming Dafa. When I refused to give up Falun Dafa, they tortured me. They forced me to stand facing the wall, without moving or sitting down. They also deprived me of sleep. Besides talking to me, the only thing they could think of was to make me stand for a long time. Three days passed and I couldn't keep from falling down, but they woke me up and forced me to stand again. Then I fell again, stood up, fell again..... Not until I couldn't stand up anymore did they allow me to sleep. Then they told me to stand again. This went on and on relentlessly. Occasionally, they allowed me to sleep for no more than two hours. During the few hours that they allowed me to sleep, they had two inmates with contagious diseases sleep beside me on the ground. One had TB and the other had a skin disease. Her body was rotting. The guards wanted me to contract their diseases.
One time in our meeting, I was taken to the platform. Guard Lo said in front of hundreds of people, "She practises Falun Gong. No one is allowed to talk to her nor give her any personal items." I was also deprived of buying any day-to-day items for use in the toilet. I had to use water as I was not allowed any paper. Generally I was watched by three to four people when I was eating, using the toilet, and taking a shower. They monitored me closely. They always found fault with me, and swore at and humiliated me. They recorded what I said and then reported it to the guards.
I didn't give up my belief. Therefore, the guards often shocked me with electric batons. They also threatened me, "If you are not 'transformed3,' you will be taken to the Great Northwest." The Great Northwest is located in the Northwest of China. Not many people live there but there are concentration camps, where many of the detained have disappeared.
After just one month of this inhuman torture I developed high blood pressure (before, my blood pressure was normal). It exceeded 220. I felt muddle-headed. Even so, they still forced me to do 14 hours of hard labour daily. When I didn't reach the quota, they didn't allow me to take a break. I made saddles and light chains to hang on Christmas trees. I was totally exhausted.
Seeing that I didn't give up practising Falun Gong, guard Lo said, "I have been treating you too nicely." She threatened to lock me up with a mental patient in solitary confinement and have that mental patient spray urine on me. She asked me to think about it for 15 minutes. After I told her that I didn't care, she gave up.
I Became Blind in One Eye
A few days later, at about 10:00 p.m., guard Li and three criminal inmates carried me to the basement. The inmates pressed me down and tied me so that I couldn't move. Guard Li was holding an electric baton and began to shock me. He shocked me at my acupuncture points and my sensitive parts. He shocked my central nervous system in the cervical vertebra. He shocked me many times. I cried miserably. My heart felt as if it were torn and I was in terrible pain. I couldn't stand up. That time, they shocked me for between 30 and 40 minutes.
The next morning, I could no longer see clearly. This was the result of being shocked for a long time. I demanded that team leader Zheng and guard Yang take me to Li City Hospital, which was outside the prison. The diagnosis was that the blood vessels and vision nerves at the bottom of my eyes were injured. I went blind in my left eye, and my vision was 0. The doctor said that it couldn't be healed, and I would lose my vision in that eye completely. In addition, it also would impact my right eye. My right eye was 0.1, and my left eye became 0.
The persecution by the CCP has caused great harm to me and my family. My family was separated and ruined. My husband and I were detained and my 14-year-old daughter had nobody to take care of her. My mother passed away during this persecution. I was not told about her death.
Liu Cheng, a prisoner who participated in my persecution, said, "You are not treated the most inhumanly. Song Ping was tortured worse than you. What you suffered was only one tenth of what she suffered. When she was shocked, they poured water over her. Once she was wet all over her body, they shocked her with a few electric batons at the same time. She was shocked until she bounced off the wall then bounced back to the ground. Then she was shocked again. She was wounded all over. She could no longer eat. Then she was taken to the hospital."
After being shocked, I became blind. However, Guangdong Women's Hospital still forced me to do hard labour. When my family came to visit, I had to be escorted by two guards. The meeting room is isolated from the outside with walls and windows. We can only communicate through the telephone. Behind me, there was a guard holding another phone to monitor my discussion. He recorded it at the same time. We were not allowed to inform family members about the persecution we suffered. If we ever said even half a sentence about what was going on inside the jail, our phone would be cut off, and we would lose the chance of being visited ever again. Therefore, if a person was detained in the prison, he was forbidden to hear any outside news, nor could those outside find out what was going on inside. Only two months before my term was due to expire did they agree to have someone bail me out for medical reasons and let my family take me home.
At 10:00 p.m. on February 27th, 2003, two months after I returned home, police officer Wang Xiang from the 610 Office in Shenzhen City and over 20 police officers broke into my home. They took my husband and me to Futian District Detention Centre, where I met practitioner Ms. Wang Suqin, who was 67 years old. She told me that when police officers from the 610 Office in Shenzhen City interrogated her, they locked her in a small room. Although it was a very cold winter, they ran fans non-stop for two days and nights and deprived her of food and sleep. She told me that her son, Li Xiaoqiu, was also detained at Futian District Detention Centre. Her daughter suffered from inhuman torture from the police officers in the 610 Office of Shenzhen City. Her daughter asked someone to pass a note to her, which said that she would never commit suicide. Even if [the authorities claimed that she had], she would have been tortured to death.
Sanshui Women's Forced Labour Camp
Because I wasn't "transformed," when I had been home for only two months, I was again taken to a forced labour camp for two years. I was detained in the No.3 Team in the No.1 Ward of Sanshui Guangdong Province Women's Forced Labour Camp.
At Sanshui Forced Labour Camp, I was detained in a small cell. The windows and doors were covered so that people could not see what was going on inside. I was tortured by the head of the forced labour camp, Xie, Tang; Divisional Manager Ge; Chen; Team Leader Sun; Tang, Zhang; and guard Liu Ai.
They didn't allow me to write letters to my family nor allow my family members to come and visit me. They tried to brainwash me, took turns talking to me, forced me to write my "understandings" daily, deprived me of sleep and forbid me from going to the toilet. This kind of mental torture and brainwashing was the most painful. I had noticed that some practitioners became very sick after being forced to undergo brainwashing. Some could no longer walk. Over 30 practitioners suffered from high blood pressure. I also saw that a female practitioner was persecuted to the point of mental collapse. The guard didn't notify her family. Some were skin and bones from the torture. Some were transferred to other places where they were cruelly tortured. Every time practitioners were transferred, guards brought other people into their cells and closed the doors. The practitioners who were dying were wrapped in blankets and carried by guards and prisoners secretly downstairs. No one knows what happened to them.
Every day we were forced to do hard labour sorting garbage. The garbage came from Hong Kong. It stank. We had to take all plastic and metal from the garbage. This is the type of work no one else wants to do, but we were forced to do it. Everyone was assigned a quota. If we couldn't meet the quota, our term would be extended.
In April 2004, about 160 practitioners were locked up in one room. Many police officers and doctors from Foshan City People's Hospital gave us injections and performed medical exams. I asked team leader Sun, "How come you are only examining Falun Gong practitioners and not other prisoners as well?" She said, "Even though they want injections, they will not receive them. This is the special care the government gives you guys." A few police officers brought in a practitioner who had fainted after being injected. After seeing this, all of us resisted and did not cooperate. I was not given an injection, but some practitioners were given injections. Seeing all of us resist it, they stopped giving injections.
A few days later, police officers took a few practitioners to the forced labour camp clinic. Doctors from Foshan City People's Hospital performed exams, took blood for testing, did electrocardiograms, x-rays, and so on. The equipment to carry out these procedures was brought in by staff from Foshan City People's Hospital, and some of it was installed in luxury buses.
When the doctors were giving me an electrocardiogram, they appeared to have found a problem. One asked in detail whether I had a heart problem. I said, "I was persecuted for three years, and I suffered cruel punishment. My heart sometimes stopped beating." During this medical check-up, the doctors pressed and tested my kidneys. One asked me, "Do they hurt?" They took a lot of blood. When I asked the doctor why they took so much blood, the doctor said that it was needed to test for a number of things. In the end, every Falun Gong practitioner had been given a medical check-up and had his or her blood tested. Even those who had developed a mental disorder were not exempt. Other, non-Falun Gong practitioner prisoners didn't have to go through this. At that time I already knew that the medical check-ups were not for our health.
After the exams, I discovered that some practitioners had disappeared; I didn't know where they went. The warden said, "If you don't give up Falun Gong, we transfer you to other places."
I never heard from the practitioners who were transferred. I understood the reason for these medical tests after I heard about the CCP harvesting organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. Then I understood the depth of their deceit .
Because of the long term persecution at Sanshui Women's Forced Labour Camp, I was at the brink of a mental breakdown. My blood pressure was as high as 250. I often felt dizzy. Staff at the forced labour camp realised that my life was in danger and were afraid to take any responsibility. On September 30th, 2004, they told my family to pick me up and bail me out for medical reasons.
Leaving the CCP
On the evening of September 7th, 2005, police officers from the 610 Office in Shenzhen City started another round of persecution. We were warned before the police officers arrived, so we quickly left home. They arrived at our house soon after we had left. Because they couldn't find us, they searched for us citywide. They tried to track us down with electronic equipment. They set up video cameras on the road and at the exits to and from Shenzhen City in an effort to track us down.
After we left home, we wandered around for nearly two months. We made every effort to get to Thailand. Once we were in Thailand we went to the UN Refugee Board. We told them the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong in China and our experiences. With their help we escaped the CCP persecution and now live in Norway.
We hereby acknowledge and appreciate the support and help from the UN and the Norwegian government. We also want to appeal to all kind and just people and governments in the world to join together and stop this brutal persecution!
Note
1. "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.
2. Illegally arrested: Contrary to what former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution, and the Chinese Communist Party would like the world to believe, practising Falun Gong is NOT illegal in China. Although the Public Security Department issued an unconstitutional set of restraints on the practice at the onset of the persecution in 1999, no laws have been passed by the only legislative body in China, the People's Congress, banning Falun Gong or granting the police the authority to arrest Falun Gong practitioners for practising the exercises or distributing flyers. For a more complete discussion of the illegality of the persecution of Falun Gong, please refer to the article "The Ban on Falun Gong—A Dictator's Whim, Not the Rule of Law". (Variation: "illegally sentenced")
3. "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/2006/10/8/139678.html
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