My Family and I Have Been Persecuted Repeatedly Since 1999

Soon after I started practising Falun Gong, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began its unprecedented desperate persecution against Falun Gong.

On July 21st, 1999, Xiangyang District Police Department agents, headed by Internal Security Section Head Cui Rongli (who has since died) demanded that the practitioners in his administration area sign the guarantee statement. Anyone that refused was taken to a detention centre. Since then, on so-called "sensitive days," such as April 25th, July 20th, and October 1st, the authorities have never stopped unconstitutionally persecuting me and my family. Police officer Wang Shouxin and a person surnamed Wang from the residential committee frequently came to my home to harass us, making my family and me suffer.

Some time after 10:00 a.m. on October 22nd, 1999, political head Du from Xiangyang Street Police Station (now the political head of Baowei Police Station), police officer Wang Shouxin, Xu Xiuyun from the residential area, and Wang from the residential committee took me to the Xiangyang Police Station. Police Chief Yu Jiangcheng dashed in from outside, stomped his feet, and cursed me loudly. He tried to force me to sign the guarantee statement. I refused to cooperate. Police officer Du shouted, "If you were my daughter, I would have to beat you to death!"

They also threatened that if I did not sign the guarantee statement to stop practising I would be sentenced. I warned them sternly that I had not done anything against the law and should not be sentenced. I also told them that my husband was out of town and my daughter was only a six-year-old kindergarten student. If I did not go home, there would be nobody to take care of her. They said, "We don't care about that. We will sentence you as long as you continue to practise Falun Gong." Then they compelled me to have my photograph taken and be fingerprinted, treating me all the while as if I were a criminal. About 4:00 p.m. they sent me to the local detention centre for the fabricated "crime of disturbing the social order."

I saw many other practitioners there. Our two daily meals consisted of two cornflour buns and something they called "soup," only with no oil and just a few pieces of vegetable leaves floating on the top. At the bottom of the "soup" was a layer of sand and mud. The cornflour buns sometimes were not cooked enough and sometimes contained rat feces. The police there yelled at us hysterically every day and subjected each practitioner to unimaginable mental torment. One day seemed like a year. Whenever they opened the door, my heart started to pound. One time the district police agents wanted to interrogate us. The police ordered us to walk outside in a single line. Ms. Cao Xiuxia, at the end of the line, wasn't walking fast enough. Policeman Yuan Hailong went up to her and kicked her down to the ground while cursing her loudly. I advised him not to continue his evildoing. He came up to me and beat me with a bundle of cloth he had in his hand. He also threatened that he would "give me a treatment" in a short while. We lived in this high-pressured environment of control everyday. The nerve-wracking life in the detention centre damaged us and our family members physically and mentally. By the end of December 1999, my family members had gone through many troubles. They paid a lot of money and "bought" me out to take me home.

On June 25th, 2000, I was doing the Falun Gong exercises outside my residence at about 5:00 a.m. Internal Security Section Head Cui Rongli from the Xiangyang Police Department, together with other police officers, arrived and took me to the police department. They handed me to a person surnamed Qi. It seemed that he was the head of the Propaganda Department. He said that he was my "guarantor." They tried to force me to sign the guarantee statement again, but I firmly refused. In the morning my father came. He said many good things to the police and assured them that he would guarantee with his life that I would not cause them any trouble. They did not listen and told him, "As long as your daughter practises Falun Gong, we will sentence her. This is the policy from the above." Having no other recourse my father walked away sobbing. That same afternoon, an Internal Security section head named Yu Jinjun sent me to the local detention centre in a vehicle. On the ninth day, my father again paid many bribes and went through all kinds of troubles and was finally able to take me home.

In November 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and held up a banner that said "Falun Dafa is good" on Tiananmen Square. In a flash, many plainclothes police converged and forced me and other practitioners into a vehicle. In the vehicle, another practitioner explained the truth about Falun Gong to the police, but the police verbally abused him, saying, "You should be gunned down or thrown into the wilderness to feed the wild dogs."

Arriving at Zhanqian Street Police Station, the officer kicked me out of the vehicle and berated us, threatening that he would soon teach us a lesson. Many practitioners detained at this police station had come from various locations of the country to peacefully appeal for Falun Gong. The ones that refused to tell their names were locked in cages in the basement. The ones that revealed their names were locked in cages on the first floor, waiting to be escorted back to their hometowns to be detained. My father rushed to Beijing from far away and found me on the first floor of the station. After he paid the police we were allowed to leave. We returned to our hometown by train. Just as we arrived at my hometown and before we had exited the station, Internal Security section head Jiang Yongxin, Li Wanyi from the suburban police department, Changfa police station chief Wang Yanjun and others again took me to the police department. My father was frightened and sobbed. He knelt before them and begged them to let me go. They ignored my father's pleas and hurriedly put me into a detention centre, saying they would sentence me to forced labour.

In the detention centre I went on a hunger strike to resist the ruthless persecution. Detention centre doctor Huang was vicious and force-fed us with a highly concentrated saline solution mixed with cornmeal. He pushed and pulled the unsterilised rubber tube inside each practitioner's oesophagus. When the tube was pulled out it was bloody. This doctor also used obscene language. Guard Cui reported my name to the city and said that I was a head practitioner in the detention centre, and Cui wanted to send me to a forced labour camp. On the morning of the 17th day, 28 practitioners were sent to forced labour. In the afternoon I was unconditionally released.

By the end of 2000, police officer Wang Shouxin and several officers from the Internal Security section of Xiangyang Police Department, six of them in all, broke into my home and took me to the police department. They did not even let me put on my shoes. They tried to force me to write a guarantee statement. I refused. They then sent me to the detention centre. I went on a protest hunger strike. Two days before the Chinese New Year, Cui Rongli and a policewoman came to interrogate me. They said the city did not agree to let me go, but my father had moved the heavens. They would let me go after the Chinese New Year. I knew that they must have swindled my father out of a lot of money. One day before the Lantern Festival I once again returned to my parents' home and continued to live there.

In March 2001, police officer Yu Jinjun, who was in a vehicle, stopped me on the road. There were a few other officers I did not know in the vehicle. Later I learned that they were Chen Yongde and Chen Wanyou of the Municipal Police Department and Qiu Zhibo of the Provincial Police Department. They lied to me, telling me to go to the Municipal Police Department for some questions, and then they would let me go. I believed them and got in the car with them. When we arrived at the Municipal Police Department, officer Wang Shouxin was already waiting. Meanwhile, the police searched my home, my parents' home, and even my mother-in-law's home. They did not find what they were looking for. They coerced me into telling who I had contact with and where the materials came from. They frightened and intimidated me, and I did something a Dafa practitioner should never do: I disclosed the name of another practitioner, not knowing that this practitioner had already been detained.

My father borrowed 5,000 yuan¹ and gave the money to Chen Wanyou of the Municipal Police Department. I was then released. Having made the error of disclosing a fellow practitioner's name to the police, I felt that staying alive was worse than being dead. Two days later, Chen Yongde of the Municipal Police Department, together with several other officers, came to my parents' home and once again sent me to a detention centre. I firmly refused to cooperate and seven days later I was released.

In June 2001, they wanted to sentence the fellow practitioner whose name I had disclosed. The police found me and wanted me to be the witness. I immediately exposed their crimes right there and then and said that anything that I had said or written that did not conform to the principle of Falun Dafa was null and void. After that, my family had no other choice but to sell our house, and my husband, my child, and I began a homeless existence.

In 2002 the authorities started desperate massive arrests of Dafa practitioners in the whole city. Since they could not find me, they started harassing my parents. During the several years of the CCP's persecution against Falun Gong practitioners, my family has also suffered huge mental and physical pain. My father experienced stress-induced heart problems, and he was terribly afraid whenever he heard about people being arrested.

In February 2006, CCP agents headed by Chen Wanyou and Li Wanyi went to my sister's workplace to harass her. They tried to arrest me again and caused my family additional agony. The persecution that I have suffered is only a small portion of the innumerable crimes the CCP has committed against kind-hearted people.

Note

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

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/9/12/137647.html