My name is Xu Hongming. I come from Heilongjiang Province and started to cultivate in Dafa in 1996. My whole family practises Falun Dafa and follows the principles of "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance." We have witnessed the beauty of Dafa. Prior to cultivation, my father smoked and drank beer. He often borrowed lots of money. My mother was very ill and bedridden. The two always fought and cared little about the family and our studies. Our childhood was a trial for my sister and me. Hate for my parents made me selfish. I always got acutely jealous when I saw others with something I did not have.
One day in the spring of 1996, my father started to cultivate. Within one day he got rid of the bad habits of smoking and drinking beer. Since then he has never fought with my mum. He also became healthier. When mum discovered that Dafa could change a person, she joined in cultivation as well. Mum discovered that her illness disappeared on its own. Since then my family has been peaceful. Falun Dafa brought health and happiness to my family.
But this peaceful scene did not last long. The Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) head, Jiang Zemin, started a brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners on July 20th, 1999. The following is a chronicle of my persecution experiences over the past few years.
1. The Party defamed Dafa, made wanton arrests, and extorted money On the afternoon of July 22nd, 1999, I saw on TV programmes that slandered Dafa. It shocked our whole family! I thought, "This is not right. Falun Dafa is not like that."
Some days later, I took a banner reading, "Falun Dafa is righteous" to the centre of our town and opened it. Many people were shocked. A man in his 30s eventually arrived and tore down my banner. He asked me, "Where are you from? Who asked you to come?" I did not answer him. I thought, "Many people have been deceived by the CCP's propaganda. I must let them know the facts." I simply kept standing there and explained the facts about Falun Dafa to people.
On New Year's Day 2000, local police and 610 Office1 agents arrested almost all the practitioners that lived in our village. The police lied to cadres in our village, saying that they wanted to take practitioners to a meeting in the Town Hall. They pushed practitioners into cars. All the practitioners were then told that they were going to be sent to Jixian Detention Centre. The youngest practitioner was a 17-year-old student, the oldest an old, blind woman.
Police forced them to sign statements there. They also demanded that everyone's family pay 2,000 yuan2 for each detainee. I was later informed that they tried to search for my sister and me. Under Dafa's protection, the police did not persecute us.
After the 2000 Chinese New Year, they duped my father, and he signed the Three Statements to renounce Falun Dafa. The police took 2,000 yuan from us. When my dad returned he said, "Everyone was ordered to sign the statements there. If not, they would have to eat corn porridge over the New Year. There is much salt in the porridge. The 17-year-old practitioner was crying because of hunger but they still did not give her anything to eat because she had not signed the paper yet."
2. The police rushed into my house, arrested me, and tortured me. In May 2001, local police station chief Yang Bolin, accompanied by other officers, rushed into my home. My mother and I woke with a start. They began to search our house, even searching my sister's room. They asked me to get up but I refused. Yang came up to my bed and kicked me and made me get up. They pushed me into a police car. They took all our Dafa books, videotapes and other Dafa materials. Their actions scared my family. It took a long time for my mother and my sister to get over all their fears and misery.
They took me to a police station. I was told that two other practitioners had been taken there before me and locked me in an office. They took my copy of "Zhuan Falun", a Falun Dafa book, and asked me where the Falun Dafa materials came from. I said I didn't know. They started to beat me. I fell on the ground.
Yang beat my head with a shoe. Even now I still have headaches when I get tired or the weather is hot. Later they ordered me to stand, bending at the waist with my head pressed against a wall. This is called "riding the airplane." I stood like that until sunrise. Then they handcuffed me to the heating pipes. Only my toes reached the ground. They stripped me naked and started to beat me with bamboo sticks.
3. In detention they burned my face with cigarette lighters and stabbed my fingers and toes with a needle
At 6:00 in the morning, two other practitioners and I were sent to Jixian Detention Centre. Guard Wang Yan beat me. My nose bled. They forced me to half-squat. They burned my face with cigarette lighters. They also put water-filled bottles and wooden sticks between my fingers. If I moved a little bit, they'd start to beat me. Later that evening they stopped and sent me to a cell.
I was only 16 years old at the time. They noticed that I was young, so they tried to intimidate and scare me. They wanted me to cooperate but I did not. Several days later, Jixian TV station reporters came and made a video of me, concocting a lot of lies. Other prisoners eventually told me, "They said you have been deceived by Falun Gong, that here they treat you well and they are saving you." The fact is that guard Zhang Jingliang talked to me hypocritically when the reporters were present, and he asked the reporters to focus their video camera on me. While they were interviewing me, he glared at me, scaring me into nodding my head (to show my response to their questions). I felt ashamed for Dafa. I was upset all day.
In collaboration with the guards, prisoners Li Qiang and Qi (the cell leader) ordered others to monitor me and make sure I did not do the Dafa exercises or close my eyes. They forced me to sit out in the direct sun. I'd be beaten and slapped if I moved even a little bit. In addition, prisoners Ding and Liu stabbed my fingers and toes with a needle. They covered my mouth so I could not shout. I was not given any water to drink. If I did not swallow the drugs they gave me, I would not be allowed to go to the washroom.
I was tortured for three months. During this time we had to squeeze together when we slept. Sometimes when I returned from the toilet, someone else would have taken my sleeping place. I had to be on duty every midnight. Sometimes I fainted. Because it was so damp, I developed many skin problems.
My mother came to visit me in the detention centre many times but was never actually permitted to see me. They took the things she had brought for me. Another practitioner surnamed Tang and I started a hunger strike to protest these unjust treatments. We asked to be released. After three days, local 610 Office head Geng He and the deputy chief of this detention centre ordered guards to handcuff Tang's arms and legs to the four corners of a metal bed. Tang was forbidden to use the toilet and had to get permission to have the handcuffs removed. They threatened, "If he still does not eat, we will force-feed him!"
The next day, several guards carried him to a dirty room. They started to force-feed him. They used a tool to pry his mouth open and were barely able to insert the feeding tube. The whole cell was shocked by Tang's screams.
Practitioner Gao shouted, "Do not persecute people who practise Truth-Compassion-Forbearance." Guards swore at him and said, "Shut up." Tang had by then lost consciousness. Other prisoners said, "Falun Dafa practitioners are extraordinary."
4. I was not quite 17 when I was sent to a forced labour camp
The next day, practitioners Gao, Tang, and I were secretly sent to the Suihua Forced Labour Camp on orders from 610 Office chief Geng He. They did not inform our families. I had to carry the heavy baggage. Guard Kang Jun dragged the unconscious Tang by his handcuffs.
Tang woke up along the way and he asked them for a glass of water. Guard Kang Jun did not comply and refused to let him use the toilet. Tang said, "You force-fed me with drugs and salt. I will not be able to control myself if you do not allow me to use the toilet." Kang Jun said, "If you can't control it, you'll just have to soil yourself. Put your luggage underneath, and don't do it in the car." They only let practitioners use the toilet when the other prisoners did.
Tang eventually tried to explain the facts about Falun Dafa to them, but Kang Jun slapped him and said, "If you cooperate, you will get some food. If not, you won't have anything to eat, and if you don't behave well, I will handcuff you to the ground."
We arrived at the Suihua Forced Labour Camp at 8:00 p.m. The doctor there gave us a physical exam and noted everything on a chart. He said he could not accept me because I wasn't 17 years old yet. The 610 Office agent spoke with him out of hearing range. I heard from a practitioner that the 610 Office chief gave the labour camp a 20,000-yuan bribe. We were then taken to the 2nd team.
5. Brainwashing
The air in Suihua Forced Labour Camp was stale. Behind the camp was an old brick factory. Hundreds of crows flew above the factory. The guards used beatings, electric shock, other tortures, and mental manipulation on practitioners. Practitioners were tortured so brutally that that dying seemed better than living.
When we first arrived, all the detained practitioners were on a a hunger strike. I often saw guards dragging practitioners to the front building to force-feed them. They eventually made all the hunger-striking practitioners into one team. One guard would be dispatched to get their food. If they refused to eat they would be force-fed. Practitioners who were detained in other teams did not know what happened there. Thinking they could persuade me to give up Falun Dafa by being kind, the guards always gave me their leftovers.
All the practitioners in the camp were forced to work, to watch Dafa-defaming videos, to practise Tai Chi, and to take drugs. It was common to see practitioners lose consciousness from physical abuse.
We had to get up at 5:00 a.m. each day and then do morning roll call. We got ten minutes to make our beds and ten minutes to wash ourselves. When this was done, we had to assemble and run. Some older practitioners could not follow when we were running. They would fall down sometimes but had to run. Eating breakfast also had to be done in ten minutes. We were always given mildewed food. Sometimes we found cigarette fragments and dust in the food. After breakfast we had to start to work. Our work was to pick out bad ice-cream sticks. If we could not finish the quota on time, we had to do overtime. In the evening we were still compelled to watch Dafa--slandering videos.
I was the youngest of all the detainees. An older practitioner, over 70 years old, told me that the guard constantly beat him because he did not want to be "reformed3." One guard surnamed Diao made his mouth bleed. This practitioner later died from torture at the labour camp.
One day when I walked downstairs, I saw many posters that slandered Dafa and Master hanging on the wall of the 3rd team. They used the deaths of those persecuted practitioners to fabricate lies. Because these posters were an insult to Dafa practitioners I tore them down. Guards Lee, Zeng, and another one each held one electric baton. They shocked my head in unison. I shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" They did not stop shocking me. I had to bump my head against a safe cabinet. One of them took a basin of water and said, "Wash your head" I noticed I was bleeding when I saw the blood in the water, but the guards still shocked my head in the water.
Guards Zeng, Lee and Jia tried to brainwash me, locking me in the office during the day. They forced me to keep my eyes open when I watched videos that slandered Dafa. At night they put me in a room where the windows were covered with paper. Two guards watched me. It lasted for a week. I was exhausted. My body temperature was higher than normal. They dragged me to the front building to take drugs and injections. When I refused to do what they said, they beat me brutally. Under their threats, I did shameful things. I blemished Dafa. It became a dark spot in my cultivation.
To carry out Jiang Zemin's orders then, they began a new round of attempted "reformation" of practitioners prior to the 2003 New Year. Every night the screams of Dafa practitioners could be heard in the corridor. Those practitioners who still were not "reformed" were kept apart from the others. They were taken to the 4th floor and were hung from the ceiling. They were subjected to such tortures as the dead person's bed, where one is forced to sit motionless on a bench for a long period of time. They were forbidden to sleep unless they "reformed." Some collaborators4 participated in this new round of horror.
During my detention, the guards used excuses that the local 610 Office did not want to pick me because of SARS. They wanted to ask my family to pay a large amount of money. They kept me in detention 20 additional days.
6. Postscript
Several years of persecution injured me, both mentally and physically. I will cultivate in Dafa until the end. The authorities can persecute me, but they can never change my heart of respect for Dafa.
After having been home for a year, in the spring of 2004 I was reported to police because I picked up a Dafa banner. Policeman Wang Haijun beat me. He said my family had to pay 500 yuan for my release. He said if they didn't pay, my parents would also be arrested. I was taken to Jixian Detention Centre that day. Under pressure I was forced to write a Guarantee Statement to renounce Falun Dafa again. I was released after 16 days. I felt upset at these wrongdoings under pressure. I thought I would never have a chance to cultivate in Falun Dafa. But our compassionate Teacher takes care of me all the time.
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. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.
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")
4. "Collaborators": Former practitioners who have turned against Falun Gong under brainwashing and torture. They are then made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/10/17/140422.html
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