Two Practitioners from Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province Reveal the Tortures They Have Suffered

Mr. Zhou Mintong, his wife Ms. Zeng Jie, and his mother-in-law are all Falun Gong practitioners. After the persecution started, they went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong many times. Their home has been searched and they have been sentenced to forced labour and detained in a brainwashing centre many times. During detention, Mr. Zhou was tortured repeatedly with electric shocks while his family members were followed and monitored. Recently, Mr. Zhou and Ms. Zeng escaped from China. They are now exposing the details of the tortures they were subjected to over the years.

Before July 20th, 1999, when the persecution started, the Police Department of Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province had already started arresting Falun Gong practitioners. On July 20th, 1999, about a thousand practitioners went to the government compound in Guangdong Province, located on Jixiang Street, to appeal for Falun Gong. Among them were Mr. Zhou and Ms. Zeng. Many police cars arrived. The police started dispersing the practitioners and captured some of them. The police believed that Mr. Zhou was a leader and arrested him.

Mr. Zhou told the reporter he believed that the government didn't know the truth, so he told the police who arrested him his home and business addresses and invited them to visit him to discuss more about Falun Gong. After they got his addresses, the police immediately searched his home and shop and ransacked many Falun Dafa informational materials. They confiscated a computer system worth over 10,000 yuan¹ without giving him a receipt.

The policemen repeatedly asked Mr. Zhou who had given the practitioners orders. Mr. Zhou didn't reply to them. Then the police charged him with blocking traffic and detained him for 15 days. Mr. Zhou describes this as being a false charge, which misrepresented the facts. Ms. Zeng added, "Dafa practitioners left enough room for all the pedestrians. Rather it was the large number of police cars and police officers that blocked the street."

Ms. Zeng visited the local authorities to appeal for her husband while he was in detention, but to no avail. So she went to Beijing to appeal. Ms. Zeng told the reporter, "At that time the situation was so intense. Police in uniform as well as in plainclothes were everywhere around the train and bus stations and tried to arrest all the practitioners who were on their way to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong."

Ms. Zeng Jie described her experience on her way to Beijing. She said she met many practitioners from different provinces on the train. They were all going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. At that time practitioners went to Beijing in waves. But the national police department had taken over the national Civil Complaints Office and was arresting all the practitioners who came to appeal for Falun Gong. Thus, practitioners were forced to go to Tiananmen Square to show their banners and tell the world: "Falun Dafa Is Good."

In 2000, the persecution of Falun Gong intensified even further. When Mr. Zhou and other practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, he was repatriated back to Guangzhou City. Then he was detained for one month. The 610 Office² officials slapped his face and told him that if he went to Beijing again, they would detain him for three years.

Mr. Zhou and Ms. Zeng said, "Appealing is our right granted by the Constitution. We first went to the provincial government to appeal and were not received, but were told they have to go to Beijing to appeal. So we followed the suggestion from the provincial government and went to Beijing. We completely followed the law."

In 2001, when the police came to arrest Mr. Zhou's mother-in-law and wanted to take her to the brainwashing centre, the family refused to open the door. The local officials disconnected their power line and water supply trying to force them to open the door. Mr. Zhou called 999. As a result, over 20 police officers in many police cars came to their home. They took off their police badges and used power drills to break take down the door. Many people watched this unlawful act. When people asked the police why they were breaking into someone's home, the police fabricated a lie and said they were looking for hidden drugs and asked all the bystanders to leave.

The authorities arrested Mr. Zhou and charged him with "illegal gathering" and sentenced him to forced labour for two years. He was sent to the First Forced Labour Camp of the Huadu District in Guangzhou City. There, he refused to write the so-called Three Statements³. One time Mr. Zhou passed on Teacher's [Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa] lectures to other practitioners. A detainee who was in charge of monitoring him noticed this and reported him to the guards. The guards then tortured him trying to find out from where he got Teacher's lectures. They handcuffed Mr. Zhou to a big tree with thorns for three days and nights and shocked him with an electric baton until the baton was out of power. They beat his head, and his face crashed into the thorns following every punch. His face was covered in blood. After they released him from the tree, the guards handcuffed him to the door of the room with one hand fastened to the upper part of the door and the other to the bottom part, so he could not completely lay on the ground.

In March 2003, officials ransacked Mr. Zhou's home again and confiscated many Dafa materials. Later they found equipment for taping a television broadcast, and over 20 police cars arrived the next day. They arrested Mr. Zhou and sentenced him to two years in prison. In order to find the source of this equipment, the provincial police bureau and the Political and Legal Committee got involved in this matter. At that time, Ms. Zeng was pregnant and the delivery date was approaching. The authorities told him that if he didn't cooperate with them, he would never see his soon-to-be-born child. Because he was worried about his wife and child, he compromised with them and pretended to help them find the source of the equipment after his release. He deeply regretted what he did. Later, Mr. Zhou published a statement to expose the evil and restarted his cultivation.

In 2006 when the police and officials found out that Mr. Zhou had notified other practitioners about the plans to arrest them after he had received this information from the 610 Office, they arrested him again and detained him in the brainwashing room. Mr. Zhou described the brainwashing room as a damp room with lots of mosquitoes. The detainees have to stay in that room and are not allowed to take a bath or use the toilet. Every day, those in charge forced the detained practitioners to watch videos slandering Falun Gong and Teacher and to write down their thoughts. Mr. Zhou said, "They torture practitioners, trying to destroy their faith."

In the brainwashing centre, practitioners are told that they will be released if they write a statement declaring they quit practising Falun Gong. But if someone writes such a statement, then the guards try to force the practitioner to give the names of other practitioners. If this practitioner refuses to cooperate, they tell him that since he already quit practising why should he care.

Mr. Zhou pointed out that, over the years, the authorities have realised that even though practitioners wrote these statements under pressure, they would later regret their action. Therefore, they try to force practitioners to do more bad things, so that eventually they are led astray and their faith is totally destroyed.

Mr. Zhou was clearly told that since everyone in his family was a Falun Gong practitioner, if they refused to cooperate with them, the authorities would torture them one after another. In the past few years, Mr. Zhou, his wife, and his mother-in-law have been detained in a brainwashing centre or sentenced to a forced labour camp in turn.

Ms. Zeng has even been detained in the notorious Chatou Forced Labour Camp in Guangdong Province. There, she witnessed many practitioners being beaten by the guards. During the midnight hours, she very often heard the sad and shrill cries of practitioners who were being tortured.

After Ms. Zeng Jie was released, she publicly claimed that all the statements she wrote or signed under pressure are null and void.

Note

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

2. "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.

3. "Three Statements": Practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write "Repentance Statement," "Guarantee Statement" or 'Dissociation Statement" as proof that they have given up their belief. In the statement, the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practising Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/6/15/156906.html