The Ruthless Persecution of Four Generations in My Family

Four generations in my family have suffered persecution at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. Party officials tortured and killed both my paternal and maternal grandfathers. My father died early and I was disabled due to the polices abuse, and my daughter was illegally held in a forced labor camp. Fortunately I practice Falun Gong and so I am healthy and happy.

I was born in 1954 in Kunming City, Yunnan Province. My father was a government official. In 1957, when I was two years old, my father was labeled a "rightist" at the age of 29. He was twice sent away for "reeducation through labor." My mother took me to live with her father in Chengde City, Hebei Province, where she found a job.

My father came home when I was seven, but he was fired from his job. We were exiled to the countryside near Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province. My mother had to quit her job in Chengde.

At that time my father was further labeled as a "counter-revolutionary." My younger brother and I lived with daily discrimination. In the winter several students burned my brother's face and coat with a red-hot stove hook. We were often attacked and insulted.

Seeing that my brother and I were the targets of bullies, Father said to Mother, "Let's divorce, to spare our children further humiliation!" Mother answered, "I've waited for you for several years while you were away at the labor camp. No matter how difficult, our family must stay together." Mother's words taught me the right values, and I respect her for it.

My grandfather was labeled a landlord during the Cultural Revolution, and all of his properties were distributed among poor peasants. He had to labor for more than ten hours a day in the work gangs, despite his advanced age. In the evening, he, my father, and some other landlords had to stand on a platform while the peasants berated them loudly.

The landlords were beaten so severely that they often could not crawl out of bed the next morning; yet the Party officials accused them of "refusing to cooperate fully with the reform." My grandfather eventually died from abuse. When the crematory learned he had been a landlord they refused to sell us an ash box and instead they sold us a small urn especially made for the "Five Black Classes" and for "counter-revolutionaries."

My maternal grandfather who lived in Chengde City owned factories before the Communist Party came into power, but he was forced to turn over all of his factories to the Party. He was in his late 70s during the Cultural Revolution but was still publicly attacked on a daily basis, after which he was coerced to wash greasy fabrics in a factory. He fell ill. When my mother learned about it, she took my brother and went to take care of grandfather. The local rebels [responsible for attacking the downtrodden] still prodded him to wash the fabrics, despite his terrible condition. My mother and brother volunteered to do the work for him.

I lived with my father back at home. The village work group required him to beg forgiveness before Mao's picture every day before dinner. They stood around him and shouted popular slogans at the time such as, "Strike down the counter-revolutionary! To rebel is justified!" During those years they took my father away and physically and verbally attacked him almost every night. Eight people were made to kneel on a long, narrow stool. The rebels whipped them with belts and also kicked and punched them. They knocked the "counter-revolutionaries" down from the stage and then ordered them to crawl back up and continue to kneel on the stool. The victims' faces were swollen from ruthless beatings. They were also paraded through the streets during the day, wearing tall paper hats. One day, during one of those attacks, a rebel struck my father down on the platform. My father could not get up. Party official Tian shouted, "Just kick him off from the stage and beat him to death--it'll save us some trouble!" One night several people carried my father home. They dumped him on the ground with a violent shove. I realized he was unconscious. Three of his teeth had been knocked out. My grandfather eventually fell ill from torture and passed away. My mother and brother took care of his funeral and then returned to Jinzhou City.

Because I lived with constant fear and distress, which probably hurt my immune system, my cheek was inflamed and swollen, and my throat hurt when I coughed. My father applied for a leave of absence. He wanted to take me to a doctor. The person in charge not only turned down his request but he also said, "Good riddance if a little rat like her dies off!"

After a while they saw that my condition was getting worse, so they finally agreed to let my father take me to seek medical attention. The doctor at the commune hospital cut open my cheek and let out the pus and blood. They all knew that I was the child of a "counter-revolutionary," so they did not use any anesthetic during the operation. I cried hysterically from pain.

When I was in grade school people from the work group came to me on a daily basis, telling me to "expose" my father's crimes and "draw the line" between him and myself.

They questioned me, "What kind of 'counter-revolutionary speech' did your father give at home? If you tell us, you'll have a bright future."

I said, "My father only told me to study hard; he never said anything against the revolution."

As a result I was suspended from school for three months.

In the summer of 1967, my father could no longer endure the endless abuse and tried to commit suicide. Fortunately, I found out in time and convinced him to give up the idea. My father clung to life because of me, and he continued to endure beatings and attacks day after day.

Officials from the Propaganda Division dug a long ditch in front of our home in July 1967 and poured six buckets of feces into it, attracting tons of flies that invaded our living space. They said it was what counter-revolutionary elements deserved.

The temperature dropped to -30 0C [-22 0F] in the winter of 1968. Several sows the work group owned were about to have a litter. The Party officials made my father work during the day and take care of the sows at night in a dilapidated shack, living with them. There was no window in the shack, and icy winds blew large snowflakes inside. My father was cold and hungry, and he paced back and forth with his arms folded in front of his chest.

During those years the rebels came to our home at night every few days to check if any outsider was living with us. We slept in fear.

My father was the only breadwinner in our five-member household. We were destitute. Each year the work group would loan 20 yuan to poor peasant families during the holidays except to those being "disciplined by the proletarian class." We never had enough food or clothes. I did not have any underwear until age 20. Once, when the rebels ransacked our home, they tried to snatch a pair of pants from my mother. She was desperate and said to them, "Those are the only pair of pants I have; if you take them, I'll have to walk around naked." She finally got to keep her pants.

The Party restored my father's reputation in 1980, yet my father's health had long since failed from decades of gross abuse. He developed stomach cancer and passed away in 1985 at age 62. The Party had brutally persecuted him for half of his life.

I was traumatized from those early years of suffering and was always afraid of the police and military. I developed heart disease in my 20s, and liver disease later one. When I was in my 40s I had a tumor in my stomach that hurt so terribly that I could only sleep on my sides. I could not stretch out my legs, as doing so would trigger unbearable pain. I was then laid off from work, so I never went to the hospital for treatment for lack of money.

Fortunately, I began practicing Falun Gong in June 1997. After two weeks I felt incredibly relieved as the pain and the tumor had completely disappeared. I kowtowed before Master's picture as tears streamed down my face. I could not express my gratitude in words. I was determined to practice cultivation until the end.

In July 1999, Jiang Zemin colluded with the Communist Party to launch the persecution of Falun Gong. I went to Beijing to peacefully appeal for justice for Falun Gong and was unlawfully detained. After I got out I saw that people deceived by the media treated Falun Gong practitioners with animosity. I explained the facts to them.

Seven officers from the county's Politics and Security Section came to my home in December 2000. They rummaged through everything without presenting any identification. They could not find anything they wanted, so they took more than 1,000 yuan, which was my husband's most recent wages. They drove me to the Politics and Security Section.

They took me into a room and threatened, "We already know everything about you, but we'll let you confess." I refused to answer any questions. They removed my coat and forced me to kneel on the floor. Two people held me down; two others stepped on my Achilles' tendon while verbally assaulting me. After a while they tightened a rope around my neck. I could barely breathe. A bump remains on my neck to this day. They grabbed my hair and banged my head against a wall. My head was spinning; tears and sweat mixed together, and I slowly lost consciousness. When I came to, the police were screaming and I could not open my eyes. My body ached so much I could not get up. My head was covered with egg-sized bumps. I felt as if an elephant was sitting on top of me. They proceeded to kick my breasts with hard boots, causing severe bruises. I fainted again. When I regained consciousness I realized I had lost control of my bowels from being kicked so violently. They beat me, a woman in her late 40s, for eight hours straight.

At 2:00 a.m. several officers dragged me into a room. I immediately collapsed on the dust-covered floor. There were piles of feces on the floor, and the unheated room was freezing cold. I sweat profusely during their beating, but by this time my entire body began to shiver. I had leg convulsions that continued until dawn.

At 7:00 a.m. two officers took me out for an interrogation. Six officers gave me a savage beating; yet, I did not say a word. They purposely dislocated my shoulders. I gritted my teeth and remained silent. One official told another officer to get some toothpicks so they could jab them under my fingernails. The second officer left and never returned. They took me back to the detention center where I remained on the floor, unable to move. They refused to let my family bring me quilts in the cold winter, saying they had to wait for approval from above.

After one month, they took me to the fifth floor of the county Politics and Security Division building. A city 610 Office head arrived. He didn't say anything but immediately pulled my right arm over my shoulder to the back, and he pulled up my left arm to meet my right arm in the middle of my back. He handcuffed my hands and inserted a plastic bottle between my arms and back. He said, "No one can take this for more than an hour, no matter how tough they are; two hours will cause permanent disability!" They hit and kicked me while I was handcuffed that way. My arms and hands swelled after about an hour. I felt a warm and tingling sensation in both arms. The 610 Office head yanked my arms with brutal force; it felt as if my bones were being crushed. Huge drops of sweat rolled off my forehead and I began to vomit. What they didn't know, however, was I had made the decision to never betray my conscience. The 610 Office head grabbed my hair and tilted my head back while using his other hand to pull my chin down. He said, "I've been handling cases for more than 20 years; all types of criminals have opened up to me. I just don't believe you are something special." I did not utter a single word after three hours and ten minutes of excruciating pain. They were going out to eat and opened my handcuffs. I lost consciousness. The police knew I was disabled from torture and no prison or labor camp would accept me, so they let me go home after extorting 10,000 yuan from my family.

For three years after being release I could not take care of myself; my family had to wash my face, comb my hair, and dress me. My body hurt all the time, and oftentimes I could not sleep for days on end. I never wavered in my belief in Master, however, and I studied Dafa books and did the exercises on a daily basis. Recently, my arms have recovered and now I can do some basic chores.

My daughter was arrested for peacefully appealing and was taken to a brainwashing center. The authorities sentenced her to three years of forced labor for explaining the facts about Falun Gong.

Right after my daughter was taken to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, the group head ordered inmates to "reform" her. The brainwashing lasted from early in the morning until past 2:00 a.m. the next day, sometimes even longer. The attackers work in shifts of two people and bombard Falun Gong practitioners with slanderous lies. They deprived the practitioners of sleep and forced them to sit on plastic stools in the hallway, in the restroom, in the boiler room, or in a classroom. They often changed the brainwashing location.

After two months of brainwashing, the division heads assigned "reformed" practitioners to take over and "reform" those practitioners who still persisted in their belief. They locked these practitioners in solitary confinement cells, each accompanied by two collaborators who brainwashed the detainee around the clock. The detainee is forced to eat and sleep in the cell. All Falun Gong practitioners have experienced this type of reform at Masanjia. In fact, tortures much more sinister often take place away from the public eye.

Practitioners are usually forbidden to meet their families because camp authorities fear exposure of their crimes. The following is a brief list of the most commonly used torture methods.

1.Brainwashing: the authorities play slanderous propaganda on audio cassettes and deprive the practitioners of sleep.

2. Physical torture: the practitioners are forced to stand 24 hours a day until they collapse. Sometimes they force the practitioners to squat indefinitely. They make collaborators torture determined practitioners by slapping their faces, kicking them, and handcuffing them to short stools. They double-cross the practitioners' legs and tie them with ropes, which inflicts unbearable pain. They cuff practitioners to high heating pipes with the practitioners' toes barely touching the ground, until they renounce their belief.

3. Guards lock practitioners who shout, "Falun Dafa is good" in solitary confinement cells where they beat and shock the practitioners with electric batons.

4. Manual labor: the practitioners are forced to work daily, between breakfast and 9:00 p.m. each day. In the spring, they dig holes and plant trees to make money for the labor camp. In June they spend more than a month harvesting baby corn. In October they harvest mature corn. Sometimes the harvesters have to work in mud and rainwater. This physically demanding work is exhausting, even for young people, but at Masanjia, 70-year-old practitioners are not spared from slave labor.

5. The camp authorities often invite people who are "experts" and "scholars" to brainwash Falun Gong practitioners. After these sessions those in charge force practitioners to write their feelings and understandings, which is especially tortuous for practitioners who reluctantly "reformed" under pressure.

Each time my daughter recalls her time at Masanjia her heart grows heavy and she says, "Every minute felt like a year; I cannot bear to look back!"

For the past half century, the CCP has ruthlessly persecuted four generations of my family--a tiny reflection of the unspeakable suffering and horror imposed on millions of Chinese families.

The Communist Party indulges in violence and kills without mercy. The same tragedies have been repeated over and over, and more than 80 million innocent Chinese lives have perished in the past five decades.