Guangzhou University Professor Ms. Wang Jiafang Persecuted for Eight Years

On January 22nd, 2008, I saw in the "Additional Persecution News from China" article on the Clearwisdom website that Wang Jiafang was put on trial in China. I'd like to report what I know about Ms. Wang.

Wang Jiafang was a professor in the Maths Department at Guangzhou University. She graduated from Wuhan University. She has a son who had some kind of congenital myocardial disease, which is hard or impossible to cure. After hearing from others who experienced miracles after practising Falun Gong, she and her son joined them in cultivation. A miracle did happen--her son's life was saved. From then on, Wang Jiafang became more determined in her cultivation.

In 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Dafa. The University officials asked Professor Wang's colleague, Ms. Li Xiaojin, to continue Wang's work in ideology. Wang Jiafang told Ms. Li about her miraculous experience. Overwhelmed, Ms. Li brought a Dafa book home with her. She became a practitioner in a short time.

In November 2000, Wang and Li went together to the suburb of the Baiyun District, Guangzhou City, to distribute leaflets exposing the persecution. Because their uniforms were highly conspicuous, someone ignorant of the truth reported them to the local authorities, who arrested them. They were detained in the Baiyun District Detention Centre for more than a year and were inhumanely treated. At the beginning of her time in the detention centre, Li Xiaojin went on a hunger strike to protest the detention by CCP authorities. Consequently, she was force-fed and beaten several times.

Because the detention centre had a large turnover of prisoners, some were freed after their family paid money. The detention centre guards always performed the forced feedings in the outside yard or in the corridors outside the prison cells. Cries of pain, sounds of beatings, and loud yelling could be heard even several cells away. Practitioners would usually yell, "Dafa is good! Stop the persecution!" Later, the guards became frightened and performed their brutal deeds far away. It was said by a female prisoner that Ms. Li Xiaojin was taken to the outside yard and forced into a kneeling position. A female guard brutally slapped her face so hard that the sound could be heard inside the prison cells.

Because Ms. Wang Jiafang had a strong influence over other prisoners, the guards ordered the other inmates not to beat her brutally. But the guards still used all other kinds of persecution, such as using her husband to try to convince her to give up cultivation. Since she was being persecuted, her husband did not tell her anything about her son. In order for her husband to preserve his rank in the military, he naturally tried to please other CCP officials. He denied the fact that his son regained his health because he practised Falun Gong and instead said that his son had found a cure. He also said that Wang Jiafang should not put his future at risk by practising Falun Gong, later threatening divorce.

The detention centre often used evil ways to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, including forcing them to watch slanderous videos and TV programmes, forcing prisoners to read slanderous articles to practitioners, forbidding them from practising the Falun Gong exercises, handcuffing practitioners who were on hunger strikes, adding unknown drugs in force-fed food, spreading lies about practitioners, and physically attacking and brutally beating them. Wang Jiafang recalled a time when the guards forced her to listen to slanderous articles even when she went to the toilet. It was nonstop, and she was not allowed to sleep.

Before 2001, any practitioners who distributed even a few pages of leaflets exposing the persecution ("enormous quantities" according to CCP officials) would be put on trial in the Guangzhou Intermediate Court. When the practitioners were detained for one to two years and the authorities could not find a law to use to sentence them, the authorities would send them all to a forced labour camp in an attempt to "transform¹" them.

In January 2002, Wang Jiafang and Li Jiajin were taken to Chatou Forced Labour Camp. Because they refused to cooperate and "transform," they were put in solitary confinement. Four months later, their terms had ended, but the camp did not release them. During these few months, two or three monitoring officials followed them. No one else was allowed to contact them. They underwent brainwashing sessions every day. Guangzhou University sent officials to Chatou to "transform" them. If they could not be "transformed," the University would dismiss them, and their husbands would divorce them. The authorities even threatened that if they didn't "transform," the Guangzhou City government would allocate 200,000 yuan², 100,000 yuan for each of them, specifically to "transform" them until they abandoned their cultivation. If this amount wasn't enough, the government would allocate more. The practitioners did not relent and said firmly that they would not denounce their belief.

Later, Wang Jiafang was taken to Guangzhou Brainwashing Centre, and Li Xiaojin was taken to Huangpu District Brainwashing Centre. Motivated by the extra funds, those in charge naturally worked hard. The second day after Ms. Li Xiaojin was taken to Huangpu Brainwashing Camp, news of her death quickly spread . Her daughter was then abandoned by her husband.

At the brainwashing centre, Wang Jiafang was forced to endure more inhumane persecution. She was placed in solitary confinement, where she ate, drank, and relieved herself. Any personnel coming into contact with her wore a gas mask and didn't say anything to her. This lasted more than a year. There were all sorts of other forms of persecution, such that she was on the verge of a breakdown. When she was taken to the camp, she was interrogated non-stop, forced to watch slanderous videos for a long time, and was allowed no rest. The worst was when she went to the toilet, the light was turned off. Then they showed her Dafa books on the floor. The guards then proclaimed, "You stepped on Dafa books!" They used these techniques to humiliate practitioners, resulting Wang Jiafang's spiritual breakdown. Finally, against her will, she wrote the three statements³ to denounce Falun Gong.

Wang Jiafang wrote the statements against her will, but she was sent back to the University. They thought she was successfully "transformed" and wanted to show off their accomplishment. They called for a meeting with the University officials, started to criticise and attack Dafa, and asked her to make a speech about her "transformation" experience. When she refused, they held her arms behind her back and brought her onto the stage. She yelled, "Falun Dafa is good!" Those sitting on the stage became very angry and pushed her into a seat in the audience.

The University put her under house arrest and monitored her everywhere she went. Later, she left the University. When she returned to the University to distribute leaflets exposing the persecution she was arrested and taken to the brainwashing centre again. She had to leave her home for fear of arrest after she was released. Because she knew about Li Xiaojin's situation, the Guangzhou Province 610 Office⁴ looked everywhere for her. A released inmate, who monitored Wang and later understood the truth of the Falun Gong visited Ms. Wang at home once. She was also under 610 Office surveillance.

From Wang Jiafang's release to her arrest in Wuchuan last year, I haven't seen her in several years now. There are endless accounts of the persecution to be investigated further. I hope any practitioners who know what happened to her can provide addition information.

Note

1. "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")

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

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.

4. "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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/1/28/171214.html