Mourning My Mother Ms. Zhou Huimin

Just a few days ago, I turned 15. My mother's name was Zhou Huimin, and she was 44 when she passed away. She used to be the manager of a moulding factory. Just a few days ago, my kind and healthy mother was tortured to death. In the 198 days since my mother was arrested, we worried and feared for her day and night.

With great sorrow, I remember the days I spent together with my mother and mourn her. I want to call for the termination of the persecution so that such tragedies will no longer happen.

When I was just a few months old, my father divorced my mother. I never knew what he looked like. In order to raise me, my mother had to work while taking care of me. At a very early period, she made wise investments, but arduous work and huge pressure took a toll on her health. She developed serious neurosis, tachycardia, gastric disease, amygdalitis, as well as other problems. When these symptoms were the most serious, she was not able to work due to the pain, and nearly became a disabled person. It was at this time that she became familiar with Falun Gong. After she began to practise Falun Gong in 1998, she quickly became health and happy. All of her diseases vanished. In particular, she became much more mild-mannered.

But soon the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched their persecution of Falun Gong. My mother was subjected to many inhumane mistreatments for persisting in her belief. After she was arrested from a friend's home in Dujiangyan City, Xu Wenhai of the 610 Office¹ in Dujiangyan City, and He Qin, Director of the Zhongxin Police Station in Dujiangyan City, handcuffed her hands to a headboard and her feet to the bed board from May 21st to July 8th, 2003. For 49 days, she could not move at all. As a result, her heart rate reached 160 beats per minute; her arms became stiff; her muscles around the a wound in her right leg atrophied and became infected, so that she could no longer move her right leg.

At about 9 p.m. on September 26th, 2007, police officers from the State Security Division in Chenghua District, Chengdu City broke into my home and arrested my mother again. At first, she was detained in the Xinjin Brainwashing Centre and subjected to mistreatment. On February 1st, 2008, she held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. On February 5th, 2008, she was taken to the notorious former Qingyang District People's Hospital. Upon arrival, she shouted loudly in the main entrance, "Falun Gong is good!"

Soon after she was in the hospital, and she became critically ill. All those involved in the persecution, the provincial State Security Bureau, the city State Security Bureau, and the State Security Division under the Wuhou District Police Department did not take the trouble of notifying our family. It wasn't until mother's cousin went to see her on March 10th, 2008 that the officers notified him that she was near death. When he saw mother, she had fallen into a coma. She was as thin as a rail. He requested her release so that her relatives could take care of her, but the officers merely told him to prepare her funeral arrangements, claiming that the provincial State Security Bureau would not allow her to be released. They said, "Even were she to die, she has to do it here."

Afterwards, I heard that some police officers proposed releasing her, but the provincial State Security Bureau said that Falun Gong was a major target as the Olympics approached, and denied her release.

With grief and indignation, I want to say that I love peace and hope that the CCP would honour the promises it made when competing to host the Olympic Games to improve human rights, including stopping the persecution of Falun Gong, and not to commit murder in the name of protecting the Olympic Games.

When I was very young, mother was busy with work and was in bad health, so she had to entrust me to another family. The whole family was very kind to me, but I was stubborn, disobedient, and often made my adopting parents upset. Before, my mother often came to see me. But after I turned six years old, she was arrested a total of seven times and sentenced to labour camp three times, so she was not able to take care of me. After she was released at the end of 2005, she took me to her home during winter and summer vacation. Mother's change after she practised Falun Gong also impacted me. I became more sensible and obedient. My academic record greatly improved and I became the best student in my class.

When I stayed with my mother, her words, deeds and consideration of others helped me learn many principles about proper behaviour. In order to repay my adoptive parents, my mother gave them a large amount of money when I was first sent to their home. After she was released and returned to her work, she sent a subsidy to my adoptive parents each month. My mother never told me about the money that she sent to them, thinking that it might reduce my gratitude towards them. I learned this only after my mother's death.

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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/3/25/175124.html