When I browsed the Minghui website (the Chinese version of Clearwisdom) on April 23rd, I read the sad news that Fan Dezhen, a Falun Dafa practitioner from Huludao, had been tortured to death in jail. I pictured him in my mind.
At the end of 2000, when about a hundred practitioners from Huludao went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to peacefully protest the persecution to Falun Gong, they were detained or sent to labour camps. In January 2001, I got to know Fan Dezhen in the Huludao Detention Centre. He and his father had been apprehended together.
Fan Dezhen, other practitioners, and I started to study Falun Gong after we entered the jail. Although we were beaten many times, we pulled together and resisted the violence, gradually creating a normal environment in which to practise Falun Gong. Later, we initiated a group hunger strike to protest the long term detention of Falun Gong practitioners. After observing the hunger strike for a few days, the detention centre sent several practitioners to a guarded area. Then we were all sent off to forced labour camps. The female practitioners were sent to Masanjia Forced Labour Camp in Shenyang, and the male practitioners were sent to Huludao Forced Labour Camp.
A few days after we arrived in the labour camp, I saw Fan Dezhen again. At the time, the labour camp had dispatched a group of people to brainwash us. During that time, Fan Dezhen firmly resisted their attempts to "transform1" him, so he was sent to a more strict supervisory team. Although we did not see Fan Dezhen any more, we could often hear shouts of "Falun Gong is good" from upstairs. We knew he was still firmly safeguarding his faith. Later we heard that he had become hoarse from crying out. Eventually we heard that the labour camp officials, fearing that Fan's determination would influence others, shut him into a vacant room in a nearby building.
After I was released, I went around inquiring for news of Fan Dezhen. Someone told me that after Fan had been on hunger strike for a month, his health was very poor and he was released. Later, because he printed Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution and distributed them publicly, he was sentenced to forced labour several times. However, Fan was released every time, due to his firm faith and by hunger striking.
Today, Fan Dezhen has left this human world due to the Chinese Communist Party's brutal persecution of Falun Gong. His wife and child will never see him again.
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")
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/4/27/177301.html
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