My Family's Suffering under the Persecution

I am 61 years old. There are five people in my household - my wife, my two daughters and my younger son. All of us practise Falun Gong. Before I learned Falun Gong in the winter of 1996, I had more than ten illnesses, including pharyngitis, tracheitis, pulmonary disease, hypertension, duodenitis, gastritis, and arthritis. After only one month of practising Falun Gong, all my ailments disappeared and I gradually gained weight. I truly experienced the miraculous wonders of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. After the persecution started, I followed my conscience and went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in October 1999. I was with a group that openly practised the exercises at Tiananmen Square. I was arrested and sent back to our local detention centre for 36 days.

During my detention, the police videotaped me, and produced a TV programme that told lies about Falun Gong. They also published some articles in the local newspaper. But what they produced ended up having a counter-productive effect. For example, a practitioner went to Beijing to appeal and was sent back. Police from the 610 Office¹ asked her why she went to Beijing, and she answered that she watched the TV programme about my appealing in Beijing. From then on, they never produced these programmes again. The security section chief of my work unit went to my home and said that I would be released if my family paid him three thousand yuan².

On April 19th, 2000, several practitioners and I were reported for studying Falun Gong articles in my home. We were arrested and detained for 15 days. I was arrested again on December 23rd, 2000, and was sentenced to four years in prison on a groundless violation. I was imprisoned at Deyang Prison in Sichuan. My wife went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong with our six-year-old son and another practitioner. They held a banner that read "Falun Gong is good" at Tiananmen Square. People from the 610 Office asked my son why he went to Beijing. He said, "To appeal for the end of the persecution." They asked again, "Who asked you to come?" He said, "I wanted to come myself." My wife and son were then sent back. My wife was then detained at the detention centre for 100 days. They ordered her to pay them three thousand yuan and she was released. Ever since then, police from the 610 Office, Police Department, Domestic Security Division and her company continually harassed her, and our home was ransacked five times. Our formerly peaceful life had been shattered.

My foster daughter had rheumatoid arthritis in the joints of one hand, and one of her feet was deformed, leaving her unable to take care of herself. After practising Falun Gong, she could move the joints of her hand and foot again, and lived a normal life. She also married. In her own words, the practice gave her life new meaning and happiness. When Falun Gong was persecuted, she resolutely went to Tiananmen Square to appeal. She was detained for more than five months, and sentenced to forced labour for one year.

During my wife's detainment, my son was sent back home. My daughter was barely over ten years old, and the two children lived alone, without us. The leaders in our company not only didn't take care of them, but forced them to leave our home. Police from the Security Department often harassed them, and they lived a life of fear and hardship for countless days and nights.

In August 2001, I was sent to Deyang Prison, and forced to sleep on an iron bed without a mattress. It was difficult to sleep on such a bed, so I got up to practise the Falun Gong exercises. I did them only for more than ten minutes, and was discovered by a patrolling inmate surnamed Long. He, along with five other inmates, dragged me down from the bed and beat me. Then Long took me away for further torture. He forced me to bend forward, with my hands pressed against the floor, while my head was against a designated place on the wall 1.25 metres high. I was forced to remain in this posture for two hours. On the next night, I just sat up in bed, and Long again tortured me by forcing me into the same posture until dawn.

After that, I was forced to stand in a military posture. After I stood for a while, it rained heavily. We couldn't keep our eyes open, and they had to let us back in. When I passed the Activity Room on my way back to the ward, I heard a guard shout at me viciously. Before I could react to him, he slapped me on both sides of my face continuously until he felt pain on his hand. Prisoner Wang gave him a table tennis paddle, and the guard chopped at my face with the paddle.

My face was swollen and was black and blue. My eyes were swollen and I couldn't see. He didn't stop the beating until he felt tired. I later learned that the one called Qiu Sheng was the "bully" at the Second Ward. After the brutal beating, he ordered an inmate to make me stand a long time for further torture. I stood from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.. I was sometimes forced to run around in a circle until midnight. I stood like this for 17 days and my legs became swollen, with my calves wider than my thighs. Then it was arranged for inmate Ye to monitor me at all times. This also angered Ye, because he had no freedom and he hated me for it. He beat and tortured me at various times to vent his anger.

At Deyang Prison, when the guards persecuted Falun Gong practitioners, they tortured and abused us freely, often deriving pleasure from it. I know that I am Falun Gong practitioner, and with Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in my heart, I never bore a grudge toward them. I peacefully clarified the facts to the guards and hoped I could awaken their conscience.

It was very hot in August, but I was often forced to stand in the sun. My clothes were sopped wet and dried, again and again. They also didn't allow me to change clothes or have a bath. I smelled terrible. I wasn't allowed to drink, and I was so thirsty that I had to secretly drink some dirty water in the toilet room.

As soon as my swollen face became a little bit better, I was sent back for more severe torture. Seven to eight inmates, assigned to me by Qiu Sheng, tortured me by turns. They cruelly tried to force me (and others) to write the three statements to denounce our beliefs, saying that our prison terms would be decreased. I refused to follow their orders. One of inmates, Wen, beat my buttocks with a ruler, bruising me severely. He also severely kicked my right knee joint. It was 6 months before the pain subsided. Under this persistent cruel treatment, I wrote a guarantee statement³ with an unclear mind. Just after I finished the statement, I at once declared that I would not adhere to what I wrote. Qiu and Wen then dragged me to the yard to march in slow motion. With an inmate named Xiao Tang, who was to be released soon, yelling out commands, I had to raise my leg and keep the gesture for three minutes at each step. I felt tremendous pain and became dizzy; tears and sweat rolled down my face. Xiao Tang, who knew the truth about Falun Gong, didn't have the heart to do such things when he saw the extent of my suffering. He used his own toe to help me keep my balance, and had me change my feet a little more quickly to lessen the torture a little bit. He said to me sadly, "I can only help you like this. I am sorry."

In the Strictly Controlled Team, each morning we did cleaning and washed the toilets at 6:00 a.m. Beside the usual drill, we took care of more than 20 people's meals every day, among other chores, and had no time to rest. Inmates often found fault with us and might curse or beat us freely. At times, it was more than I could bear and thought of committing suicide. Then I immediately realized that I was a Falun Gong practitioner and couldn't do such a thing.

I was transferred to the Fifth Ward in 2001, where there were originally five Falun Gong practitioners. After I and another practitioner arrived, there were seven practitioners there. The guard in charge of us was Zhang Jun, who was superficially kind but actually very merciless. He employed three ways to persecute the practitioners: 1) Practitioners were required to write lengthy reports, twice each week. 2) Heavy labour included being forced to strip 20 kilograms of discarded telephone cable and other cables per day, two or four times higher than the rate for ordinary inmates. We did the work by hand instead of with scissors. Our hands were bloodied, and it was so painful that we couldn't make a fist. The aged people who had poor eyesight couldn't complete the task at all. As I was brutally beaten by guard Qiu, I couldn't see clearly, and even now I need to use reading glasses. So I couldn't fulfil the work quota. Then I would be punished and forced to run on Sunday. 3) Freezing; when I was in the Fifth Ward, it was winter. From November to January, we were forced to sit in the yard from 7:00 p.m. to 9:45 p.m. every day, four or five meters away from each other. We shivered and were so cold that we lost consciousness. We encouraged each other and recited the Falun Gong articles together at that time.

On January 30th, 2002, the guards suddenly transferred all practitioners who were not "transformed⁴" to the Second Ward. There we all suffered the cruellest torture. On June 24th, they forced us to have so-called military training for an entire day. We would be assessed once per week. Every night we "studied" together and watch TV programmes slandering Falun Gong. We were forced to sit there, and were insulted, cursed at and mobbed. On June 24th, two practitioners and I were confined. The prison 610 Office head Zhang Jun, guards Wu Yaoshan, Qiu Shen, Cui Weigang, Wang and some inmate heads took turns to persecute us. They forced us to study the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Constitution. We suffered such abuses as isolation, brutal beatings, sleep deprivation, and we were forbidden to get in touch with other people. However, we never yielded to the persecutors.

On July 6th, they intensified the persecution. More than 30 guards and 100 strong male inmates formed a persecution group. Three inmates followed one practitioner. We were forced to keep running for half a day, while the inmates followed in turns, changing every ten minutes. We were not allowed to stop running until lunch time. Then we repeated 150 squats. In the afternoon, we were brainwashed, insulted or forced to watch films that were especially produced to slander Falun Gong. After 12:00 p.m., the Education Section Chief Zeng Fugui and other guards started to brutally beat practitioners. One practitioner couldn't bear it any longer and tried to slam himself against a wall. Qiu Shen said ferociously, "Do it! If you die, we'll make a tape of it and tell the world that another Falun Gong practitioner committed suicide." [editor's note: Falun Gong prohibits killing, including suicide. However, the CCP spread lies about practitioners committing suicide as part of their campaign to slander and demonise the practice.] The practitioner became clear-minded and suffered through this brutal torture.

What I suffered at Dayang prison is only a tiny part of the persecution. There is an untold amount of persecution being levelled against other practitioners. These atrocities are too numerous to be recorded. One day in the future, the CCP's crimes will be exposed before the world.

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.

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

3. "Guarantee Statement": A statement to declare that one is remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practise Falun Gong again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate with any Falun Gong practitioners.

4. "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://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/11/30/90383.html