Graduate Student at Zhejiang University Persecuted for Her Belief in Falun Gong

My name is Li Xinyi, a 27-year-old female graduate student at the Thermal Engineering Department of the Mechanical and Electrical College, Zhejiang University, located in the city of Hangzhou, in China's Zhejiang Province. I am a Falun Gong practitioner.

I was able to break through China's Internet blockade and reach the Minghui website [Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net] in April of this year. I was so sad when I saw how practitioners were persecuted in various parts of China, and that Yu Zhou, a musician and fellow practitioner, had been tortured to death in Beijing. So, in late April, I took advantage of an opportunity in my English class to give a speech about the persecution of Falun Gong.

College administrators then called me into their offices several times, and they even managed to have my father come from my home town in Gansu Province to try to talk me into giving up my faith. The college administration also arranged to have me fired from my part-time job outside the school. They allowed my father to go home in mid-May.

One day in late May, I was shopping and started a conversation with a security guard about Falun Gong and the persecution. They reported me and I was detained at Cuiyuan Police Station. Policeman Deng Jiming interrogated me the whole evening without giving me any food, and the questioning didn't finish until midnight. The chief of the state security brigade searched the school lab and took away the computer I bought last March. He also confiscated my notes with phrases exposing the persecution of Falun Gong written on them. After midnight, policeman Fang Junfeng and two others took me to Hangzhou Detention Facility.

Following 38 gruelling days in detention, I was released on bail. College authorities then put me under house arrest in a dorm room. My father was called back for the second time to live with me and supervise me. During house arrest, school security guards Du Yuehui and Wang Yong and two others cursed Falun Gong right in front of a crowd and me. Twice Du and Wang came into my room to curse Falun Gong. In protest, I went on an eight-day hunger strike.

In late July, I was transferred to a brainwashing centre in Dongmingshan, Anxi Town. There were 11 practitioners there. Every day the staff at the class played footage from CCTV, China's central television station, slandering Falun Gong. The videos hurt our hearts and poison those who do not know the truth.

Since I did not cooperate with their demands, Xu Ruhong and Wang Qing, both from the Justice Bureau, brought in a DVD player and forced me to watch the CCTV programmes. I wouldn't listen to them, so Ge Lin, an attending staff member, shoved me against the wall, scratching my arm. They insulted me with profanities. They wouldn't allow me to join others in the cafeteria for meals. I went on a two-day hunger strike in protest.

In the brainwashing centre, we were shrouded in fear, not allowed to talk with one another or to use cellphones. Ten days before the class was to end, the staff put up posters insulting Falun Gong. I tore one down. To everyone's surprise, at the direction of the Justice Bureau leaders, security guards started to tear Teacher's [Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong] pictures one by one right in front of the crowd and me. They scribbled abusive words on Teacher's pictures and put them up on the headboard of my bed. Out of sadness and anger, I cried my heart out and fasted for two days in protest. Two or three days later, I stepped out my room in the night and tore down all their posters.

The following morning, Ou Wensheng, a policeman from the Bureau of Public Security of Hangzhou City, and Zhang Junsheng, a policeman from Anxi Police Station, came to my room to question me. They held out a picture of Teacher Li and set it on fire with a lighter.

The brainwashing session ended in early September. I was given a "last chance" and taken back to school, held in an apartment with no mobile phone or computer. I was warned that if I stuck to my faith, I would be sent to a labour camp. I couldn't stand their persecution any more, so I ran away this night and wrote this article.

I learned that staff from the Justice Bureau went on a tour in Wenzhou at public expense as compensation for their work during the brainwashing session.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/9/30/186846.html