The Suffering of Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Dong Yuying

On the train from Chengdu City to Shanghai City on February 13th, 2007, Ms Dong Yuying told a passenger who was a medical patient to recite "Falun Gong is good," saying that it might help her recovery. A train employee and a plain clothes police officer overheard her. She was arrested and detained.

On March 16th, 2007, Ms. Dong was taken to a brainwashing centre in Xinjing City, the so-called "Chengdu Law and Education Centre."

1. Non stop brainwashing and mental and physical torment

Officials in the centre regarded Ms. Dong as a key figure. Centre official Gao Xiaomu told her that the order from the provincial 610 Office¹ was to ""reform²" her by any means."

The day after Dong Yuying's arrival, three "education assistants" - Xu Dan, Huang Zhongzhi, and Yin Decai - took turns continually berating and threatening her, all day long, non stop. Xu Dan, the most vicious one, verbally abused Ms. Dong with foul language and ordered her to keep her legs straight when she sat or lay down, not to exchange any words with other Falun Gong practitioners, not to make any eye contact, and not to put her hands in front of her chest. If she did, all three of them would come upon her together. At night, her head was directly under bright lights. A TV was played loudly all night long. She was watched even when she slept.

The morning of March 17th, 2007, Ms. Dong noticed a white power residue in her food bowl once she finished eating and asked, "Who put something in my food?" The three "education assistants" immediately yelled at her. Half an hour later she began to exhibit sickness symptoms. She felt dizzy and drowsy, had an upset stomach, and became agitated. Xu Dong removed the bedding from her bed and forbade her to sleep. Ms. Dong gradually developed severe psychological impairment and various illness symptoms. Li Feng had come up with the plot, and Yin Decai implemented the plan to secretly drug her.

Gao Xiaomu and Wang Hongqiang planned the next scenario. Gao Xiaomu expressed fake sympathy for Dong Yuying and told her she had arrived from the provincial branch to investigate and supervise the work in the centre. Gao told her she would report any mistreatment against her to higher authorities. Dong Yuying believed her and compromised. Yong Xiuqing continued to apply soft tactics and to "advise" Ms. Dong to write the guarantee statement togive up practising Falun Gong. The "education assistants" continued to berate her all day long and tried to force her to write the statement to give up practising. Ms. Dong became weaker and weaker from whatever drugs they were giving her. Her captors' hypocritical attitudes deceived her, and she wrote the so-called "guarantee statement," with Wang Hongqiang's help.

The third scenario followed immediately. Day and night, Yin Decai, Xu Dan, Yang Xueqing, and Wang Xueqing kept threatening and berating Dong Yuying. Gao Xiaomu and Wang Hongqian kept giving her so-called "lessons" while they slandered Falun Gong, and forced Dong Yuying to do the same. Whenever she refused to cooperate, Gao Xiaomu would be so annoyed that she would pound the table and shout herself hoarse, even crying while speaking. They tried to force Ms. Dong to "recognize her mistakes deeply, and to expose and criticize Falun Gong." They even called people from public security organizations to join in their efforts.

Then, several strong men took Ms. Dong Yuying to the Huaqi Town Hospital to see a doctor. The next day Doctor Zhou brought several bags of a black liquid to the centre and forcibly infused her with it. Not long after the infusion, Ms. Dong developed blurry vision and began hallucinating, hearing different sounds in her ears. Her head hurt severely; she felt as if something was killing all her brain cells, and she struggled against it. She had to hold onto all her mental powers to keep control and not to suffer a mental breakdown. She felt extremely sick to her stomach, her heart felt agitated, and she was manic. She asked the doctor to tell her the name of the medicine and the instructions for its use. Doctor Zhou didn't tell her. The symptoms became worse and worse. On the third day of infusions, she struggled not let to them administer the drug to her. Doctor Zhou cursed Ms. Dong and let her know the medicine was too expensive to waste. Even today, Dong Yuying still suffers from the effects of the drug and often has similar symptoms. If she doesn't try hard to control the symptoms and keep mentally repeating, "Falun Gong is good," she feels that she might become crazy. Even Yin Decai commented on her dull eyesight and slow-witted behaviour.

Her family members were almost unable to recognize her when Dong Yuying returned home to Shanghai. She had lost half of her memory, and her hair was almost white.

2. Evil tricks widely promoted in Xinjing Brainwashing Centre

About May 2007, people from the Ziyang City Politics and Law Committee and from the 610 Office visited the brainwashing centre to learn the brainwashing methods used there. In June 2007, Dazou City 610 Office agents brought some people to visit the centre again, and more visitors came to learn so-called "reformation" tactics. Each time, arrangements were made for the visitors to talk with two different groups - those practitioners who refused to be brainwashed, and those who were "reformed." The visitors would ask questions such as "Why do you refuse to be reformed?" or "Why did you change your mind?" They figured out how the schemes worked according to people's responses.

Different levels from the 610 Office would participate in the acceptance test, to judge whether the brainwashing has achieved its effect. For Ms. Dong Yiying's test, people from the Zhiyang City 610 Office, from the district 610 Office, and from the Domestic Security Division participated. Wang Hongqiang had coached Dong Yuying on how to answer the test questions. Prior to the Ms. Dong's. release, Yin Decai forced her to write false statements such as "personnel in the centre have good attitudes, are patient and caring," and so on. When he instructed her to write words that berated Falun Gong, Ms. Dong firmly refused. Since she had suffered brain damage and lost much of her memory, she couldn't remember additional suffering that she had to endure in the centre.

Prior to Ms. Dong's release, Li Feng from the brainwashing centre had already been to the local officials and given them instructions on how to continue to persecute her, recruited people to visit her brother's family to threaten them, and called her daughter's family. He even called, in person, to threaten them. Faced with such pressure, her brother kept scolding Ms. Dong at home. Her son-in-law showed he disliked her. He told Ms. Dong's husband to keep her from leaving home. Her two previously loyal and respectful daughters also often showed their dislike for her and prevented her from freely going out.

Ziyang City Domestic Security Division officials and agents from the National Security Division were involved in additionally restricting Ms. Dong's freedom. When she arrived in Shanghai, she was followed around the clock. Security guards, people in the local residential community, local police officers, and agents from the district police branch were involved in monitoring her.

3. Damaging Dong Yujing's reputation among her family and her friends

On February 16th, 2007, Lu Kaiquan and two other people from the Yianjiang District National Security Division in Ziyang City took Ms. Dong Yuying from the Shanghai Railway Detention Centre to Ziyang City. On March 16, Lu Kaiquan ordered her to sign the papers for her release on bail. She refused and asked to see her family members. They took her out of the cell against her will. She threw herself against the stonewall to protest the ill-treatment and lost consciousness for a short time. They still took her away and sent her secretly to the Xinjing Brainwashing Centre. Her family was not informed where she was, even though they kept asking for her whereabouts.

In the middle of May 2008, before her release and return to Ziyang City, officials had already made arrangements to discredit and isolate Ms. Dong.

1) They damaged her reputation among the local practitioners. They compiled a booklet with the materials that Wang Hongqiang wrote and Ms. Dong copied in the previous brainwashing center and distributed it widely. They had modified the original information and distributed this among the practitioners in the brainwashing centre who were later released. Luo Kaiquan and other police often discredited her in front of other practitioners, saying she had betrayed so many practitioners from Ziyang City, even from Lezhi, Zuning, and Chengdu City. They added that she had spied for them, how much money they had paid her, how she defamed Falun Gong and so on. They disseminated such lies widely to stir up hate, especially among the practitioners and their family members.

Ms. Dong Yuying called the Ziyang City 610 Office head, Wang Anpeng, and made three statements: she announced that whatever she had written in the brainwashing centre was void; she asked that they destroy the propaganda materials they had made about her; and she requested that all the people in charge of monitoring her be removed.

2) The authorities harassed and threatened her nearly-90-year-old mother and her sister, which made them afraid to let her to visit them.

3) They dispatched secret agents to report her circumstances. A practitioner told Ms. Dong in person that he and another practitioner who had also compromised against their will were ordered by Luo Kaiquan to remain close to her and to report on her to the police. They came to test her by asking her help with leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. Their other task was to investigate her youngest daughter, to see whether she still practised Falun Gong. Luo Kaiquan also arranged for two other people (non-practitioners) to monitor her and promised to give them 200 yuan a month for the task. Furthermore, he called the Xuhui District Police Department in Shanghai and told them to investigate her daughter in Shanghai.

4) They tried to stop any friends from contacting Ms. Dong. Whenever someone visited her or said anything to her, he or she would be warned. No ordinary friends dared to talk to her, and no relatives wanted to keep in contact with her.

The officials tried everything imaginable to damage Ms. Dong's reputation among her family and friends, to make her unable to live in this world. Their lies were spread widely and reached her older brother's home. Her brother slapped Ms. Dong in anger and scolded her for selling out other people, which made their family fall apart. Ms. Dong's younger sister refused to let her into her house, afraid she would implicate her.

4. Strictly monitored

Ms. Dong Yuying is being strictly monitored around the clock. Over a year ago, a house in front of Dong Yuying's family was sold, and the new owner was the "Zixi Resident Community Law Assistant Centre for Farmers," but it was actually used to monitor Ms. Dong. Assistant Centre head Cha Chao was in charge of monitoring Dong Yuying during the day. He admitted that when Ms. Dong questioned him. Other monitor her at night. Wherever she goes she is followed.

They've also ordered the local community office to become involved. Those officials have hired jobless people to monitor her. They've even set up video surveillance cameras.

Ms. Dong Yuying is nearly 60 years old, and she has suffered through nearly ten years of severe abuse and mistreatment from the Communist regime for her belief, which also brought suffering to her family, her relatives, and friends.

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. "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/2009/2/19/195732.html