Ms. Wan Ping Remains Steadfast During 10 Years of Persecution

Ms. Wan Ping is always smiling. People like to befriend her because of her gentle temperament.

Wan Ping

Wan Ping, 40 years old now, works at Hunan Province Changyuan Wood-based Panel Co., Ltd. She is always ready to help others. At work, whenever others needed someone to take over their shifts, Ms. Wan would be ready to help if she could.

One day in September 2009, Ms. Wan wore a long-sleeved shirt to work. There were bruises on her face. Feeling strange, her fellow workers asked her what had happened. She told them of her arrest for telling people Falun Gong and the persecution, and of the Xinhe Local Police Station agents brutally beating her.

Ms. Wan had been arrested before. Refusing to renounce her faith, she has endured all kinds of hardships in the past ten years.

Ms. Wan had suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis since middle school. She had to wear long sleeved shirts and long trousers, even in mid-summer and needed to cover herself with a blanket, otherwise the pain would be unbearable. She began work at the Hunan Wood-based Panel Plant in 1988. Her daily exposure to adhesives containing formaldehyde and benzene used in the manufacturing process harmed her health. After she had worked there for a few years she developed green and purple bruises. When some disappeared in one part on her body, others would appear in a different location. No doctors knew what caused these chronic bruises. She also developed gastritis, in addition to all kinds of physical problems.

A co-worker introduced her to Falun Gong in 1997. Within five months of practising, Ms. Wan's illnesses all disappeared. Her family and neighbours had seen the changes in her and said that Falun Gong was great. Ms. Wan had since then also become more open-minded and understanding. Things that would have bothered her in the past did not matter to her anymore.

Two years later, in July 1999, the Communist regime began to persecute Falun Gong. Starting from then on, the media, TV programmes and newspaper broadcast fabricated news about Falun Gong. Administrators of her place of work also ordered Falun Gong practitioners to hand in their Falun Gong books and other materials, and to stop practising Falun Gong. However, Ms. Wan continued reading Falun Gong books and practising the exercises as usual.

She was arrested and detained simply because she went to Beijing and declared, "Falun Gong is good." Officials at her place of work suspended her work. She only had only 200 yuan¹ living expenses for six months. When it was time for a pay raise, she got the lowest raise, rate-4, when she was supposed to have gotten a rate-7 raise, the highest rate.

Duzheng Street Police Station agents in Changsha City ransacked her home in early 2008 because she was seen distributing Falun Gong materials to people. After that, she was detained at the Hunan Province Law Education Centre [a brainwashing facility]. The real goal of the centre is to brainwash Falun Gong practitioners in order to force them to renounce their belief. Two persons took turns keeping her under 24-hour surveillance. She was forced to watch videos and read information that slandered Falun Gong and compelled to write guarantee statements to give up Falun Gong. She was required to pay for "living costs" in the centre. Centre officials extorted more than 2,000 yuan from her for her 13-day stay.

Ms. Wan was arrested once again on September 22nd, 2009, and was imprisoned in a small cell at the Xinhe Police Station. Policeman Wang Nanting interrogated her using torture to force her into a fake confession. She was slapped on the face numerous times; was beaten to the ground and stepped on and was forced to kneel. Wang Nanting grabbed her by the hair and banged her head against a wall. Patches of skin on her hands came off after Wang stepped on them with his hard leather shoes. Wang also struck her on the back of the neck and hit her head with a plastic bottle full of water. After a one-day detention, police forced Ms. Wan's family to pay 1,000 yuan as a "police escort fee," but they did not issue the family a receipt or other kinds of documentation. Her family members bailed her out, paying an additional 10,000 yuan, using their personal reputation and their corporate equity guarantee. Though with bruises and injuries, she finally returned home.

Many people in China do not understand why practitioners would endure torture rather than give up their belief. But Ms. Wan believes deep in her heart that sooner or later her fellow countrymen will understand that the hardships that practitioners have had to endure are not in vain. Ultimately, they will come to understand that Falun Gong is good and revere practitioners for upholding the freedom to believe as one chooses.

Note

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

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/12/7/214001.html