My Mother's Experiences Make Me Sympathize With Each Falun Gong Practitioner

By Peng Pai

My mother began to practise Falun Gong in 1997. She seemed to be more open after practicing Falun Gong. She not only practiced the exercises every day, but also read the related books and listened to the series of cassette recordings. I remember she practiced very well, and read Zhuan Falun over and over. She told me she had read the book more than 100 times and could recite some paragraphs. She also gave me a copy of Zhuan Falun and hoped that I could become a Falun Gong practitioner. Because I was busy working at that time, and was young and lacked diligence, I didn't read the book thoroughly.

In the summer of 1999, Falun Gong was banned unexpectedly one day. I still remember the television broadcasting the government public announcement repeatedly. The tense atmosphere made me an offspring of the "black five kinds" [Note: refers to five kinds of people defined by communism as bad and dangerous to the communist government], and I realized that the communist dictatorship was starting another nationwide movement to maintain its totalitarian rule. I predicted that they would target every Falun Gong practitioner, including my mother.

From that day, the officials in my mother's work place, the activists from the neighbourhood committee, and the police took turns "chatting" with my mother. My mother symbolically turned in two [Falun Gong] books at the beginning. But they were still not satisfied, and asked for more. My mother experienced many home searches in the past, and under the pressure, she turned in the remaining books and cassette recordings. They were still not satisfied and applied more pressure to her. I sensed that my mother, who had lived through many brutal political movements in the past, was under huge mental and psychological pressure. I know that my mother is an unbending person, and she is silently defending her beliefs and freedom. Although I am not a Falun Gong practitioner, my mother's experiences make me sympathize with each Falun Gong practitioner.

What makes me angry is after almost three years, the police still often show up at my home unexpectedly, monitoring my mother's every movement in the name of looking after her. The worst were those activists from the neighbourhood committee. They live in the neighbourhood and watch us constantly. My home again became the target of surveillance and my family members again became a "transforming target" in this movement. Besides me, I am sure that many Chinese are familiar with the consistent style of the Party: they will by all means deprive people of their rights in order to protect the party's dictatorship. I faithfully believe that one day our repressed Chinese people will gain real freedom, and the human rights will be respected in China.

Source: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/6/20/23301.html