Firsthand Account of Persecution Suffered by a Factory Worker

I am 60 years old and started to practise Falun Gong in 1996.

The persecution of Falun Gong started on July 20th, 1999. In July I went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practise. In Beijing the plainclothes police arrested me and detained me in Fengtai Stadium. It was very hot, and we were forced to stand under the baking sun with no water or food. At midnight I was escorted to Yucheng in Shandong Province. The Dezhou Appeals Office took me back to my workplace, the Chunxiao Dress Factory. The heads of the factory threatened me, stating that if I did not write a guarantee statement to renounce practising Falun Gong, they would not release me. My family decided to write it for me. After I returned home, policemen Yin Guangjian and Zhang Liang from Dongdi Police Station came to my home to harass me and search my home many times.

On the afternoon on October 23rd, 1999, while I was walking on the street, the head of my workplace and others abducted me and detained me at the Xinhu Hotel. On November 18th, I was taken back to my workplace and lived under surveillance. Wang Yinglin from Dongdi Police Station ordered my employer to stop my salary. From 2000 to 2003, I did not get a penny.

On February 11th, 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong with several other practitioners. I was forcibly arrested and taken to Tiananmen Police Station and then picked up by staff from my local government liaison office in Beijing. On February 14th, Dezhou District Economy Committee and head Qi of my workplace sent me to the Dezhou City Detention Centre.

In the middle of the night on July 11th, 2000, officers from the National Security Bureau and Dongdi Police Station broke into and searched my home. They found Falun Gong articles and took me against my will to a detention centre.

In mid-September when I was cleaning my home, I found a round, black object beneath my bed. I had never seen a listening device before, but I realized what it was. I destroyed it. Soon after, the police arranged for several plainclothes officers to surround my home and monitor me 24 hours a day.

On October 24th, 2000, I was woken up by a hasty knocking on my door. I opened my door, and people from my workplace entered. They took me to work and put me under surveillance. The second day, I was transferred to the Zhenzhi Hotel. After one week of detention, I was allowed to return home.

On December 24th, 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong again with fellow practitioners. This time I had no fear. I was very peaceful and my heart was pure. In Beijing, we successfully unfurled a one-hundred-metre-long banner and shouted out the words that I had held in my heart for so long: "Falun Gong is good! Falun Gong is been wronged!" After we said this, the plainclothes police kicked and beat us, and dragged us into police cars. They took us to Mentougou Police Station and denied us water and food for 12 days. After that I had to stay away from my home to avoid persecution. I have made a living by doing odd jobs. Though my life was tough, I was not pessimistic. Several years later I returned home. However, the harassment never stopped.

On September 10th, 2005, Zhang Xikun from the district political and protection section led the police from Xinhubeilu Police Station to my home. They ransacked it, taking my computer, printer, paper-cutter, two CD burners, and some other personal items. I was detained at the Dezhou City Detention Centre. Wu Zhenyuan and Zhang Xikun from the district political and protection section extorted 20,000 yuan¹ from my family, threatening to send me to a forced labour camp if the bribe was not paid.

In the detention centre, I went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. On the tenth day of the hunger strike, they began to force feed me. Prisoner Wang Wenjuan, the detention center's doctor Jiang, and three other people made me lie down, tied my limbs to the bed, and held me down as I struggled and the doctor inserted the feeding tube. Instead of inserting the tube down my oesophagus, he inserted it into my trachea. Immediately I couldn't breathe. When he pulled the tube out, my blood sprayed all over them.

I was tortured until I was in extreme pain and exhausted. They then sent me to Dezhou People's Hospital. Two months after I was detained in the detention centre, Liu Dawei called my daughter and forced her to hand over 1,000 yuan to the police department to pick me up. To get me out, my daughter had to take out the last of our savings, 500 yuan, and give it to Liu.

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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/3/4/219208.html