A Childhood Full Of Tears - the Story of Xinxin and Her Family

Xinxin, 11, lives in Baoding City, Hebei Province. Her father Liu Yongwang was a chief engineer at a foreign company in Beijing. Xinxin's mother was on the faculty at a university. Xinxin's parents both practise Falun Gong and follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be a good people. They were very well respected. However, since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong in July 1999, Xinxin's life has been full of tears.

Arrested With Her Parents When She Was Just One Year Old

In May 2000, the police from the Beijing National Security Bureau went to Liu Yongwang's office to arrest him. Liu Yongwang was on a business trip in Shanghai at the time. The police could not wait until he came back, so they tracked him down in Shanghai, arrested him there and detained him at the Seventh Section in the Beijing Public Security Bureau.

Xinxin's mum was also harassed by the CCP at her university. After Liu Yongwang was released by the police, he went to Shanghai with Xinxin and her mum to look for another job. At that time, Xinxin was just over one year old.

One year old Xinxin and her father Liu Yongwang

On September 15th, 2001, a group of police officers broke into their house in Shanghai and arrested them all. Xinxin's parents were locked in a cage in the police station. Xinxin was taken away by the police and given to a stranger. She kept crying. A week later, the police forced Xinxin's mother to write a power of attorney document, allowing the use of the 3,000 yuan¹ the police confiscated from Xinxin's parents as a fee to pay to the foster family. Later, the police transferred Xinxin through several hands and finally transferred her to the police in Baoding City, Hebei Province. The police in Baoding City then notified Xinxin's grandparents. The police had spent nearly all of the money that they stole, so they told Xinxin's grandparents to take Xinxin back to their home at Quyang County, Hebei Province.

For Three Years, Xinxin Could Only Speak to Her Parents by Looking at Their Photos

While Xinxin finally went back to her grandparents, Xinxin's father, Liu Yongwang, was detained at the Shanghai City Detention Centre and her mother was detained at the Baoding City Detention Centre. After having been detained for 88 days, Xinxin's parents were both sentenced to three years of forced labour in December 2001. They suffered from persecution at the Baoding City Forced Labour Camp.

During those three years, Xinxin lived with her grandparents in the countryside. She learned to eat, dress and wash clothes by herself. She also learned the local dialect. She grew up like this without her parents. When she missed her parents, she ran back home, took her parents' photo out, looked at it and spoke to them. Sometimes she also sang for them.

Xinxin's relatives all practised Falun Gong. Almost all of them were persecuted by the CCP. During the same year Xinxin's parents were sentenced to forced labour, her uncle and two aunts were also arrested. Her uncle Liu Yonghong was an engineer at the Shijiazhuang City Design Centre of the Department of Coal Industry. He was chased by the local police and was forced to jump down from the fifth floor, breaking both his legs. While he was still using a walking stick, he was sent to a brainwashing centre by the local 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong). In order to force him to give up his belief in Falun Gong, the police used a clamp to crush one of his fingers

After Xinxin's grandparents heard the news, they cried frequently. In little Xinxin's mind, the tears on her grandparents' wrinkled faces never seemed to dry.

In June 2003, Xinxin's mum was released from the forced labour camp. Xinxin proudly told her friends that she had a mum and that her mum was back home, but when the friends asked her where her dad was, she could not answer. She ran back home and asked her mum, but her mum did not know what to tell her.

Liu Yongwang suffered from brutal torture at the forced labour camp. He went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Guard Li Dayong and others force-fed him. They intentionally pried open his mouth and made it bleed badly. Then they fed him thin soup and highly concentrated salt water. The police also intentionally put him in the same room with a prisoner who had severe tuberculosis, which caused Liu Yongwang to get tuberculosis also. He had a high fever and continuously coughed up blood.

The guards also used a high-voltage electric baton to beat Mr. Liu's chest, head, mouth and other parts of his body. His body was covered with big blisters. His mouth was swollen badly. The room was filled with the smell of burning skin. The police did not stop shocking him with the electric baton until its battery died. They also tied Liu Yongwang to a bed with both arms and legs stretched out for 21 days, which caused his back and hips to become a dark, black colour because of contact with the hard bed board. Later, he had sores, broken skin and bleeding. His left leg developed the symptoms of nerve necrosis.

Finally Her Father Came Back Home, But Was Sentenced to Eight Years in Prison

In June 2004, Liu Yongwang had many illnesses because of the persecution in prison. His left leg had nerve necrosis and his spine was injured. The Baoding City Forced Labour Camp had to release him on bail for medical treatment. Xinxin's dad finally came back home. It brought great happiness for little Xinxin.

By this time, Xinxin was already over five years old. She had not seen her father in four years. She was happy to finally spend time with her dad.

But soon, Liu Yongwang was arrested and sentenced again. After that, Xinxin and her father never have had the chance to be together. Their short time together became Xinxin's precious memory. She usually had the scene in her mind that although her father had illnesses and was injured, he still held her up and let her ride on his neck around their home again and again.

One year after Liu Yongwang was released, he was arrested by the National Security Bureau in Beijing in August 2005, with the excuse of suspecting that he was involved in broadcasting Falun Gong programmes on cable television. From November 7th to November 13th, 2005, the team who specially handled Liu Yongwang's case shackled both of his legs to an iron chair and used high-voltage electric batons to shock him. They also shined strong light continuously into his eyes from a close distance and did not let him sleep for seven days and nights. Although the team did not find any evidence, they still decided to give a heavy sentence to Liu Yongwang to end the case. On May 1st, 2006, the CCP court sentenced Liu Yongwang to eight years in prison. On June 16th, 2006, Liu Yongwang was transferred to the Jidong Prison in Tangshan City.

Xinxin Constantly Worried That Her Father Would Be Persecuted to Death

After Xinxin's dad was sentenced again, Xinxin lived with her mum. She learned a lot of things that were beyond her age. Since she started to go to school at six, she went to school alone and came back home alone. At noon, her mom was busy at work and could not come back home, so she heated leftovers in the microwave oven for lunch. Sometimes there were no leftovers, and she had to go to the street to buy lunch for herself.

During the many years of tribulations, Xinxin learned to live independently. She was not afraid of hardship. The only thing she was afraid of was that her dad would be persecuted to death in prison.

Liu Yongwang went on hunger strike at the Jidong Prison. The prison guards force-fed him. They tied him to a bed, and used a rubber tube which was thicker than a thumb to feed him. They intentionally jabbed inside Liu Yongwang's nose with the tube. The great pain caused Liu Yongwang to faint. Then they woke him up and kept jabbing his nose. Liu Yongwang fainted many times. Once, when Liu Yongwang woke up, he bit and broke the rubber tube and swallowed the broken tube. The police had to stop the forced feeding and notified his family to come see him. When the family members came to visit him, he was paralysed in his bed and his lower body had lost sensation. His life was in great danger. Later the hospital took the rubber tube out of Liu Yongwang's stomach. He barely survived the ordeal.

When Xinxin heard about the persecution that her dad suffered in the prison from her family members, she often cried. When she had a school break, she begged her mom to take her to Tangshan City to see her dad. But every time they went, the prison did not allow them to see him, giving only one excuse, which was that Liu Yongwang refused to be "transformed" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong]. The prison had locked Liu Yongwang in a special "prison inside a prison" and persecuted him there more brutally.

On the top floor of the Jimu Prison, there was a door with a sign, "No one allowed to enter without staff permission." This was the "prison inside the prison" that the guards used to specifically persecute Liu Yongwang. Since April 2007, Liu Yongwang has been locked inside. The team leader Zheng Yajun specifically picked some strong and cruel prisoners. Every day, six of them were sent to the room where Liu Yongwang was imprisoned to watch him. In order to crush Liu Yongwang's spirit, the police incited these prisoners to use Liu Yongwang to release their frustrations on after being in prison for a long term.

Every afternoon, the prisoners tortured Liu Yongwang before dinner. They covered Liu Yongwang's head with a paper box. Then six people surrounded him and pushed and hit him, bouncing him between them like a volleyball. Meanwhile, they used very foul language to insult Liu Yongwang's parents.

When they force-fed Liu Yongwang, they made fun of him. They argued over how to insert the tube inside Liu Yongwang's body and tried all the brutal ways they could, not considering Liu Yongwang's life or death at all. Within a few months, they beat Liu Yongwang unconscious three times. Once Liu Yongwang was unconscious for ten minutes, but the prisoners still made fun of him.

When Liu Yongwang went to the toilet, they did not allow him to use toilet paper and forced him to use his hand to clean himself. They also stipulated that Liu Yongwang had to go to the restroom at specific times and did not allow him to go at any other time. Sometimes when they saw Liu Yongwang wanted to relieve himself, they did not allow him to go. Instead, they ran over to him and tied him up, until Liu Yongwang had to relieve himself on a chair, bed or in his trousers.

One day in December 2007, Liu Yongwang had to go to the toilet, but it was still 20 minutes from the stipulated time. The prisoners saw Mr. Liu trying to stop himself from wetting his trousers. They immediately came over and forced him to wet his trousers.

Mr. Liu also suffered from severe muscle cramping in his legs, oedema, and had bruises all over his ankles. Taking sadistic pleasure in Mr. Liu's pain, the inmates would press on his swollen body, saying that they were giving him a massage. Because of the oedema, his skin would break open. One day, the inmates rubbed off a 10-cm size patch of skin from Mr. Liu's leg and a 5-cm size patch from his nose. Another day, six inmates charged him, held him down, and force-masturbated him three times.

In winter 2007, it was freezing cold. During the night, the prisoners opened all the windows in the prison room and let the freezing cold wind blow through. Then they forced Liu Yongwang to stand in the wind with only thin clothing to relieve himself . The prisoners claimed that this was the "freezing torture" they designed. Each time they forced Liu Yongwang to stand in the cold for half an hour. Soon after that, they woke him up to do it again. They forced Liu Yongwang to stand in the cold several times every night. They intentionally tortured Liu Yongwang like this in order to eventually torture him to death.

Liu Yongwang Uses His Life to Appeal to and Wake Up People's Conscience

Liu Yongwang was tortured at the horrifying "prison within the prison" for eight months. The police and prisoners were very surprised Liu Yongwang was still alive. Sometimes he looked nearly dead, but every time he woke up again. Every time he woke up, he clearly told the prisoners and the guards, "Falun Gong is right. We are persecuted by the CCP. You have broken the law, and I will appeal and report your crimes." The prison guards had to let Liu Yongwang go back to the normal prison room. After that, Liu Yongwang started to write letters to various departments in the prison to identify and accuse the guards and prisoners who persecuted him relentlessly.

"Great Dad"

Because Liu Yongwang constantly protested the persecution in the prison and because of his family members' constant efforts to inform the world outside, they got the attention of people around the world, and the Jidong Prison had to restore Liu Yongwang's family members' right to visit him. In the winter of 2008, Xinxin took the winter break and came to the prison to visit her father with her mother and grandfather. She could finally see her father. He had been imprisoned most of the time since she was born, and the total time they were together was less than three years. When she saw how her dad looked so much older and weaker than her friends' dads, she could not help crying. But, at the same time, she was also very proud of her father because his spirit was very strong.

She asked her father many questions. He answered her questions very sincerely, and she felt her spirit was linked with her father. When they went back home, her mother asked her, "What do you think of your father? What virtues does he have?" She answered, "Dad is smart, strong and has a sense of humour." Her father was a true hero in her mind.

Later, Xinxin wrote a letter to her dad. She folded the letter into a heart shape and told her mum not to open it. But her mum worried that she might write something which could cause negative impact on her dad. So she secretly opened the letter. The title of the letter is "my great dad."

Yes, Xinxin called him "my great dad." How will future generations look at Liu Yongwang and his fellow practitioners after they have endured such unspeakable tribulations? Xinxin's letter has so much to say.

Xinxin's letter regarding her studies and life, is included below:

My great Dad,

How are you? How is your health?

When are you coming back home? Right now I have more and more homework. For some of my maths problems, even mum does not know the answer. Please come back home as soon as possible to teach me! Mum gets more and more busy and it's harder and harder for her. She cannot come back home at noon. I have to eat at the small dining table. Sometimes in the evening, Mum needs to go out and handle some things. The class on how to play the zither that I am taking requires a lot of money. I plan to stop my singing lesson and only take the zither class, in order to reduce Mum's burden.

Attached is an award that I got for this term. Please take a look.

I often dream about you and dream of our whole family reunited. Dad, please come back home as soon as possible!

My wish: to reunite with you, my dad

May 2010

Postscript

After Liu Yongwang was finally allowed family visits, he was able to transfer the information he had written regarding the persecution of himself in the prison to his wife. The letter exposed the CCP's bloody persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, news which was normally blocked and covered up by lies of the CCP. Since his family were astonished and angry about the CCP's practices, they hired human rights attorney Mr. Cheng Hai and others. On August 4th, 2010, attorney Cheng Hai from Beijing and attorney Li Lun from Hebei Province accepted a request from Liu Yongwang's family and came to Jidong Prison to visit Liu Yongwang. After many attempts, they finally met with Liu Yongwang. He avoided the guard's body search and successfully handed over the materials he wrote to the attorney. He asked the attorney to represent him and officially sue the staff at Jidong Prison and Baoding City Forced Labour Camp for brutally torturing and persecuting him. According to sources close to the situation, high-level CCP officials are very angry, and are using their power to threaten the attorney and trying to interfere with and stop the normal legal procedures.

We call for help from people all around the world to pay attention to the plight of this family and rescue Mr. Liu Yongwang from prison as soon as possible.

Related articles:

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2007/1/24/82002.html

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2007/1/24/82002.html

http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/10/25/121018.html

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/2010/12/1/233125.html