A Female Falun Gong Practitioner's Appeal

I am a Chinese Falun Gong practitioner. I was fortunate to begin practising Falun Dafa after 20 years of suffering from illness. After practicing Falun Dafa, I became healthier in both body and mind, changed my bad temper, and came to understand the truth of life. My family and friends are grateful; however, our calm life was ruined by an unreasonable persecution and all of us have been treated unjustly.

Since July 1999, my family who are also practitioners and I have been treated in a variety of unlawful and inhuman ways by government departments. This has caused great harm and loss to us both mentally and physically. The following is my true story.

Since July 1999, over the past two years, we have been followed and harassed many times, both in person and on the phone, by the police department. They utilized the local security guards to monitor my family and friends' private lives, as well as my own. They also reprimanded and questioned us, at any time or place, given the opportunity.

The police office "subpoenaed" us for increasingly longer periods of time on many different occasions, and put us in prison through the excuse of a continuous summons to court. Once I was imprisoned in a detention room for many days.

One day in 2000, my family was eating at home, yet the police detained them in the name of "disturbing public order." One was detained for two months. I went to the city police department to appeal, but in vain.

The police searched my house several times, and confiscated my private legal property, such as Falun Gong books, music CDs, cushions, etc.

The "610" office has kidnapped other practitioners and me many times and forced us to attend their brainwashing classes. Although their name for it is the "legal learning course," the true purpose is to detain practitioners. In the brainwashing classes, their illegal and inhuman behaviour can be seen constantly. I was sent to brainwashing classes on four separate occasions, for a total of nine months. Every time, I was detained in a room with other practitioners who had been kidnapped by the police. The guards in the hallway monitored us 24 hours a day. We couldn't go in or out the room freely; even when we slept, went to the toilet or took a shower we were monitored by male guards. Once we were taken to a drug rehabilitation centre for brainwashing sessions.

Examples:

•When we pointed out the staff's illegal behavior in the brainwashing classes, they argued but would not stop.

•The 610 office personnel seized me without giving my family the formal legal advice notice. They also didn't allow me to write to my family and friends, who thought that I had been murdered.

•The practitioners in the brainwashing classes weren't allowed to talk to one another; the guards banned even saying hello. If we did so, we were detained longer. We were deprived of the right to speak.

•The guards forced practitioners to watch TV programs produced by the government that slandered Falun Gong. If someone didn't go to watch, they would drag him there; otherwise, he would be detained. In other words, you had to watch when they said so; you had to come when they said; you had to leave when they said; you were detained if they said; you had to sleep when they said; you had to sit when they said, etc. There were no human rights at all.

•Practitioners (without disturbing anyone) practicing the exercises were hit or cursed. The staff used ropes to tie our hands behind our backs, and lifted us up. Some police used lighters to burn us, hit us with batons, pulled us out of the house and splashed water on us [in the winter] and didn't allow us to go to sleep. When a practitioner felt uncomfortable and needed to take a rest, the guards came and rebuked him angrily, making loud noises by banging on the door and the bed. They even pulled the practitioner from the bed and forced him to sit still for long periods of time.

•The brainwashing courses' officials searched the daily supplies illegally without practitioners' agreement. When practitioners were not willing to give them Falun Gong information, they robbed them and dragged these practitioners out.

•The authorities threatened the practitioners' families and forced them to pay huge amounts of money. After my family had paid more than 10,000 Yuan, [500 Yuan is the average wage for an urban worker in China] the authorities gave them "white stripe" (an unofficial receipt often used by corrupt officials to offer or obtain favours using public assets). Some of the officials even burst into practitioners' houses and confiscated their private property, such as TV sets, furniture, motorcycles etc. illegally.

•I went to Beijing to peacefully appeal in 2000. The local police caught me, hit and kicked me, violating my personal safety. I was then sent back and imprisoned, and my family was forced to pay so that they could get me released from the detention centre.

•I appeal to people all over the world to stop Jiang's criminal group from brutally persecuting millions of Falun Gong practitioners.