The Story of Dafa Practitioner's Great Courage During Persecution (photos)

Song Xu was a 29 year old graduate of Henan Agriculture University.

On July 22, 1999, several thousand Dafa practitioners, including Song Xu, went to the provincial party committee of Henan Province to appeal peacefully for the release of practitioners in charge of the Dafa Assistant Centre of Henan Province who had been illegally arrested on the night of July 20. In the afternoon, all practitioners were detained in a nearby elementary school. Song Xu had kept talking to the police about Dafa all that time. Several police were around him and earnestly listened to him. He did very well. When almost all the people had left in the evening, he was seen still picking up the litter on the ground.

In March 2000, during the conference of the National People's Congress, Song Xu went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa. He was arrested and detained at Qiliyan in Zhengzhou City. At that time, most practitioners just passively endured the evil persecution, but Song Xu started a hunger strike to resist the persecution. He was released unconditionally after seven days on a hunger strike.

In June 2000, Song Xu went to Tiananmen Square to appeal for Dafa. He was arrested and detained in a detention centre in Beijing. He started to deny the injustice from the first day of his detention, refusing to tell his name and to wear a prisoner's uniform. He went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention. At the instigation of the police, prisoners in the cell tortured him brutally. They claimed, "There were even some with death sentences here. Nobody can walk out of here without telling his name." Although he suffered severe physical injuries, he still kept clarifying the truth to both the prisoners and the guards and introduced Dafa to the prisoners who had beaten him. Everyday the inhuman prison guards force-fed him. One time a prison guard violently pulled out one of his teeth with pliers and force-fed him with two packages of salt. During this extreme suffering, he called out, "You will not have a good ending." The next day, when the guard came to force-feed him again, Song Xu said to him, "I thought about it a long time last night. I'm sorry that I was angry with you and scolded you yesterday. My Teacher told us not to have any complaint or hatred, under any circumstances. I didn't do well yesterday and said something that a practitioner should not have said. Although it was wrong that you tortured me, I still want to apologise to you sincerely." The prison guard was struck by what he said, and was on the verge of tears. He put down the pliers in his hand and left.

Gradually, all the prisoners in the cell made friends with Song Xu. The prisoners, with tears in their eyes, who had brutally beaten him earlier, helped him wash his wounds. After being detained for 20 days, Song Xu was released. The prison guard accompanied him all the way to the railway station. He held Song Xu's hand and said, "I would like to have a friend like you. You are the first one who walked out of here without telling your name."

Song Xu studied the Fa [teachings of Falun Dafa] diligently and was able to understand major issues from the perspective of the Fa. Because of this, he was able to play an influential role in Dafa work in the Zhengzhou area, and the evildoers also tried hard to find him.

In November 2000, Song Xu went to help a practitioner who had gone given up practising due to torture and brainwashing. When he opened the door to that practitioner's home, the police from Jinshui District of Zhengzhou happened to be there. They were over-excited and shouted, "Song Xu, we've finally got you!" At that moment, the practitioner who had stopped practising was shocked by the situation and she suddenly became awakened and was deeply moved by Song Xu's selflessness and by his willingness to risk his own life, helping other fellow practitioners. Since that incident, that practitioner has again become a steadfast and diligent Dafa practitioner once more.

Song Xu was detained in the No.1 Detention Centre of Zhengzhou. He refused to cooperate with any unjust demands. On the 13th day of a hunger strike, he was found to have no pulse. The authorities became scared and sent him back home. He recovered quickly at home and returned back to clarifying the truth to people .

In February 2001, Song Xu and another practitioner from Kaifeng were arrested at the Zheng Zhou railway station. He was directly sent to the No.5 Unit, Baimiao Labour Camp in Zhengzhou, and was sentenced to two years of forced labour. Song Xu resisted the imprisonment from the very beginning. With courage, he refused to wear the prison uniform and to have his photo taken; he refused to answer roll call and to do manual labour. He went on a hunger strike at the end of March. His righteous actions intimidated the authorities causing them to brutally torture him.

There was no bed for Song Xu in the prison cell and he had to sleep on the ground. With the excuse that Song Xu had violated the rules of the labour camp, the deputy of No.5 Unit, Chen Lingling, and the political instructor Han Hongtao, locked Song Xu in a small cell and commanded four prisoners to monitor him. Li Mingyao, Wu Minghai and Mao Bo were three of those whose names we know.

Song Xu suffered brutal beatings constantly from the prisoners. He was also forced to undergo daily "brainwashing" from collaborators [collaborators are former Dafa practitioners who have stopped practising due to brutal torture and brainwashing. They now assist in the brainwashing and torture]. Song Xu said to them, "You all made a big mistake in your understanding. How can you think you can reach enlightenment? When other gods ask you how you cultivated yourself to enlightenment, would you tell them you had arrived there because you had become a traitor to Dafa. Isn't it a joke?"

At one assembly, one deputy mayor said, "We must transform Song Xu, and make him "the second Zhuang Li in Zhengzhou"! [the name of an active collaborator detained in the Provincial Labour Camp.] Chen Lingling and Han Hongtao are constantly putting pressure on the collaborators, saying, "We must transform Song Xu!" None of the collaborators dared to talk to Song Xu, because faced with all of his righteous thoughts and deeds, every bit their own ugliness and shortcomings were completely exposed.

After about 20 days on the hunger strike, Song Xu stopped and started to eat a little bit. The evil persecution intensified immediately. Because he could not walk due to his damaged legs at that time, he needed help from those four criminals in order to cope with daily life. When he wanted a drink of water, they would not give it to him; when he wanted to eat, they would not pass the food to him; when he wanted to write, to appeal against the torture he suffered, they would not give him any paper. Under the instigation of the team leader Chen Lingling, the four criminals locked him up in cell No.9, covered his mouth and beat him up in order to force him to give up his faith and to compromise.

A few days later, Song Xu realised that his righteous thoughts were not strong, of which they took advantage. Realising this, he strengthened his righteous thoughts and started the difficult hunger strike again.

When the guards saw that their hopes [to make him give up his belief] were again shattered, they treated him with extreme cruelty and severely tortured him. When they force-fed him, the vicious guards used metal tools to pry his teeth apart. They used a very dirty and thick pipe to force-feed him through his nose. They also force-fed him with a highly dangerous concoction of hot pepper water and highly concentrated salt solution. In addition, they also wiped burning ground chili pepper paste into his eyes, causing unimaginable pain. Once, when force-feeding him, the merciless authorities even tore his mouth badly. Each time they tortured him, the evildoers were afraid that what they were doing would be known or heard by others. Song Xu quickly realised that the authorities were most afraid of being exposed to the public; that is why, whenever they persecuted him, he would shout loudly, to expose their shameless criminal acts, so that everybody could hear him.

In order to prevent Song Xu from exposing their conduct, they would beat him up at midnight, with his mouth covered up. When this happened, Song Xu then would shout loudly the next day. He also sternly warned the doctors and the police who force-fed him that this kind of conduct was illegal. After that, they dared not to force-feed him themselves, but have the criminals do it. He would shout out loudly the names of those who were persecuting him this way. During the few days, while he suffered through extremely brutal persecution, he loudly shouted, "I, Song Xu, don't want to die. If I should die, it is because I was tortured to death, and is not a suicide!"

In order to prevent Song Xu from appealing against their atrocities, they would forcibly take away Song Xu's bloodstained clothes, after each beating, and also remove pieces of his broken teeth resulting from the force-feeding, and they would declare that he had no evidence for his appeal.

With such inhuman tortures, the police still said that, "nobody tortured Song Xu." The collaborators also slandered him, but no matter what they said, nothing could waiver Song Xu's rock-solid determination to resist and expose the outrage and to defend Dafa. Song Xu's righteous thoughts and deeds frightened the evil authorities, and eventually nobody dared to torture him or treat him unscrupulously any more.

Song Xu's story was published on a Dafa website. The labour camp strictly blocked the news to the public, and they fabricated rumours that it was not true, that Song Xu had not been on hunger strike for many days. In order to attack Dafa websites, the authorities carefully concocted a fraudulent set-up. They arranged for all who were detained in Team 5 to participate in a sports meeting, and secretly pointed several video cameras at Song Xu, intending to get pictures of Song Xu playing games or watching games together with others. But Song Xu saw through their plot and firmly refused to cooperate. The whole time during this sports meeting, he was bending over the table and did not lift his head at all.

Song Xu always made sure that the evildoers would not have any opportunity to take advantage of him. Whenever there were reporters or video cameras present, he would keep waving his hands in front of his face while speaking so that his pictures could not be used by them to fabricate rumours against Falun Gong.

Once at a big assembly, which was attended by leaders from the prosecutor's office and some other departments, as well as journalists from TV stations and newspapers, Song Xu loudly shouted, "I am treated unjustly. I must appeal!" Several criminals quickly pushed him down, covered his head and carried him away. Afterwards, some people came to talk with him. He finally had a chance to hand in his appeal. Although the criminals who beat him had several days added to their incarceration terms, the fact that the police and the criminals acted in collusion with one another to torture him was not actually dealt with. From then on, though, no police dared to order any criminals to beat him any more, and the criminals were all very afraid of him. Whoever was ordered to guard Song, that criminal would become frightened and shake all over, because those criminals who tortured Song before were all threatened by the police that they could not say the truth, and furthermore, they had to take responsibility for the torture against Song.

Song Xu's physical condition deteriorated. He became thinner and thinner everyday, and it looked like he was going to die. No criminals wanted to guard him, fearing that they would be held responsible for his death. The police also did not know what to do. Finally, they had to let those collaborators take turns guarding him.

Once there were two of them guarding Song Xu. He took the opportunity to talk to them for several hours, and they were both moved to tears at the end. The next day, they wrote solemn declarations and handed them in to the police, declaring that all of their " three written guarantees" (giving up practising Falun Gong) were null and void, and they would start practising again. Inspired by them, those who had written the "three written guarantees" all declared that their written statements have become invalid. By then, Teacher Li's scripture "A Suggestion" had been brought into the camp, and most of those who had gone astray became clear-headed. The abusers became very angry at their loss. They began to strictly supervise Song Xu, and nobody was allowed to approach Song at all. They also arranged specific people to guard Song, and encouraged criminals to torture Song. Although he could not contact anyone, whenever people passed by his cell, Song would shout some words to keep people alert. He would also raise his thumb to those who stayed firm with Dafa, to encourage them to strengthen their righteous thoughts.

The head of the group who was assigned to monitor Song Xu was a drug user by the name of He Suizhu. This person was really vicious and brutal. In order to score points with the authorities to get his sentence reduced, he brutally tortured Song Xu. They tied up Song Xu's whole body with ropes, then tightly wrapped him with a quilt, covered his head with a helmet and put a piece of dirty cloth into his mouth. They did not allow him to move or turn his body all day long. As a result he had to urinate and defecate inside his pants. He Suizhu, the drug addict, once squatted in front of Song Xu, spit on his face, cursed him with all kinds of words and slapped his face for as long as four hours. The whole purpose was to make Song Xu angry.

During this whole event, Song Xu was not affected and kept quiet. He Suizhu got so angry that he started to curse Dafa and Teacher. At this point Song Xu shouted, "Stop your nonsense! Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is good!" He shouted and shouted until he lost his voice and his mouth was stuffed with a piece of dirty cloth. The drug addict He Suizhu stood on Song Xu's chest and pressed hard. He then forced him to lie down with his face to the ground and asked two other prisoners to lift up his feet and his upper body and push hard towards the centre. Song Xu felt his body was about to break and was in extreme pain. They often hit his buttocks with wooden sticks until they became bloody. He Suizhu also forcibly inserted a drumstick into Song Xu's rectum.

In addition to such inhumane tortures, Song Xu had to endure the daily brutal force-feeding, but Song Xu managed to hold on. Each time when he was carried out for force-feeding, when he saw other Dafa practitioners, although he was too weak to speak, he looked at fellow practitioners, and in his eyes they could see encouragement and righteousness. At such moments, fellow practitioners would give him a thumbs-up and he would also raise his skinny arm to wave to them.

During the 80 days of Song Xu's hunger strike, his body weight dropped to about 25 kilogrammes and his life was in danger. The labour camp had to take him to a hospital for medical examination. When Song Xu was carried out of the labour camp, he was all bones and was dying. A family member of a labour camp inmate said that she almost cried when she saw Song Xu's situation. The hospital found Song Xu's kidneys, intestines and stomach had suffered serious damage due to long term torture. As a result of being tied up for several weeks, Song Xu lost the ability to walk as his calf muscles had became atrophied. Even in such a condition, he still took this opportunity to tell the facts and expose the wrongdoings to the doctors and patients, telling them what he and other Dafa practitioners had suffered. Many doctors learned the truth.

The vicious people were extremely scared. They quickly informed Song Xu's family to finish the paper work to release him on bail for medical treatment. Thus Song Xu got out of the labour camp.

After the brutal persecution Song Xu had suffered and when his enormous endurance was revealed on one of the Falun Gong websites, the vicious people in the Baimiao Labour Camp were deeply shaken and they had to somewhat restrain themselves in their behaviour. This also strengthened the righteous thoughts of other Dafa practitioners in the labour camp. The wicked criminal He Suizhu said in private, after Song Xu left, "To speak from my heart, I was overcome by Song Xu's will. I have never seen such a strong man. I admire him from my heart. I wish I had a friend like him."

At that time a policeman said, "Song Xu has become crippled. He will not be able to be up and about in one or two years after he gets home." However, Song Xu recovered within a short period of time. He then left his home to continue to clarify the truth to people.

Today, Song Xu was captured once again by the vicious people. He was kept in the Zhengzhou No. 1 Detention Centre.

Provincial Police Bureau: Switchboard 86-371-5991155, Division 2 (criminal division), there are two division heads, one male, one female, both have last the name of Li.

Provincial 610 Office: 86-371-5902233, 86-371-5904038

City Police Department Switchboard: 86-371-6222023

Jinshui District Police Station: 86-371-6256038

Henan Province Party Committee Switchboard: 86-371-5902627

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/1/2/30441.html