On the morning of Oct.1 I went to Tiananmen Square and witnessed the following disturbing and moving scenes.

At 8:20am I walked out from the subway station at Qianmen with another practitioner. It was cloudy. People were walking toward the national flagpole to watch the ceremony. Seeing many vans parked at the center of the Square, I knew that they were there to take our Dafa practitioners. Later, martial law was imposed at the area around the flagpole. Many people gathered around the area. I tried to get into the crowd. Then I saw that a few plainclothes policemen were violently kicking and beating a male practitioner beside a police van. I could not believe my eyes. They were treating an unarmed person like this! The practitioner's head was thrown against the door of the van, and then he was dragged and repeatedly kicked. There was a female practitioner behind them. I can still remember how calm and peaceful she looked. She sat on the ground with her legs crossed, looking like a Buddha statue. Immediately two police came over and pulled her hair. The crowd blocked my view, but later I saw that she was still sitting there firmly. The people in black shirts (the plainclothes policemen) surrounded her and brutally stamped on and kicked her body. Later I saw hair scattered on the ground, with the police pinning down the practitioner with their feet. At that point, the crowd was shocked and could not believe what was happening.

She was dragged into the van. I saw tears in many people's eyes.

Then I heard voices of practitioners far away: "Falun Dafa is Good!" "Falun Dafa is Innocent!" I ran over with another practitioner. I saw a few plainclothes policemen with very short haircuts beating a practitioner. Seeing a fellow practitioner being beaten, I felt the pain myself. I could not tolerate it any further and tried to pull the policeman's hand away from the practitioner. Upon seeing my attempt, two police came over and grabbed me and violently hit my face and head. The practitioner who was with me screamed: "Oh, my heavens!" She used her body to block the beatings from these frenzied people. She was probably taken into another van later on since I never saw her again. I could not recall or feel which parts of my body were beaten. I only remembered that they tried to drag me into the van, but I resisted so much that they could not make me move.

Thinking that I had not promoted Dafa yet, I took off my coat to expose the yellow T-shirt with "Zhen-Shan-Ren" printed on the back. Then I heard a sound and my T-shirt was torn apart. I shouted out to the crowd, "Falun Dafa is Righteous!" The police violently dragged and pulled me, but I could not feel it at all. It lasted for a few seconds, and eventually I was dragged into the van. A woman in the van saw my torn yellow T-shirt and was moved to tears. I told her: "This is Zhen-Shan-Ren" [Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearence]. She helped me put the torn shirt back on.

The scene inside the van was even more moving. The practitioners shouted from the window: "Falun Dafa is Great!" The policemen in black shirts continued to beat up the practitioners inside the van. I saw one policeman pull the hair of a female practitioner in front of me to stop her from shouting. I grabbed his arm and said: "You cannot treat her like this!" And he stopped. I also went to the window and shouted: "Falun Dafa is Good! Falun Dafa is Great!"

Tears streamed down my face. The van started to move and a practitioner jumped out from a window. Thinking that I could not let it finish like this and that might be other things I could do, I also jumped out from a window. Initially I was a little scared, but I got rid of the fear and jumped. I fell on my back and the back of my head hit the ground. I got up and ran into the crowd. No one even came after me. I did not feel any pain and knew our Teacher was protecting me.

At that point, the tourists were no longer in the mood for sightseeing because uniformed and plainclothes policemen were constantly capturing and beating people. I saw many moving scenes. Some practitioners in a police van shouted: "Falun Dafa is Good! Falun Dafa is Great!" The police closed the glass window, but the practitioners reopened it and continued shouting. When I saw practitioners doing Heshi' [pressing both hands in front of the chest, a gesture used by practitioners for greetings/by translator] to the crowd I thought that the practitioners were cultivating Buddhahood and yet the police dared to treat them like this. During the beating and kicking there were practitioners continually being dragged into the vans. Then another wave of shouting came: "Falun Dafa is Good! Falun Dafa is Great!" Police vans drove away one after another, and we could see the characters on banners that were unfurled in the van ----- "Return the Innocence to Falun Dafa" "Zhen-Shan-Ren." With the sirens in the background, a fountain was spraying shining splashes at the center of a large flower terrace and beautiful music played in Tiananmen Square. But these were not enough to calm people down. People were crying inside and there was no holiday spirit there. It was still very cloudy and started to rain.

Whenever I recall the scenes of the kind and modest practitioners who did not fight back when they were beaten and did talk back when they were sworn at, I cannot hold back my tears. They bravely stepped forward to safeguard and validate Dafa with their lives, despite the brutal beatings by evil beings. These practitioners are validating Dafa with their lives. What am I doing? Our practitioners are suffering for Dafa. What am I doing? We are supposed to be practitioners...

I do not know how they are now. I would like to call for all kind-hearted people around the world to step forward to ask the Chinese government to release all the detained innocent practitioners, and give back the good name of Falun Dafa and our Teacher!

A Beijing practitioner

Oct.3, 2000