At the beginning of July 2000, in order to validate Dafa, I went to Tiananmen Square with my fellow practitioner. There were not too many tourists at the Square, but policemen and plainclothes officers were everywhere, some of them disguised as photo vendors, prepared at any time to arrest Falun Gong practitioners who come to appeal peacefully.
There were a lot of people in front of Jinshui Bridge, so we went there and opened a banner that read "Falun Dafa is Good," solemnly validating Dafa to the common people. Riding on bikes, some policemen rushed to us. They grabbed the banner and pushed us into a police vehicle, and then drove us to Beijing Public Security Bureau, Tiananmen Square Branch. After a round of interrogation, most of the Dafa practitioners refused to tell policemen their names and addresses. Then the policemen detained those practitioners who did not tell their names in an open corridor beside a side door. Fellow practitioners from all over the country conversed, exchanged experiences, studied Fa, and did exercises in this special environment. New practitioners were brought in occasionally. We were deeply moved by the field of righteous thoughts.
Occasionally, the local government agencies in Beijing came in to identify practitioners. We were enlightened to the fact that we should not cooperate with the evil. Dafa practitioners are one entity. So we formed a human wall, hand in hand to prevent them from taking away any fellow practitioners, and we recited Hongyin (poems written by Li Hongzhi) loudly. In the end, the good defeated the evil. They were not able to take away any practitioners. The frustrated policemen became angry. Around five o'clock, a group of security guards came in and surrounded us. Wielding spiked rubber clubs, they began beating practitioners madly, and dragged us one by one out of the cell and into waiting police vehicles .
They sent us to Xicheng District Detention Center. We were treated like criminals, being strip-searched, having to undergo physical examinations, and having our fingerprints recorded. We were each forced to pay 50 Yuan (average monthly urban salary is about 500 Yuan) for our booking photographs. They specifically chose to interrogate us after 12 AM (when we were all very sleepy). They did not ask anything else, just focused on asking our names and addresses so that they could pressure our local governments, involve our family members, and instigate people to fight with people as was done during the Cultural Revolution. Their first interrogation ended without any results, so they sent me back to the cell.
They unleashed all their ferocity during the second interrogation. They forced Dafa practitioners to sit in chairs and put copies of Teacher's portrait on the ground. They tied me to a chair; Liu, who is in charge of interrogation, once again took out Teacher's portrait and said, "tell me your names and address, and I will give you this picture." I knew that he was trying to trick me, so I just ignored him. Upon failing to coax out my name, he started to cut Teacher's portrait with a pair of scissors. While cutting the picture, he said ferociously, "I will first dig out your eyes, then dig out your heart; I will see what you can do to me!" I felt very sad to watch his childishly aggressive show. At that moment, there was a deafening explosion, it sounded like thunder crashing in front of the window; it was followed by some rumbling sounds from the ground. He was terribly frightened and jumped up from the table, looking outside in a panic, "It is hailstones; who is going to be punished?!" It seemed that he still knew that evil would be recompensed with evil. After a while, another policeman came in and said, "By not telling us your name, you are against us. We can't finish our work and come off duty. I will release you if you tell me your name, then you can still go to Tiananmen to rectify the Fa. I will take you as my Master after the Fa is rectified, OK?" I corrected his words and said, "Teacher Li is the only Master of Falun Dafa." Seeing that this trick did not work, they started to slander Teacher, cursed me as "an idiot," and grinned hideously, "You will be beaten flat after being put in the cells of male criminals!" When they saw that my heart was still not moved, they became flustered and exasperated. They took turns slapping my face, rolled a book around a stick and used it to hit my head. I forbore it quietly, trying to wake up their consciences with great benevolence and tolerance. But they seemed to have lost their true nature. One said angrily to the other, "You wait here, I'll get an electric baton." Just at that moment, his pager went off with a message: Child has a high temperature, go home immediately. ---What a pitiful life they live! Driven by the human scum Jiang Zemin, they have lost their human nature, committing crimes against their consciences. But their consciences are suffering in terror. How ignorant they are!
After I came back to the cell, an inmate asked me softly, "How come the interrogation lasted for four hours, did they beat you?" She also told me that the guards here treat practitioners very ruthlessly, they even punched the broken ribs of a young female practitioner who was in this cell before. In the next interrogation, the policemen called me by my name, I was very surprised. Later I came to know that my family learned my whereabouts from my fellow practitioners who came back home. My family members and people from my work unit came to visit me. I was then released.
In the early December of 2000, I once again went to Beijing to safeguard the Fa. It was very cold on that day, and very few tourists were visiting Tiananmen Square. We were waiting for the opportunity to let more people hear the voice of justice and know the truth so that they could choose their future positions. Around twelve o'clock noon, a delegation went to the Square, so we followed the delegation, walked to the center of the Square and opened a banner saying "Falun Dafa is Good" in front of them. Plainclothes rushed to us and knocked down my fellow practitioner; I held the banner and started to run. Another plainclothes grabbed the banner and kicked me down to the ground. He seized me by the hair and forced his knee on my head. The people in the delegation were struck dumb with fear. A police vehicle pulled over and we were taken to Beijing Public Security Bureau, Tiananmen Square Branch.
At nightfall, we were sent to Haidan District of Beijing City (likely in Longgang Road) in a big bus full of Dafa practitioners. Policemen there interrogated me, asking for my name and address, but I refused to tell them. One of the policemen held an electric baton and was about to torture me. I was enlightened that I could not passively forbear, so I shouted loudly, "Cops want to beat me!" That policeman said questioningly, "What can you do to me if I beat you? People like you who practice Falun Gong should be treated in such a way. You want to sue me? Fine, my name is Liu Hao!" Then he asked another policeman to handcuff my two hands behind my back and shocked me on the head using the electric baton. He did not stop torturing me like that until he was told to stop several times by the policemen outside. He threatened me before he stepped out the door, "I will see whether you are able to stand after sending you back to the cell; I will shock your whole body in the next interrogation!"
I was taken to a room. When the door was opened, I found it was dark and humid inside. Policemen were physically torturing Dafa practitioners: some were searching practitioners' bodies, one of practitioners was being forced to stay in the position called "flying plane" [a physical torture position]. She was striped naked in the freezing winter, with her face turned to one side; a policeman was beating her face with some object. My first impression told me me: this is hell; it is a different world from the sunny outside. I was taken to another room for a full-body search. Inmates found three hundred Yuan and gave it to the policemen. Before I was taken out of the room, a female policeman asked me where I came from, and I kept silent. She said, "You want to be beaten, don't you?" I answered, "No, I don't." She slapped my face and said, "Get out!"
After we entered the cell, inmates began to interrogate us for our addresses; they would gang up to torture us if they could not get our addresses. Jiang Zemin is too brutal, and the policemen are too vicious. They instigated the criminals to act against Falun Gong, forcing them continuously to commit crimes. Policemen would not allow the inmates to sleep and watch TV; they would be imposed sitting punishment if they could not extort our addresses. It was already very hard in jail; in order to obtain the last bit of freedom, they vented their anger on Dafa practitioners. They were forced to commit wrongdoings and were ignorantly led to destruction. After a round of torture, they kicked my left ribs so hard that every breath caused severe pain. I forgot how many times my face was slapped. A sixty-years-old fellow practitioner was stripped naked and made to stand outside, and the inmates poured dozens of buckets of cold water on her body. She was not allowed to wear cotton-padded clothes, and was forced to squat down in the cell until her two legs were totally numb. A kindhearted inmate hated to see their brutalities and told me secretly, "Practitioners like you are all nice people, and they have committed countless crimes against Falun Dafa practitioners here. My detention period will be over in several weeks; I will be honest to myself and study 'Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance' after release. I will definitely expose what has happened here on the Internet, since I am not afraid of anything now!" During the several days that we were together, she always tried to protect practitioners. As a result, the guards even punished her.
I was once interrogated in the same room as a criminal who sold counterfeit money. The female police officer who just finished interrogating this criminal said to me, "Why don't you learn from her (the criminal who sold counterfeit money), finding a way to make some money, why bother with practicing Falun Gong?" I could not believe my ears; how could a policeman who represents the solemn state laws suggest things like that?
I was interrogated four times in several days. After six days and six nights of searching with great efforts, my family and work unit bailed me out on the eighth day. I went to take my personal belongings before I left and found out my wallet and three hundred Yuan had disappeared; only several dozen Yuan were left.
This was my experience appealing in Beijing twice. It took me a long time to write it out, because I always thought my understanding was not high, and my suffering was not as much as other practitioners. I thought it may not serve any use for others. However, after I thought it over, it was truly because of my selfishness and the hidden attachment of fear; I was afraid of my family suffering one more time and my work unit being involved again. It was sentimentality that hindered me; I did not understand it from the perspective of the Fa. Now I feel that we should fundamentally recognize that exposing evil is the activity of saving people and the manifestation of benevolence.
Practitioner from China
March 8, 2001
