Dafa practitioner Zhang Sulin

[Minghui Net] My name is Zhang Sulin. I began to practice Falun Dafa in August 1997. I have always found Falun Dafa to be very good. Through cultivation, my health recovered and my heart was purified. People have seen and acknowledged that Falun Dafa can help benefit the country without any harm.

Since July 22^nd 1999, Jiang Zemin's politically corrupt group has slandered and persecuted Falun Dafa in the name of the Chinese government. I felt strongly about this, so I went to Beijing to appeal on June 25^th 2000. On June 26^th, I was illegally detained at the police station in the Xuanwu District in Beijing. There were more than twenty practitioners who were detained with me at that time. The police illegally detained us for the whole day and night without giving us anything to eat.

At around 11:00pm on the second night, we were transferred to a detention center. The policemen interrogated me, "Why did you come to Beijing?" I said, "I came here to appeal." I told them about my own cultivation experiences and hoped that the government could understand Falun Dafa and come to a just resolution. Then they asked me for my name and address. I refused to tell them. I told them, "I came here to address the problems. Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance are the universal principles. Cultivating Falun Dafa requires people to have high moral standards. Is it right that there should be more and more good people and fewer and fewer bad people? Is it wrong to be a good person?" The police officer said that people couldn't appeal for Falun Gong according to the announcement of the police department. I pointed out that Article 41 of the Constitution states that citizens have the freedom to appeal, article 98 of the Civil Law states that citizens have the right to keep their own life healthy and the 38^th ordinance of the Constitution states that the dignity of citizens should not be infringed upon. We practiced Falun Gong in front of our own homes while the officials who didn't obey the laws tried to arrest us. That's why we came to Tiananmen Square to safeguard Dafa. In fact, I was defending the universal principles and dignity of the laws. Some members of the government were grinding the nation's law under their heels and had made a wrong decision, which led so many Falun Dafa practitioners come to Beijing to appeal.

In order to force me to give them my name and address, the policemen abused and beat me. I refused to cooperate with them. It was not until 1:00am that was I permitted to go to sleep.

The next afternoon, two other policemen continued to interrogate me. They looked very kind and got my name and address by lying that they would let me go home without informing the local policemen to come and get me. Consequently, they didn't release me, but instead, they informed the local agency in Beijing. As a result, I was illegally detained in that agency for two days and fined 50 yuan per day [Chinese dollars, the monthly salary of a Chinese average city worker is about 500 yuan]. They confiscated more than 200 yuan in cash from me.

Two days later, 58 other practitioners and I were illegally sent back by the local riot police. We were sent to a narcotics treatment center after we got back. Then the police department of different counties sent us back separately. I was illegally detained for four days in the detention room by the local police station. It was extremely hot at that time. The room was very dirty. We tried to empty the bucket we used for toliet purposes when it was full. But the prison guards didn't permit us to do it. I was bitten by so many mosquitoes that my body was full of red bumps. We ate crusty cooked rice and drank cold water. The prison guards compelled my family members to pay a fine of 5,000 yuan. Because I continued to practice Falun Gong, the policemen sent me to a detention house for 15 days of illegal detention. When it was time to release me, they decided to keep me for an extra two days. Then they informed my parents to come and get me. The policemen required me to write a so-called "promise letter". They also threatened my parents. Under strong pressure from the policemen, my parents beat me a lot, too. I followed Teacher's teaching, "Don't fight back when beaten, don't curse back when cursed." Finally, the policemen had to let me go. The behavior of those policemen completely violated our human rights.

On the evening of Feb. 6^th this year, Police Officer Feng Jingqiu called me and tricked me into believing that they wanted to ask me some questions. After I went there, Officer Feng said, "Have you watched the self-immolation in Tiananmen Square?" I said, "Yes." Then I told him that our Teacher explained clearly in Zhuan Falun that a practitioner is forbidden to take a life. Even suicide is sinful. Those who burned themselves had nothing to do with Falun Gong. I said that there were so many suspicious loopholes in the TV show. To me, I would never kill myself. Those people's behavior didn't coincide with the standard of a practitioner.

Officer Feng asked me whether I would like to continue to practice. I told him that I will keep practicing Falun Gong and that it is not illegal to do so. He said, "If you want to practice, then you cannot go home." My husband was there too. He asked why I could not go home. They tricked my husband by saying that they still needed to ask me many other questions and told him that he does not need to wait there since I could go back home myself the following morning. After my husband was fooled and went home, they told me that they would detain me if I wanted to practice. If I wrote a "promise letter" to not practice and to go to a police station every afternoon, then I could go back home. I refused. Then they illegally detained me for another 15 days, which greatly interfered with my normal life, put heavy pressure on my family, ruined my reputation, and damaged me psychologically. In the official newspapers, they claimed that no practitioners were arrested for practicing Falun Gong. My experience proved just the opposite.

I wrote a letter to appeal my situation, but that had no effect at all. After the 15-day illegal detention was over, I was illegally detained for another 30 days. After that, I was sent back to the police station. Under great pressure, I was forced to write a "promise letter", in which I agreed to go to the police station twice a day to sign. But actually I only went there several days and stopped.

On the third day after I went back, bad people found my weak points again. Huang Hebang, Zhang Decai, Heng Caolong and Feng told me that I had to go to Zhizhong Nan Mu temple for a one-day trip. Three of us went there. Then we found that it was a female labor camp. After the car entered the labor camp, one prison guard named Li asked six so-called "transformed" persons to separate us. Two of them would try to transform one of us. At that time, I was attached to going home. So I signed the promise letter they wrote for me against my will. I had done what a practitioner should not do. I felt so regretful that I did not live up to Teacher's expectations. I have already announced that what I wrote under great pressure and persecution is invalid. I would like to be firm on my cultivation. I will recouble my effort so that I can catch up with the Fa-rectification process.

Posting date: 6/4/2001
Original article date: 5/20/2001
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Translated on 5/25/2001
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2001/5/22/11328.html

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