By A Dafa Practitioner in China

July 18, 2002

(Clearwisdom.net) What I am telling here is the story of a Falun Dafa practitioner from my hometown who firmly believes in Dafa and Teacher. While he was detained in prison for two years and nine months, he went on a two-month hunger strike in protest of the persecution. In the end he walked out of the forced labor camp in a dignified manner. During the nearly three years of persecution, this practitioner steadfastly refused to yield to the evil or to write any "guarantee letters" [renouncing Falun Gong]. He has fulfilled his vows with his dedication and tremendous suffering.

A speech he gave at the March 1999 experience sharing conference entitled "Teacher has saved me - I will thank Teacher through steadfast cultivation" moved the assembled audience. Prior to practicing Dafa, on one occasion he watched Teacher's video lectures. Just after he finished watching the first lecture he said to his wife, "I'll learn Falun Gong and be a good person. The great Buddha has come to save people." Since then he has been steadfast in Falun Dafa practice. His wife and two children also started to cultivate Dafa, leading a family that was on the brink of breaking up to become peaceful and happy again.

After Jiang's regime started its brutal campaign of persecution, he, together with his wife and son, went to Beijing to safeguard Dafa. As all three members of this family were on the "wanted" list from his local police department, all the hotels in Beijing had their photos, so they stayed in the mountains near Beijing. On October 28, 1999, they were arrested for practicing the Falun Gong exercises on Tiananmen Square.

He was detained in a small cell in the local detention center for staging a hunger strike. [The detainee is locked up in a very small, solitary confinement cell. The guards handcuff the practitioners on their back in a fixed position, in which the practitioners can neither move nor lie down. The small cell is very damp and no daylight enters. Detainees have to urinate and defecate in the cell. Only half of a regular meal is served to detainees locked up in a small cell during the daytime. During the night the rats are running around. The stench in the small cells is so bad that it is difficult to breathe] His hands and feet were cuffed to the bed for over 30 days. While in the cell he loudly recited Teacher's article "Lunyu." Over 50 days later, he was illegally sentenced to a forced labor camp.

Initially sent to the labor camp for refusing to write the guarantee letters, the guards forced him to work for 20 hours a day. They also instigated criminal inmates to beat him. One inmate beat him with a wooden board, making his hips swell. He said, "I have been practicing martial arts since I was a child. Even a group of over ten people is no match for me. Now a guy so thin beats me, and I do not fight back. I feel wronged." As he always guides himself with Dafa and does not give in to the viciousness, the inmates soon started to admire him. The thin guy who had beaten him kept apologizing to him.

During a holiday "party," a labor camp team leader asked him to sing a song. After he finished his song on the stage, he started to practice the third set of Falun Gong exercises. He said, "I want to tell everyone that I am a Dafa disciple in the Fa-rectification era, and I will safeguard Dafa."

The overseers did not allow him to come in contact with other Dafa practitioners. He could not read Teacher's writings either, so his mind sometimes showed signs of wavering. To adjust his mind, he repeatedly recited "Lunyu," "True Cultivation," "Broad and Immense," poems from Hong Yin and others. Sometimes Teacher would give him a hint in his dreams. For example, he was very worried that his wife might give up cultivation. In his dream he saw that he and his wife were each driving a jeep, and that his wife was going much faster than he. After waking up, he understood that Teacher was telling him that his worry was unnecessary.

Once, when a guard asked him to read the materials written by their collaborators [i.e., former Falun Gong practitioners who have gone astray due to brainwashing and torture], he said, "I won't read such dirty stuff." The guard was at a loss as to how to deal with him.

One day when several collaborators were trying to brainwash him he said, "Simply because there are people like you who are unable to endure hardships amidst tribulations and have betrayed Dafa, the evil has become even more frenzied and the persecution even more vicious than before. I would rather die for being firm in practicing Dafa than come out to damage Dafa for my temporary comfort."

Later he was sent to the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp. He was forced to work at least 12 to 15 hours per day in the labor camp's blanket factory and often did not have enough to eat. In order to force him to give in, twice the guard cuffed him to the rings fixed to the floor, for over ten days the first time and for over a month the second time. In the daytime, flies crawled all over his body and during the night the mosquitoes and bugs bit and stung him. Furthermore, he had to endure the torture of shocking with electric batons. Whatever means were used to torture him, his strong faith in Dafa has never wavered.

Once when the guard found that he circulated Teacher's articles to fellow practitioners the guard asked, "Do you know that it is not allowed here to circulate Falun Gong articles?" He said, "It is perfectly justified for Dafa disciples to read Teacher's articles, and what's wrong with it?" As he has a righteous mind, the guard did not go any further to mistreat him for this incident.

Under his influence, some practitioners who had written the "guarantee letters" withdrew their words.

He repeatedly wrote letters to expose the crimes in the labor camp. In a letter to his family he wrote, "I'm a cultivator and have benefited from practicing Dafa. So when the Dafa that I have practiced is being defamed and my Teacher slandered, what's wrong with me to step forward to speak out for justice? China has a tradition of respecting teachers, as told in an old saying, 'Teacher of one day is father for the whole life.' So when My Father is slandered, how can I join others in defaming him, just for my own comfort? I was thrown into jail for three years for upholding the truth. In the forced labor camp I was beaten, verbally abused, deprived of food, shocked with electric batons and forced to work 12 to 20 hours per day. Despite these sufferings, I would never betray my conscience and Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance."

In protest of the brutal persecution he started a hunger strike. At the beginning, the guards force-fed him once a day, and later twice a day. Two months later, seeing that he was too weak to be further force-fed, the evil forces had to sent him back home.

After his release from the labor camp, he tells his families and friends, as well as people on the buses, what he had suffered in the labor camp.

Posting date: 7/26/2002
Original article date: 7/26/2002
Category: Fa Rectification
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/7/19/33543.html

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