Three Years of Bitter Hardship in Prison as My Parents and I Stand Up for Justice

By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Liaoning Province

(Clearwisdom.net) I am a college graduate and I will turn twenty-five this year. I once had a very happy family life; my parents treasured me as their only son and I had a beautiful future ahead of me. However because we were determined to continue cultivating in Falun Dafa and in believing "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" and to be the best people we could be, my dear family was torn apart by Jiang's regime's vicious persecution. The three of us, my parents and I, were sent to a forced labor camp one after another.

I have just been released from the forced labor camp, while my parents are still being illegally detained. After returning to my hometown I took the key to my home from my relatives and went back to the house that I had not seen for so long. When I saw the thick dust gathered on the floor and the windowsills, the patches of mold on the ceiling, and the fallen pieces of dirt from the ceiling and the walls on my cutting board, I felt really miserable.

In 1995 when I still studied at the university, I fell in love with the practice of Qigong. Someone told me that many people were practicing Falun Gong. With a sincere heart, I bought a copy of Zhuan Falun and since then I have been on the road of cultivation. After my family saw my tremendous physical and spiritual changes my parents, two of my aunts, one uncle and my grandmother all decided to practice Falun Dafa as well.

After graduation, I went to Beijing to find a job. On July 22, 1999, Jiang's regime began persecuting Falun Gong. The Appeals Office and the Fuyou Street where the Appeals Office is located imposed a curfew. I went to Xidan and saw that fellow practitioners were being illegally pulled off the street and thrown into a bus to be taken away. There were many practitioners who came to appeal for Dafa. One busload of practitioners after another was being driven away. I was also pushed onto a big bus and driven to the Shi Jingshan Auditorium. At 4:00 p.m., the auditorium was jam packed with people. We were then transferred to Fengtai Stadium. At 11:00 p.m. we were forced to take a train to Jinzhou. After police tried to extort one hundred Yuan from me, I was sent back to the local area where they originally abducted me.

The 24^th of September is the Mid-Autumn Festival. I went with six fellow practitioners to Beijing to appeal for Dafa. After I was arrested, the office stationed in Beijing escorted me back to my hometown. After they extorted one hundred Yuan from me, they imprisoned me in the detention center. After one month of detention, the police at Bohai Police Substation asked me whether I still practiced Falun Dafa or not. I said I still practiced and as a consequence I was illegally sentenced to three years at Hulu Island Forced Labor Camp.

The Hulu Island Forced Labor Camp is a local center for persecuting Dafa practitioners. On May 30, 2000, five fellow practitioners and I were sent to a brainwashing class with a tight surveillance and persecuted there. A prison guard named Zhang Fusheng hit a fellow practitioner until his nose was bleeding and poured a basin of cold water over him. He tried to force us to read a book that defamed Falun Dafa. With determination we refused. They tried to force us to kneel down and we still refused. The prison guard Zhang Fusheng incited seven prisoners to beat us. After they beat me, they forced me to kneel down on the handle of a floor mop from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00p.m. They would only allow us to break every fifty minutes. I lost feeling in both my knees, and I got scars and bruises all over my body. It took me two months to recover from this incident.

From 6:00 a.m. until noon, prison guard Dong Liyong forced three fellow practitioners and me to do push-ups. I was so tired that I have no idea how many times I collapsed from exhaustion. The floor was drenched with sweat. When the prisoners saw that I could not use my hands to hold myself up, they beat my two arms and buttocks with a mop. They continued to beat us. Dong Liyong tried to force us to read a book that defamed Falun Dafa, but we refused. At 3:00 p.m., a fellow practitioner was beaten until he lost consciousness. He did not respond even when they used electric batons to shock him and did not regain consciousness until 6:00 a.m. the next morning. He was unconscious for over fourteen hours. After experiencing this torture, my head and face were swollen beyond recognition. We could not even recognize each other. After three to five days we could not move our hands and other people had to feed us our meals. In the evening, we could not even lie down to sleep or turn our bodies. We were black and blue all over our bodies from the beatings. The pain was indescribable.

After my father heard about my situation, he insisted upon his right to visit me. The prison guard Wang Shengli took me to the other side of the cell door and then immediately brought me back into the cell. My father only got a glimpse of me from one hundred meters away. All the food that my father brought me was divided and devoured by the prison guards. With a tight surveillance, the prison guards forced us to sit on the cement floor without moving. We were told to keep our two hands on our knees. We were forced to keep our two legs together and in a straight position. We had to keep our upper body upright. From 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., we were only fed three meals of one piece of sorghum and pickles.

In July 2000, the forced labor camp attempted to brainwash a group of over sixty people. There were eighteen people who were sent to this brainwashing class with a tight surveillance, and I was one of them. Everyday, we were forced to sit from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., with two legs held together, two hands touching the knees, and the body upright without moving. The prisoners kept watch over us. We were not allowed to rest or go to the bathroom. We endured this physical punishment for fifty-seven days. Our legs were swollen, and we felt pain all over our bodies. The pain in our arms was indescribable. The jail cell was very stuffy, causing us to sweat profusely.

On December 12, 2000, the prison guards Liu Guohua and Zhang Guozhu took me to an office, and forcefully took off my coat. They handcuffed me and forced me to sit on the floor. There was a row of electric batons in the room. The prison guard Zhang Guozhu said: "If you do not denounce your belief, I will tear your clothes off." Zhang Guozhu and Liu Guohua used four electric batons on me simultaneously. The specification sticker on the electric baton indicated that this was one with 300 thousands volts of pulsed voltage. The electric baton was made of steel. When the electric batons ran out of juice, they recharged them and then they continued to shock me. They also used the sole of their shoes to hit my face. The prison guards shocked me all over my body with the electric batons, burning many places on my body. One could smell burning flesh in the air. They tortured me for three hours including hitting and shocking me. Since I did not give in to them, they tried it all over again the next day. Another prison guard Li Xikuan also joined in. They tortured me for over two hours. After the severe torture, my head was swollen beyond recognition. There were scars and bruises all over my body. Even three years later, one can clearly see the scars from the electric shocks.

On January 3, 2001, ten fellow practitioners and I were again sent to this brainwashing class with tight surveillance. Everyday we were punished by being forced to sit on the icy cold cement floor. During the coldest day of the winter, our bones ached from the cold. We spent our Spring Festival on the cement floor from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. We were forced to sit without moving. We had to sleep on the cement floor with a quilt. It was damp and cold. In this way, we were physically punished for one month. The prison guards continued to threaten us by saying that after some time they would teach us another lesson. These guards tortured us both physically and mentally.

On November 30, 2001, the Hulu Island Labor Camp used the riot police to persecute Dafa practitioners. This time the officials subjected Dafa practitioners to severe violence. The practitioners who went on a hunger strike were forced-fed with white wine and beer [practitioners do not drink alcohol]. Dafa practitioners who went on a hunger strike for several days were also beaten and shocked with electric batons. Many practitioners were beaten until they were bloody and beyond recognition. At 9:00 p.m. on November 30, prison guard Qi Zhiping brought in two riot policemen, wearing their steel helmets and black faceguards, to rush into the cell room and push me onto the ground from the upper bed. They held me down with their feet and handcuffed my two hands, with the handcuffs making deep cuts into my hand. After only a few minutes, my hands turned black and blue. I got cramps in my hands and could not move them. I still have bruises on on my hands from that time. That night eleven people were sent to the forced labor camp after being tortured by the riot policemen. Qian Peng was illegally sentenced to six and a half years of imprisonment. Li Lixing, Zhou Weisheng, Zhang Chengjie were all sentenced to six years of imprisonment and were sent to Shenyang Dabei Jail to be further persecuted. The prison guard Xie Bo brought me to the cafeteria on the second floor where the prison guards Zhang Fusheng, Wang Shengli, Guo Aiming, Song Zhongtian, and Liu Jiawen attacked me and brought me to the floor. Zhang Fusheng put his feet on my face and beat me. After the vicious beating, the guards used four electric batons to shock my head, face and entire body for over twenty minutes. After the tortures I endured, I had to lie in bed for over one month. I could not get up and was surrounded and kept under surveillance by two personal cangues [Note: cangue, the name of an instrument of torture, is now a term to indicate the person who was designated to supervise the behavior of practitioners.]

In October 2002, I had been persecuted for three years. The local police substation sent me directly to the detention center to detain me. One month later, they sent me back to the forced labor camp to continue persecuting me. They did not release me until November 20.

My mother was sentenced to two years' of forced labor camp for going to appeal in 1999. In Masanjia, she was tortured severely but held firmly to her belief. After she came home, since she practiced the exercises in the park, she was illegally sentenced to three years of imprisonment and was sent back to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. My father was sentenced to two years of forced labor camp for refusing to write the "guarantee letter" that stated that he would not go to Beijing to appeal, and was sent to the Hulu Island Forced Labor Camp to be persecuted. My uncle and my two aunts were also detained for not giving up their belief. Hundreds and thousands of families remain in a similar predicament to ours in Mainland China.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2003/1/3/42146.html

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