By a Dafa practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net)

I am a village girl who was lucky enough to obtain Dafa in 1998. Through studying the Fa I came to understand many previously unanswered questions and I now know the true meaning of the existence of life.

Since Jiang's regime started to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, my life has been seriously affected. The head of the village sent someone to my house to check on me, to find out what I was doing, and to find out whether I was home or not; especially on those days that are considered "sensitive". They came by 2 or 3 times per day. The village head even hired people to watch over all those who practiced Falun Gong, making sure they would not go to Beijing to appeal. In order to keep my family free of this persecution, I left home and found a job in a city. After a period of time, the village leader and personnel from the police station found my family and asked of my whereabouts. My family did not want them to harass me and did not disclose my address to them.

In 2002, I went home for the New Year. The police station sent over a car. The policemen, who did not have uniforms, forcibly carried me to the car. I asked them the reason for my arrest, and they pushed me inside the car. I was taken to the police station and they handcuffed me and began taking notes. They asked me if I would continue to practice Falun Gong, I answered that I would follow "truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance" in doing all things. They wrote "Practice" on the report. I realized that they would take this as a reason to detain me; I grabbed their paper and tore it up. A policeman used a wooden pole to beat my legs and another policeman hit my head. They grabbed me by the handcuffs and dragged me upstairs. When they saw blood on my wrists, they dragged me by my hair instead. After pulling me upstairs, they wanted me to kneel down, but I refused.

They pushed me onto the floor and stepped on my head. They took my shoes off and hit my foot arches with a plastic tube. Seeing that I was not afraid, they tried to deceive me. Policeman Fan Yeman said to me, "Come sit over here, this time I will write down exactly what you say." After he finished writing down the notes, they took me to a detention center. After we arrived, they sentenced me to 15 days in custody, and tried to force me to sign their papers. I refused. They said, "You will be held in the detention center whether we have your signature or not."

I started a hunger strike immediately. They force-fed me on the ninth day of my hunger strike. My nostrils bled when the policeman forcibly inserted the tube. They summoned me on the 13^th day of the hunger strike and I drank a little water. They reported my hunger strike to the higher authorities. I started to take in some food after I returned to the detention center.

After another 10 days, a few Dafa practitioners in another cell began a hunger strike; I started my second hunger strike at that time. We hoped that by using this method we could awaken the policemen's compassion. When I had been on my hunger strike for more than 10 days, the detention center doctor checked my blood pressure and the condition of my heart. He said I was not suitable for force-feeding. When they saw that my condition was quite good, they sent me back to the detention center.

At that time a few practitioners showed some complications, the detention center was afraid to take responsibility when practitioners' lives were in danger. They sent the practitioners home. However, they did not truly release them, instead they sent people to watch over them day and night. They seized practitioners and sent them directly to Wanjia Forced Labor Camp after they had eaten for five or six days. Some practitioners were refused by the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp because of their serious conditions, and they were returned to our prison cell.

During the time when I was on my hunger strike, an "auntie" in the prison cell (she was not Dafa practitioner) asked the doctor, "how many days will an ordinary person hold up from not eating?" The doctor said, "Ordinary people may last seven days." Auntie then asked, "This young girl has already had nothing to eat or drink for 14 or 15 days, she can still wash clothes and has had no abnormal reactions, why is this?" The doctor could not answer. The superintendent of the detention center visited our cell and said, "If you do not eat, I will not let you go." I thought to myself, "Even if you do not let me go, I will continue my hunger strike to the end."

On the seventeenth or eighteenth day of my hunger strike, they force-fed me with two big bowls of concentrated saltwater. When I returned to the prison cell, the salty water had gone up in my head and caused a terrible migraine. A practitioner said to me, "Dafa practitioners should not have this phenomenon." Following the change of my notion, the migraine gradually disappeared. I began to eat again.

After another month, a male practitioner was persecuted to death, dying from being force-fed. All practitioners in the prison cell immediately started a hunger strike.

A few days later, my family and the police station superintendent came to take me home. Through conversation, I gradually learned that my family had paid a lot of money to get me out of prison. At the beginning, when I was first detained, my family had tried every means to find out about my situation. The Police Station at the village delivered the message that if my family paid 8,000 Yuan [Chinese currency, the monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500 Yuan], I would be released the next day. Because the financial condition of my family is not good, they had to raise money by borrowing it. The police did not release me immediately even after they received the money. Everyday my family wished I could come home, and they suffered mentally. Three months later, the police station sent a letter stating that my family could pick me up by paying an additional 3000 Yuan. With a skeptical heart, my family gathered enough money and took me home from the detention center.

Although my writing may not be elegant, these are the facts of what happened. A girl has experienced persecution to such a degree, and her family members have also suffered such great pain. Only because of cultivating "truthfulness, compassion, forbearance," many practitioners have experienced different degrees of persecution. I call upon all the kind-hearted people to come and send forth your righteous voices.

Posting date: 1/30/2003
Original article date: 1/30/2003
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Translated on 1/26/2003
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/1/20/43112.html

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