A Retired Member of the Military Recounts the Torture She Suffered over the Past Four Years at a Detention Center and Forced Labor Camp
(Clearwisdom.net) I am 65 years old, and I am a retired military person.
Before practicing Falun Gong, I suffered from a multitude of illnesses,
consulted many doctors, and swallowed lots of medication. I felt that my life
was not worth living. It was too painful. I was so fortunate, as Falun Dafa
saved me from this painful life.
On March 25, 1993, I attended Master's two-hour lecture, followed shortly
after, on the 29th, by Master's 10-day class. 10 days after that, I
felt my body had become light. This amazing practice was responsible for my
attaining good health after 10 years of suffering. Furthermore, my husband also
attained his health because of Falun Gong. Since July 20, 1999, the start of the
persecution of Falun Gong, I was arrested many times, and my niece was tortured
to death.
On the afternoon of July 20, 1999, six policemen broken into our home and
took me forcefully to the No.1 division of the police station for interrogation.
8 hours later, given my husband's fervent insistence, I was able to return home.
On July 21st, I went to the provincial committee to argue my case.
The leaders refused to see me and totally ignored me. What happened instead?
They took me by force to the local police station, and detained and interrogated
me for two days and nights. Because I refused to turn in any Dafa books, they
sent 11 local policemen to ransack my home on the 24th . They
couldn't find anything, thus they demanded that I report to the police station
daily, morning and night. I didn't cooperate, so they sent some people to keep
an eye on me. They stooped to harass us through frequent phone calls and
confiscation of my identity card, which they keep at the local police station to
this day.
On December 21, 1999, I decided to go to Beijing to appeal to the government.
The police arrested me at the railway station and detained me at a nearby police
station . I was locked into an iron cage, which measured only 5 square meters.
There were 7 people in this cage. It stank! None of us could sit down. Even
standing was difficult and we had to squeeze together. At 2 o'clock on the 23rd,
I was sent to No.1 Female Detention Center. The police put criminals in charge
of those who are good people and who practice "Truthfulness, Compassion,
Forbearance." They forced us to sleep in the same room with criminals and share
the same bathhroom. Some of these criminals suffered from sexually transmitted
diseases. Every morning, the police asked us to do physical exercises with other
cellmates. When we tried to practice Falun Gong exercises, the police dragged us
out of the lineup and punished us by making us stand for 12 hours straight.
Additionally they poured cold water over our feet.
At 6 o'clock on December 25th, the police ordered the criminals to
drag Dafa practitioners to the outside and strip off all their clothes,
including their shoes. It was a cold winter day and we wore only our underwear.
Our hands and feet were tied up and we were forced to sit on the concrete floor.
They forced us to change position. Therefore, Liu Yiping, An Jiyun, Song Jingxiu
and other practitioners' underwear was torn. Some were so frozen that they could
not stop trembling. They had to remain there until 10 p.m. before they could go
back into the building. And what awaited them? A cold shower. The next day, they
were forced to hard labor that was far beyond their abilities. They worked from
8 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, and at times they worked until 11 p.m.. Generally they
worked from 13 to 15 hours a day. Dafa practitioner Liu Chuyan refused to wear
the forced labor camp uniform. Therefore, the police ordered female cellmates to
strip off her clothes, drag her from the ground floor to the fifth floor, and
beat her up. They extended such effort to make her wear the forced labor camp
uniform. After 15 days at the forced labor camp they demanded 300 Yuan [Chinese
currency, the monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500
Yuan] for room and board. But the room and board was deplorable.
In January 2000, more than 100 practitioners held a Fa conference at a hotel.
After the police heard about it, they fined the hotel over 30,000 Yuan, and
arrested the hotel manager (who is also a Dafa practitioner). They attempted to
arrest the organizer. Therefore, I was forced to leave home and wander about for
over four months. The day I left I saw many policemen at the railway stations
and piers. I was forced to take many detours on my way home.
On October 5, about 20 Dafa practitioners bought train tickets for travel to
Beijing. 13 of us were arrested before boarding the train by the police and were
detained for 24 hours, under the excuse of checking our IDs. They forced my son
to turn over 200 Yuan as a bonus for the police. They also confiscated a train
ticket worth 100 Yuan. After that, they sent us to a brainwashing class at the
police station. During this period Xiao Yongxue, Liu Guofen, Zhang Huifen and I
were seen as the leaders because we refused to follow their rules. They treated
us with deadly intent. A vicious policeman named Gao Hai, known as number one
bully at this station, hit me with his fist when we stood on the stairs. I fell
down 10 stairs. It was hard to grab the rail so I could stop. He chased after me
and kicked my back. I somersaulted down and fortunately was stopped by some of
the staff members and was saved. Gao Hai hadn't finished his dirty work
yet. He came down, grabbed me by my hair, hit me and kicked my face and body
violently. I felt dizzy, had a ringing sound in my ears, and bled from my nose
and mouth. My tongue was paralyzed for more than half an hour. My mouth was
badly hurt and cut more than one inch, and kept bleeding. This behavior made Gao
Hai's co-worker Zhang Jing, an employee of the Justice Department, feel
terrible.
Those cruel policemen beat all four of us almost to death and dragged us
outside into the rain. At that point in time the other practitioners joined us
in the rain to protest. We became thirteen. The wicked policeman was furious.
Therefore, he called in the section head named Jing, who treated us even worse.
He knocked us to the ground and made us kneel in the rain. In addition, he
demanded that we keep our lower back straight and knees without movement. He
kicked us if we didn't obey. A 65-year-old senior female practitioner, Auntie
Liu Yuejing, was kicked so viciously that her lower leg bones fractured. He
demanded that she kneel, although she was physically unable to do so. This
torture continued until after 8 p.m. Practitioners were hurt so badly that they
were unable to stand. They could only sit on the floor. They even did not allow
us to use the bathroom.
We felt so hungry and cold after being tortured and standing in the rain for
over 10 hours. Our clothes were soaking wet and we were trembling because of the
cold. (6 among us were over 60 years old.) All others could go back to their
cells, but we 4 were locked in a cage less than 10 square meters in diameter for
2 months. We ate, drank and urinated in that cage. The vicious policemen were in
the adjoining rooms. The cage was in their path for them to see when walking
back and forth. They could see us when we urinated.
Up to January 2001, more than one hundred practitioners were sent here and
brainwashed. Half of them were 50 to 60 years old, and one was over 70. Because
we were not "transformed", the police continued to use a number of different
torture techniques. One morning around 5 a.m., the police asked us to get up,
stand together and run. We kept running until 11:40 a.m., and the police had no
intention of letting us stop. We did not get breakfast. Even when some
practitioners were too exhausted to run, the police did not allow them to rest.
They took them aside and beat them. Finally the police allowed us to stop at
lunchtime (noon). They told us that the ones who wanted to eat had to come
forward. None of the more than 100 practitioners moved. We started to recite
Teacher's "Lunyu." The police pulled out a practitioner with the last name of
Han and forced him to kneel on the ground. Three policemen kicked his chest with
their boots, grabbed his hair and kept slamming his head into the wall.
The police forced us to stand outside during the night for more than three
hours. The police yelled, "If you refuse to be transformed, you will be sent to
forced labor camps and sentenced!" They searched our beds and bodies. Once
several policemen savagely beat up a young practitioner who was a soldier. They
knocked his head into the wall, and brutally beat him. We demanded them to stop
beating him, so the police lied and said that the practitioner was a rapist. To
protest the defamation of the practitioner, we together recited "Lunyu" and
Hongyin. We finally stopped them by pulling the practitioner away from then.
On the next day, 40 to 50 anti-riot policemen arrived, making it between 60 to
70 policemen. They beat us and dragged us around. Many practitioners were
wounded. The over 70-year-old practitioner was hit on his head. Policeman Gao
Hai used a long bamboo stick to hit his head three times, which caused it to
swell. During the Chinese New Year, the police extorted 2,000Yuan [500 Yuan is
the average monthly income for an urban worker in China.] before they finally
released me.
In the morning of May 9, 2002, I was arrested while distributing
truth-clarifying materials. The police sent me to a brainwashing center, where
three staff members attempted to brainwash me. In here, practitioners were not
allowed to meet and they starved us. We were not allowed to sleep until 2 a.m.,
day-in and day-out. We had to get up at 6 a.m. No afternoon naps were allowed.
They continuously forced us to listen to their slanderous propaganda defaming
Falun Gong. The prolonged and continuous sleep deprivation, the collaborators'
deceptive persuasion, and interrogation coupled with torture led to some
practitioners to cave in. They wrote the "Three Statements." [Practitioners
are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write these as proof that they
have given up their belief. Created by the "610 Office*," the three statements
consist of a letter of repentance, a guarantee to never again practice Falun
Gong, and a list of names and addresses of all family members, friends and
acquaintances who are practitioners.] On June 28, only two of us were still
there, elderly practitioner Nanny Li on the second floor, and myself on the
third floor. The police dragged us from the third floor to the first floor and
ordered to us to stand in an area that was covered with slanderous slogans and
cartoon pictures against our Teacher. I refused. They pulled me there and forced
me to stand there. I told them in defiance, "Our Teacher is great." They sprayed
something into my eyes and my eyes were sore for several hours.
Beginning June 28, more than 50 staff members in the brainwashing center were
involved only with the two of us. Two of them teamed up, and took turns to
"work" on us for an hour. We were kept awake day and night. Staff member Yang
Mingfeng forced me to go outside and dig up tall waist deep thorny grass. I was
forced to dig a certain amount of this grass within a given time. They
threatened that if I failed, they would starve me. Moreover, I was forced to
stand in the burning hot sun. During the night, they tied my hands behind my
back and forced me to walk barefooted outside for extended times. When it was
raining, they pushed me into the rain. Once they forced me to stay in a damp
yard for several days and nights. To not let me remove mosquitoes, they tied up
my hands behind my back. The mosquito bites covered my whole body, face and
head. I went on a hunger strike for three days, but they still forced me to run.
When I was too exhausted to run, they dragged me around on the ground. My legs
and feet were severely swollen, and I could not wear my shoes, but they still
forced me to walk and stand for extended periods. I was not allowed to squat
down or sit. During the June heat I was not allowed to drink water, was not
given food and not allowed to clean myself. Even the use of the restroom was
limited and I was even then monitored. Once staff member, Zhu Laxiang, grabbed
my bowl from my hands and did not allow me to eat. By July 10, I was the only
practitioner left there. They began to threaten that they would send me to a
forced labor camp, and brought my son and daughter to the brainwashing center,
so they would help them. Because I did not study the Fa diligently, I caved in
under this relentless pressure. My son and the staff members now hold the
"Guarantee Statement" [A statement to declare that he or she is remorseful
for practicing Falun Gong and guarantees not to practice Falun Gong again, not
to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate with any
Falun Dafa practitioners.] I acted against my conscience. This is a deep and
painful lesson I learned. I was released on July 28.
* "610 Office" is a bureau specifically created by the Chinese
government to persecute Falun Gong. It has absolute power over each level of
administration in the Party, as well as over the political and judiciary
branches.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2003/10/4/58370.html
Yearly Archive
Printer Version
feedback@clearwisdom.net