Bearing Witness to History: Unfurling Dafa Banners on Tiananmen Square on New Year's Day 2001

By a practitioner in Fujian Province

(Clearwisdom.net) I arrived in Beijing by train at around 10:00 p.m. on December 31, 2000. At around 6:00 a.m. on the morning of January 1, 2001, eighteen of us practitioners from Fujian Province arrived at Tiananmen Square by bus and subway from the rural areas around Beijing. It was almost 9:00 a.m. and the weather was beautiful. Tiananmen Square was very crowded. There were many uniformed and plainclothes police. There were also many practitioners from all over the country. They unfurled banners one after another and shouted "Falun Dafa is good!" The police immediately chased after the practitioners and beat them up before hurriedly loading them into police vans and taking them away. We split up and acted like tourists, as we had planned. We walked from the south side of the square to the west side and finally gathered at the flagpole in the center of the square. Our group was led by two determined practitioners. Only two weeks earlier they had unfurled banners along with over twenty other fellow practitioners, and had been sent to a detention center. They refused to report their names and addresses and went on a hunger strike to protest the torture they were suffering in detention. The police had to release them after they failed to get any information from them. The red banner we brought was 15-16 meters long and 1 meter high. Printed in yellow were the words: "Falun Dafa is righteous." The big banner was hidden underneath the clothing of a female practitioner in a way that made her look pregnant.

Upon arriving at the chosen location, the female practitioner swiftly took out the banner and we then held it in the designated position as planned. To shift the attention of the police, two female practitioners, one in her forties and one in her fifties, handed out Dafa flyers nearby. We successfully unfurled the banner and shouted together: "Falun Dafa is good!" "Falun Dafa is righteous!" "Restore our Teacher's name!" "Restore Dafa's name!"

The police only realized what had happened two minutes after we unfurled the banner. Over a dozen police and a large crowd of tourists came over. Among them there were many visitors from other provinces. The police started snatching at the banner and beating us while other practitioners also joined us to hold up the banner. There were over forty practitioners holding up the banner. Some could not reach the banner, so they shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" We drew a large crowd and several practitioners were secretly taking pictures of the event. The practitioner next to me was beaten to such an extent that he was bleeding all over. Another elderly female practitioner was beaten to ground. She was still holding the banner in her hands and shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" A vicious policeman stepped on her neck with his leather boots. I was in the middle of many other practitioners and the police could not reach me. I tightly held the banner and shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" I only had the thought to stay with and protect the banner. Later the police took away the banner and dragged us into a police van. The whole process lasted fifteen or sixteen minutes.

While in the van, a policeman fiercely beat up one practitioner with an electric baton. I tried to protect him with my body and shouted, "Why do you beat him up?" As a result, I was hit on the head with the baton and my head started to bleed. Not wanting to take the responsibility, the policeman got out of the van, slammed the door and left. We were sent to the Tiananmen security office. There were already hundreds of fellow practitioners there from all over the country. We were divided into male and female groups and were guarded by many police. Practitioners shouted together, "Falun Dafa is good!" "Zhen Shan Ren (Truthfulness Benevolence Forbearance) is good!" "Restore Dafa's name!" Some unfurled small banners and others clarified the truth to the police. The whole morning long, one group after another of practitioners arrived there from the square and was later transferred to the security offices or detention centers of nearby cities and provinces.

The police beat up the practitioners who took the lead in shouting phrases in support of Falun Dafa. The practitioner next to me was beaten to the ground, and four or five policemen dragged him to a police van. One policeman shouted, "We need to teach him a lesson!" I kept on shouting. Another policeman pointed at me and shouted, "How dare you still shout!" I thought, "The worst that could happen is me losing my life." My head was still bleeding and my face, neck and clothes were stained with blood. I must have looked very frightening. All the practitioners were staring at that policeman. Another policeman said, "Leave him alone." They then turned their attention to something else. At around 11:00 a.m., I was transferred to a security office in the Dongcheng District. Upon seeing that I had lost so much blood, the police sent me to the hospital and released me.

I returned to a fellow practitioner's house. He was very moved after hearing about the whole event. Later, other practitioners told me that they were greatly encouraged after watching the magnificent scene on TV. Thinking of my fellow practitioners who are still being tortured, I cannot hold back my tears. This was truly one of the many righteous occasions where practitioners safeguarded the Fa with their lives. I will cherish the memory.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/13/62432.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version