By Wan Yuchuan

(Clearwisdom.net)

My name is Wan Yuchuan. I am a 29-year-old woman with a medical degree, and a doctor of internal medicine in Zhaogezhuang Mining Hospital, which belongs to Kailuan Medical Treatments Corporation in Tanshan City, Hebei Province. I have been practicing Falun Gong since September of 1998. Intending simply to say, "Falun Dafa is good," I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on February 21, 2000. The police kidnapped me from a hotel, and my life of imprisonment began.

I was held as a criminal in a detention center in the Guye District of Tangshan City. In the detention center I twice went on hunger strikes to protest my illegal imprisonment and requested that my work unit take me back. They not only did not take me back, but they sent me to Tangshan City's Mental and Drug Rehab Department in Ankang Hospital. The public security office had established that department mainly to persecute political dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners. I was forced to submit to injections against my will. When I refused to cooperate with forced feeding, the gastric tube went into my trachea, and I almost suffocated to death.

On April 25, 2001, the director of the Party Committee of Zhao Mine and the vice secretary of the hospital Huo Shuanglai sent me to Tangshan City's "Law Education School," actually Textile University's brainwashing class, which was notorious for using extreme measures to force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their beliefs and become "transformed" into compliance with Jiang's regime. Here every practitioner was locked in a single room with windows covered with steel security mesh. We were prohibited from speaking to each other. They forced us to watch videos that denigrated Dafa and carried out their torture with high-intensity, military-style administration. Once a person was spotted practicing the exercises, he or she would be handcuffed. If Teacher Li's articles were discovered, that person's body would be brutally searched--even underwear and underpants would be stripped off. If the person refused to reveal where Teacher's articles came from, he or she would be brutally beaten and tortured to confess. They grabbed our hands and forced us to burn the book Zhuan Falun, attempting to destroy our resolve. The school was divided into two teams, one for "transforming" and the other for monitoring. The transformation team leader, Mr. Wang Zhijie, was a typical goon. Assistant team leader Mr. Zhang Aning was a thug who enjoyed any excuse to put his hands on female Dafa practitioners' bodies, and he even went to female practitioners' rooms in the middle of the night. Using such people to "transform" good people who practice "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," you can only imagine the horrific atmosphere of this so-called "school."

On August 7, 2001, the vice chief of the Zhao Mine Public Security Office sent me to the First Forced Labor Camp in the Kaiping District of Tangshan City, Hebei Province. The policemen there wouldn't let me sleep for a total of six days and nights. They took turns "talking" to me and forced me to stand still for long periods of time, causing my legs to swell grotesquely and my feet to be excruciatingly painful.

On August 14, 2001, I was officially sent to a forced labor camp where the officers targeted me for intensified persecution: sleep deprivation, forcing me to stand still for a long time, forcing me to stay in a squatting position, scoffing at me, slapping me in the face, and insulting my dignity. In the cold autumn winds, I was repeatedly forced to stand still from dusk to dawn. From the time I first arrived at the forced labor camp throughout the month of August, I was seldom allowed to sleep. I was so exhausted that I even fell asleep for the few minutes that I was on the toilet. Mr. Wei Tao, an enforcer from the labor camp's office whose main duty was persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, tried his best to "persuade" me for a whole night to no avail. The next morning he dropped his disguise of a smiling face and revealed his vicious, real self. He continually slapped my face for the entire morning until it was all swollen. As he hit me, he snarled, "Will you be transformed or not?" I sternly replied, "I will not!" "If you are not transformed I'll hang you under the persimmon tree in the courtyard. In the past, they (he was referring to other Falun Gong practitioners) were all hung under that tree. Or I'll lock you up in a solitary room." When he saw that I was not intimidated, he sent for an electric baton and started to shock me with it.

From January 15 to March 1, 2002, because I refused to renounce my belief, the director of the forced labor camp Mr. Xu Deshan singled me out and sent me to a room on the second floor in the male brigade's hospital. They dispatched policemen to form a so-called "intensive punishment" unit to work on me. I was again forced to stand still for long periods of time, deprived of sleep, forced to "dialog" with them day and night, threatened, intimidated and taunted. I was not allowed to sleep for the first two days and nights. Thereafter, I was only allowed to sleep for two to three hours a night. After the Spring Festival holiday [Chinese New Year] I slept about four to five hours a night. Finally, I went on a hunger strike to protest their not allowing me to use the toilet. Consequently, I was sent back to the female brigade.

Later on, I remembered that my forced-labor sentence was for two years and I should be released after completing my term on February 21, 2002. Nevertheless, after I asked many policemen, they all lied to me and claimed that my term was three years. Because of this I went on a hunger strike to demand my release. After 24 days, they started using a feeding tube to force-feed me and gave me injections against my will. Some of the inmates who were assigned to guard me sympathized with me a great deal and could not bear to watch me suffering while I was being force-fed. Some secretly told me, "Don't hate us. We do this because we don't have any other choice. Otherwise the brigade leader will extend our prison term." Because I fought for justice with my life, I was finally released from the forced labor camp on June 1, 2002.

Unfortunately, my release did not mean my freedom. On the day I was released, our hospital's secretary Yao Cimou (office phone 0315-3051492) gathered many people and waited for me at the gate of the labor camp. Who would have thought that they would again send me to Tangshan City's "Law Education School," the forced brainwashing class?

A great many Falun Gong practitioners have been illegally detained in this so-called "Law Education School," where many crimes have been committed. Here I went on hunger strikes many times to demand my release, the longest one lasting 20 days. The supervisors in my work unit not only refused to take me back, but also sent doctors and nurses to the school to administer forced injections. Every time they saw me looking very weak, they would give me two rounds of injections against my will. The vice secretary of the Medical Treatments Corporation Cheng Suqin (office phone 0315-3025608) told me, "You have to make a promise to give up Falun Gong so the supervisors can trust you and let you go." Bian Baofeng, the monitor who was assigned to watch me, was very indifferent to me when I was on a hunger strike. She totally neglected my being in a hunger-strike situation and even harassed me. I sent many letters to supervisors both in my work unit and on the Tangshan City Committee to demand my legal freedom, but I never got any response.

My elderly father, who is in his sixties, traveled thousands of miles to see me. There were several times he had to wait outside the gate for several hours because they wouldn't let him in. I questioned the school's principal Zhang Zaisen, "You people accuse Falun Gong practitioners of abandoning their families. Who exactly is making us abandon our family members? Is it us or you?"

The above is an account of the persecution I've endured the past several years just for practicing Falun Gong in order to become a good person and for wanting to say "Falun Gong is good." With my life I would like to say, "Falun Gong is good!"

Posting date: 2/27/2003
Original article date: 2/26/2003
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Translated on 2/24/2003
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2003/2/17/44716.html

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