A First-Hand Account of a Taiwanese Practitioner's Illegal Detention in Shanghai City

By a Taiwanese Dafa Practitioner, Cheng Zhen

(Clearwisdom.net)

On January 2, 2003, I flew on Macau Airlines to Shanghai, via Macau. I was on a business trip and expected to return to Taiwan on January 6. However, I was taken away against my will in the Pudong Airport by personnel from the National Security Bureau of Shanghai City. I was detained until the afternoon of January 29^th, when I was put on a return flight to Taiwan.

While on this business trip to China, I didn't have any Dafa materials or name lists with me, except for some Dafa books. Without a shred of solid evidence, the Chinese government detained me for 28 days and forbade me from contacting my family. They asked me to declare my whereabouts, activities, and people and things that I had come to contact with, both inside and outside of China, since I started practicing Falun Gong in mid 2000.

At first, the police claimed that they were able to track me down because they arrested a fellow practitioner in China and searched his home. But soon afterwards their evil scheme was revealed. They claimed that they had all my overseas activities in videotape. They wanted me to tell them what each activity and event was about based on the records in my Taiwanese ID and passport, including, of course, my activity in Taiwan--although they admitted that Falun Gong activity was legal in Taiwan and other overseas countries. They wanted me to provide them with "names," the so-called "person in charge, work teams, communication methods, and source of funds," and so on. Obviously, their motive was not what they claimed it to be, namely, targeting practitioners in Mainland China, nor was it targeting me personally. Instead, the purpose was to target the whole body of Dafa.

The police foolishly made efforts to "define and label" Falun Gong: They claimed that Falun Gong was supported by the U.S. government, that Falun Gong was an organization that aimed at sabotaging the government's power. This is how the evil head of China deceived the Chinese people into hating Falun Gong and the U.S. This is how Jiang's political scoundrels created imaginary enemies and fabricated false news from time to time to instigate people's anger and exert control over them.

The police said that they would not force me to give up practicing Falun Gong, and that if I confessed everything to them in detail, they would let me go. The tricks they used merely involved fame and sentiment in ordinary people's attachments, such as love for family, career, and social status. They used these attachments to threaten and intimidate practitioners. They mocked and insulted practitioners, ridiculing them for being superstitious and feudalistic. They also engaged in despicable methods of so-called "educating" practitioners, with the intent of reforming and brainwashing them.

The superior officer came to talk to me five or six times. They also sent their previous superior to talk to me, and to ask for my demands. Anything could be included in my demands, including money. They prepared a statement for me to inform fellow Falun Gong practitioners when I return to Taiwan, of this event that had just transpired. If I had a problem with my job in Taiwan, they would contact the higher-management team of my company to work out a solution. If I refused to cooperate, they would contact Taiwan's National Security Bureau to watch over me upon my return. They tried their best to deceive me, denying that they had cruelly tortured Falun Gong practitioners. They also asked me to guarantee that I wouldn't expose them when I returned to Taiwan.

During this period, I deeply felt Teacher's compassion. Teacher is constantly looking after every Dafa practitioner. I'm a practitioner who cannot see anything in other dimensions, yet at that time I strongly felt that Teacher was by my side. When I went on a hunger strike, I didn't feel hungry. When I was deprived of sleep for 30-40 or 40-50 hours, I didn't feel drowsy, and I remained alert. But if I dozed off a bit, I would get a very good rest. This compared to the guards, who smoked cigarettes continually, drank strong tea, and took turns among twenty people to monitor practitioners--they grew tired easily. Some of them had the flu and had to take medicine or get injections. The amount of food I ate was always very little. And I often sat still, without any physical activity, for a half day to a few days. However, I felt my abdomen stir constantly, and I also had my menstrual period during that time. At the very end, my body grew very weak. The guards were afraid of exposing their crimes so they nervously took me to a hospital for a checkup. The checkup indicated that I had a weak heart. Afterwards I learned that my family had told them that I had a weak heart.

I have always believed that righteous thoughts were not some kind of advanced knowledge. Even if you have a profound and deep understanding of Fa-principles, that doesn't mean that you'll have stronger righteous thoughts. The righteous thoughts that I'm aware of involves simply "believing;" believing in Teacher and believing in Dafa. No matter where we are, as long we have strong and sufficient righteous thoughts and our divine side emerges, then the warped principles in this physical dimension will have no effect on us.

I became depressed. I thought that I hadn't cultivated well and that I had loopholes which the old forces took advantage of I also thought about what Teacher stated in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia:" "...the old forces won't let you go that easily." But then my thought-process took a turn: Dafa is harmonious. Now that I'm running into this, I'll do well and I'll use the righteous thoughts and righteous actions I cultivate from Dafa to validate Dafa. Teachers stated: "... if today your righteous thoughts are very strong, you don't recognize it, and you insist on not taking part in it, then you can in fact reject it." ("Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia")

In the beginning, in order to resist the bad elements that the evil emitted toward me through the guards, I was determined to send forth righteous thoughts. I looked at the guards directly, and I sat in proper position with an upright posture. The guards noticed that I was sending forth righteous thoughts, and they responded with a rude attitude. Later I realized that the power of sending forth righteous thoughts lies in that one true thought and doesn't depend on formality. After that, I was able to send forth righteous thoughts comfortably and leisurely, and the effect of doing so was pretty good.

In addition, I came to understand that a cultivator's particles were very delicate, powerful, and of high density. However, the particles of evil elements were big and coarse. If our righteous thoughts are strong and we don't leave any loopholes, then the evil won't be able to interfere with our physical and emotional states. When I was under interrogation, the situation resembled the one stated in Teacher's poem: "See as if see not--Neither confused nor tempted. Hear as if hear not--Mind not disturbed" (from "In the Dao", Hong Yi, unofficial translation). Perhaps I didn't have too much on my mind, therefore, as far as I was concerned, 28 days passed very quickly. Nevertheless, in that environment where I could not practice the exercises and study the Fa under normal conditions, my physical strength, spirit, and will power slowly drained away.

Teacher stated in "Teaching the Fa at the 2002 Fa Conference in Philadelphia:" "As I've said, everything that happens today in the ordinary society is the result of Dafa disciples' thoughts." I remembered that when I obtained the Fa, I was very touched when I read in Zhuan Falun about the elderly lady being dragged for a distance of over ten meters by a car in an accident. "We have said that good or evil comes from a person's spontaneous thought, and the thought at that moment can bring about different consequences" (Zhuan Falun, Lecture Four). Because the elderly lady's thoughts were righteous, she brushed off the dirt on her clothes and left with her husband, and she probably didn't even have any dirt on her body. If her thoughts were not righteous, then her bones might really have been fractured, and she may have been paralyzed. It is also mentioned in Zhuan Falun, Lecture Six that your main consciousness should predominate and your mind must be right. I clearly knew how to act in this play, and that this play was directed by me.

I constantly recited "Lunyu," Teacher's other articles, and verses from the exercises--the ones that I could remember. I repeatedly recited the words in my mind in order to rectify my surroundings. I also sang Dafa practitioners' songs in my heart. I tried to recall each lectures' contents in Zhuan Falun by the title of each lecture. In that environment, any memory of Dafa was extremely precious. During conversations with the guards, I also saw their "human" side - their beautiful longing for their future lives. I thought to myself that they were also sentient beings who had their origins. Behind the back of this seemingly unimpressive human skin, there was also a very rich inner content. Accordingly, I also had sympathy and mercy for them. Nevertheless, their state was like what Teacher stated in "Lunyu,"

"As for phenomena that are intangible and invisible in our dimension, but objectively exist and are reflected into our physical dimension as concrete manifestations, people dare not approach them, dismissing them as unknown phenomena. Opinionated people groundlessly try to reason that they are natural phenomena, while those with ulterior motives, against their own conscience, simply label all of them as superstition. Those who are indifferent simply stay away from the issue with the excuse that science is not yet advanced enough."

I could feel that there were only very few evil beings remaining behind their backs to support them, and even those were very weak. The principles they talked about were often very far-fetched. They were aware of that too. Sometimes I expressed my benevolence properly, for after all they were sentient beings who had been deceived. I constantly asked Teacher to give me wisdom and courage so I could display the Fa- principles to them in our conversation and so that they could become aware.

The guards asked me to confess. In the beginning, I was not fully aware of their slyness because I had gaps, and didn't handle myself well. I thought that I could have caused some harm to fellow practitioners due to my loopholes. But I soon realized this, and seized the opportunity to tell them the magnificent situation of Dafa's spreading in Taiwan. There were nine-day classes for new practitioners. There are eight hundred practice sites in Taiwan. Fa group study is in Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English. High-ranking government officials attended annual Fa-conferences. The Teachers Camps for Falun Dafa are recognized and acknowledged by the Department of Education. There are also Minghui Schools, daily Dafa TV programs, radio broadcasting programs, symphony concerts, candle-light vigil for the mourning of Chinese practitioners, SOS walks around the island to rescue Dafa practitioners being persecuted in China, the phone-calling project, and the VCD-mailing project. All the major bookstores in Taiwan sell Dafa materials in book, VCD, and audio formats. We also support overseas Dafa activities, for example, when Jiang visited a foreign country, we would participate in the activity to protest against the persecution of Falun Gong.

In the end, they told me to write a statement. In that statement, I was to admit that I had violated the law, and that statement would guarantee that I would not repeat the offense in the future. I would be free to go after writing a statement. Otherwise, they would have to take the legal process, which could mean a three to seven year jail sentence. At that moment I saw in my mind the magnificent act of Mainland China's Dafa practitioners in stepping out to validate Dafa. I thought to myself, would I be counted as a Dafa practitioner if I wrote such a statement? The guards spoke both well and ill, and wanted me to understand the objective facts of the existence of Chinese law at a given time and place.

I expressed my opinion that the laws established against Falun Gong by the Chinese dictator were not normal or fair in nature, and that those laws should not exist. Therefore, I did not violate the law. As long as I don't give up cultivation practice, I will continue do what a Dafa practitioner should do.

I insisted on not writing the statement, and this brought dramatic change. Just as I mentioned previously, they took me to a hospital for a checkup, and at midnight they announced that they would release me the following day. I know that this was Dafa's power helping me to leave that place with dignity and righteousness, and to return to the great force of Fa-rectification.

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