Clearwisdom Digest (Issue 22, Oct 27, 2004)
News and Events from Around the World Falun Gong Practitioners' Righteous Action in China The People Awaken to the Truth Falun Gong Practitioners' Personal Experiences Dressed in Yellow in Manhattan's Union
Square Since August 2004, on almost every weekend, people have seen a cheerful,
middle-aged woman dressed in a yellow T-shirt distributing flyers and
introducing Falun Gong to passers-by in Union Square, in New York City's
Manhattan. Sometimes she carries a display board showing pictures of how Falun
Gong practitioners are being persecuted in China. The woman is Ms. Li, a
pharmaceutical technician from central Ohio. Like the one hundred-plus other
Falun Gong practitioners from America's Midwest, she has spent most of her
weekends on the streets of Manhattan. Most often she can be found at the busy
gathering place, Union Square. Situated in the center of Manhattan, at the intersection of 14th Street and
Broadway, Union Square Park area is one of the places most-loved by the people
of Manhattan. At this location you will find gourmet restaurants, antique shops,
bookstores, shops selling all kinds of electronics items, and theaters offering
a variety of films and plays. Also, there are first-class medical centers,
universities, and design schools. This area is known as the "Creative
Corridor" of New York, with more than a thousand photographers, architects,
publishers, graphic arts designers, countless Internet companies, government
offices, and advertising companies. Union Square possesses the historical
significance of being the location where many non-mainstream organizations go to
advocate for their causes. Compared with some of the other groups on the square who are deliberately
provocative and loudly proclaim their agenda, Falun Gong practitioners have
established themselves as peaceful and well-behaved people. Practitioners
quietly distribute flyers that introduce the practice of Falun Gong to
passers-by, and patiently clarify the facts about the persecution of
practitioners in China to those who want to know more about the situation. Last Saturday, Ms. Li met a Native American who was living in New York. She
told this person about the Falun Gong practitioners in China being beaten and
sent to forced labor camps by the Chinese police. This daughter of a former
Native American Tribal leader immediately took a stack of flyers from Ms. Li and
said, "Let me assist you in distributing these!" Rose, a high school teacher from Ohio, was teaching a group of tourists the
five sets of Falun Gong exercises. Among them was a woman from Peru who
excitedly said, "I have found it! I have found it!" She then told Rose
about a dream she had. One night, about two weeks ago, she dreamt that her niece
told her she was ill and needed to practice the "five sets of
exercises." The woman thought for some time but could not understand what
the five sets of exercises were. The next day, she phoned her niece to discover
that her niece was seriously ill. She asked her niece what "five sets of
exercises" meant but her niece did not know either. A few days after she
arrived in New York, as she was walking along 42nd Street, a Falun Gong
practitioner handed her a Falun Gong newspaper and said to her in limited
English, "five sets of exercises." The lady was amazed and delighted;
amazed that such a miracle had happened, and delighted because she had finally
found the five sets of exercises that she had heard about in her dream. Some Westerners were surprised to see fellow westerners wearing yellow
T-shirts handing out flyers alongside the Chinese practitioners. Professor Lucia
of Ohio State University has met people who have asked her in astonishment,
"Why are there Caucasian Falun Gong practitioners?" Lucia was very
happy to have the opportunity to tell people about how practicing Falun Gong had
healed the back pain that had plagued her for many years, and how Falun Gong has
fundamentally changed her. Not only has the practice spread all over the world
and people outside of China been practicing Falun Gong for some time, but the
persecution of Falun Gong by the Jiang administration has also been revealed to
the rest of the world, including how it affects every nation worldwide. Practitioners have experienced the intense heat of summer and the pleasant
coolness of the autumn in Union Square. The people in Manhattan have become used
to seeing Falun Gong practitioners in their yellow T-shirts, clarifying the
truth. After seeing practitioners many times, receiving flyers, and having many
conversations with them, the beauty of Falun Gong and the horrible persecution
of practitioners in China have been conveyed to the people of Manhattan. They in
turn are passing this information on to the rest of the world. Auckland, New Zealand: Falun Gong
Practitioners Jointly File a Lawsuit against Jiang Zemin New Zealand Falun Gong practitioners report: On October 26, 2004, New Zealand
Human Rights barrister Chris Lawrence, representing 11 Falun Gong practitioners,
filed a civil lawsuit in the Auckland High Court in New Zealand, to accuse chief
culprits in the persecution of Falun Gong, Jiang Zemin and his accomplices, of
arresting and physically abusing the plaintiffs when they went to China to visit
relatives or paid visits for other purposes. The charges include genocide,
torture, illegal arrest and others. After delivering the lawsuit, the plaintiffs held a press conference outside
the court. Barrister Mr. Chris Lawrence arrived in the rain to speak to
reporters and supporters, and answered many questions raised by the media. New
Zealand national TV1 and TV3 conducted special interviews, and aired them on the
prime time news that night. While being interviewed, Mr. Lawrence expressed that he accepted this lawsuit
because it is his responsibility as a barrister, and also because he hates
torture. His long-term experience as a Human Rights barrister made him realize
the importance of this case in terms of safeguarding human rights. Regarding the
persecution Falun Gong practitioners have suffered in China, he believes it
"has violated the basic laws of the civilized society, and is an offense to
the International Law." He believed the lawsuit would play a partial role
in urging the international community to establish responsibility for such
events. Falun Gong practitioners from Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan lined up
solemnly and in good order despite a heavy rain outside the Auckland High Court,
building a human "Great Wall of Courage," to support this just action
with their strong righteous thoughts. Letter from WOIPFG to All Levels of
Chinese Officials Regarding Jiang's Stepping Down Regarding Jiang Zemin's stepping down, the World Organization to Investigate
the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) wrote an open letter to Chinese officials
at all levels calling for an end to the persecution and punishment for the
murderers. The letter follows: End the Persecution, Punish the Murderers In China, the persecution of 100 million innocent Falun Gong practitioners
has lasted for more than 5 years. Now that Jiang has stepped down, this national
catastrophe should be immediately stopped. The persecution of Falun Gong has
caused the deaths of more than 1000 innocent people from beatings and torture,
has utilized vast resources and affected almost all of the people in China. All
the murderers who initiated and participated in the persecution should also be
punished. This cruel and irrational persecution was entirely based on the personal will
of Jiang Zemin. It is illegal and unrighteous, and it was never the will of the
people. Jiang Zemin disregarded the opposition of several fellow Politburo members
and went ahead with the persecution of Falun Gong on his personal whim in July
1999. He went on to establish the "610
Office," an extra-judicial organization charged with carrying out and
directing the illegal persecution of Falun Gong. As the persecution unfolded in subsequent years, Jiang continued to abuse his
authority and ordered escalations of the persecution many times. Jiang took
advantage of his dictatorial authority, wielded his despotic power,
misappropriated the country's resources and forced the entire nation to be
involved in his genocidal campaign against 100 million of their countrymen. And
it continues even to this day. (For more details, see the "Special Report
on Jiang Zemin's Crime of Genocide in the Persecution of Falun Gong" at: http://www.zhuichaguoji.org/en/
) Now that Jiang has retired from the highest positions of authority in China,
he is no longer able to manipulate the entire state apparatus to his personal
will. With Chinese and international awareness of the facts behind the
persecution of Falun Gong steadily increasing, Jiang will not be able to sustain
the persecution much longer, but for the time being, he still uses his personal
chain of command to maintain the persecution. According to the WOIPFG investigative report, Jiang directly commands and
controls the people that he personally appointed, and just about every
government department employs some of his appointees. He controls them, and they
use their authority to further deceive the nation and the people, mistakenly
creating the impression that the persecution is carried out in the name of the
country, when in fact it is carried out as Jiang's personal will. Cases of
practitioners being tortured to death are still appearing everywhere. WOIPFG has
registered the names of those who, by following Jiang Zemin's orders to continue
the persecution, are responsible for the killings. WOIPFG collects information
from investigators in China and reliable sources at all levels of the Chinese
government. The Stories of Practitioners Clarifying
the Truth in Manhattan "Millions of Good People Have Lost Their Human Rights, We Should Help
Them" One morning, when we were setting up the anti-torture exhibition at Liberty
Plaza on Broadway, a young man hurriedly came up to me and said, "I'm
working at a supermarket. I've seen your anti-torture exhibition and read the
literature. You are very good people. Unfortunately, millions of good people in
China have lost their happiness and lots of people have experienced the cruel
torture. It is terrible. I told my friends that we should help them. But some of
them thought that this was other people's business." The young man
continued, "People can't just live for money. We should also help other
good people who have lost their human rights. Could I take more materials? I
have many customers and friends. I can put those materials at my work place so
that they can read them." We immediately gave him a stack of folded
newsletters and leaflets. He put them into his bag. In the end, he shed tears
and said, "Take care of yourselves!" "I Will Bring this Wonderful Practice to Palestine" One Sunday morning, we went to Central Park and held a group practice. A
woman and her lovely young daughter came by. She said that she wanted to learn
the exercises. She told me that she first learned about Falun Gong a few years
ago. She is going to Palestine in two months and she wanted to learn all five
sets of exercises so that she can teach people in Palestine. She said the people
in Palestine endure a great amount of hardship. I taught her exercises One through Four, and she learned them very carefully.
I told her that she could come to our anti-torture exhibition sites to continue
to learn the exercises. Yesterday, she came again and learned the fifth set of
exercises. A Person Who Lost Both His Hands Asked a Practitioner to Sign the Petition
for Him Last Saturday, several practitioners formed a team: One held the
informational poster, one distributed flyers and another one collected petition
signatures. We went to a busy street and handed out the flyers on the pavement.
In our righteous and peaceful field, many people not only accepted the materials
but also signed the petition in support of Falun Gong. At that point, a disabled
person came over to us in a wheelchair. I handed the truth-clarification
material to him. He was very happy to accept it. Then I asked him whether he
would like to sign the petition calling for an end of the persecution. He smiled
and said, "See, I don't have hands." Then he said, "You could
sign it for me." He told me his name and I wrote his it down on the
petition. I expressed my sincere gratitude to him. He kept saying,
"Persecution is wrong!" A Chinese Woman: "We All Know About This. We All Talk About this
Issue." I met a Chinese woman. She carefully watched the live torture reenactment. I
walked over to her and handed her a flyer. She immediately said, "We all
know about this and we all talk about this issue." I then informed her how
Jiang initiated the suppression of Falun Gong and how he is currently being sued
in more than 10 countries in the world. I also introduced the wide spread of
Falun Dafa. She listened attentively and kept nodding her head. In the end, I
asked her if she wanted to sign the petition to support us. She hesitated for a
while and then signed her name. I thanked her for her support and expressed my
wish that she would talk more about Falun Gong with her Chinese friends. She
said that she would. New York State Assembly Member: "I
Write to Condemn the Vicious Acts of Violence Perpetrated Against the
Practitioners of Falun Gong." On September 15, 2004, New York State Assembly Member N. Nick Perry wrote to
the Falun Dafa Buddha Association in Easter USA to condemn the vicious acts of
violence perpetrated against the practitioners of Falun Gong in China. The
following is the text of the letter from Assembly Member N. Nick Perry. The Assembly Falun Dafa Buddha Association in Easter USA September 15, 2004 I write to condemn the vicious acts of violence perpetrated against the
practitioners of Falun Gong. The rights of people to practice their beliefs,
within the confines of the law, must be respected worldwide, and such acts of
intimidation by others who refuse to respect the human rights to freedom of
expression must be strongly repudiated. The dignity of mankind can be maintained, despite our varying opinion and
beliefs, when we learn to tolerate and appreciate different views. I extend my sincerest sympathy to the victims of this crime and to their
families as they try to come to groups with these senseless acts of aggression
against freedom. Sincerely, N. Nick Perry US Congressman Condemns the Hate Crime
Committed Against the Australian Falun Gong Practitioners Visiting South Africa On September 6, 2004, US Congressman Anthony D. Weiner wrote to Falun Gong
practitioner to condemn the acts of violence perpetrated against Falun Gong
practitioners. The following is the text of the letter from Congressman Weiner. Congress of the Untied States House of Representatives September 6, 2004 Thank you for contacting me regarding the tragedy which befell the Australian
Falun Gong practitioners visiting South Africa. I share your sense of horror. You are right to condemn acts of violence perpetrated against individuals for
their religious beliefs. I have consistently supported efforts in Congress to
make those who commit "hate crimes" eligible for more severe
punishment. And I have repeatedly demanded that the Chinese government relent in
their persecution of those who practice Falun Gong. You can be sure I will
continue to work hard on these issues in the future. Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to be in touch in
the future on this or any other issue of concern. Sincerely, Anthony D. Weiner U.S. Congressman Frank Pallone: "I
Remain Committed to the Task of Making Falun Gong Safe to Practice in Any
Country in the World." CONGRESSMAN FRANK PALLONE, JR. H. CON. RES 304 OCTOBER 4, 2004 I would like to express my support for H.Con.Res 304, a resolution honoring
the tradition and practice of Falun Gong. As a cosponsor of this resolution, I
urge my colleagues to vote yes on this important piece of legislation. H.Con.Res 304 calls on the Chinese Government to stop interfering with the
religious and political rights of individuals in the United States to practice
Falun Gong. The Chinese Government has gone so far as to spread falsehoods about
Falun Gong and to harass, detain, abuse and imprison Falun Gong practitioners.
The practitioners are simply exercising their legitimate rights to freedom of
religion and expression, and the actions of the Chinese Government conflict with
international standards of freedom and human rights and must end immediately. I have an admiration for the practitioners and adherents of Falun Gong and I
am invested in the movement both in the United States and abroad. I remain
committed to the task of making Falun Gong safe to practice in any country in
the world. The members of Falun Gong are opposed by a Chinese government that
unjustly views them as dissenters. This view is entirely without merit. In
reality, Falun Gong is an inherently peaceful, apolitical movement that stresses
nonviolence and meditation. Since Falun Gong was outlawed in 1999, hundreds of
nonviolent practitioners have been arrested, tortured, libeled, and detained
without charge or proof of any wrongdoing. Sadly, the unwarranted and unprovoked aggression against Falun Gong has not
ceased, nor is it limited to China. There have been unprovoked attacks in the
United States and Falun Gong members have been subjected to a humiliating and
denigrating blacklist. One incident that I found particularly offensive took place in June 2003.
Falun Gong members were attacked and beaten while holding a nonviolent protest
in New York City. In an effort to end the discrimination that confronts Falun
Gong practitioners, I wrote a letter to the Manhattan District Attorney Robert
Morgenthau requesting an investigation of this case. I hope that justice
prevails in this case. With passage of H.Con.Res.304, we can send a strong signal condemning China's
human rights abuses and we can take one step closer to ensuring Falun Gong
members the freedom of religion and assembly guaranteed to them by law. Tanzania Human Rights Organization
Passes a Resolution of Support for Bringing Jiang Zemin to Justice A renowned human rights organization in Tanzania passed a resolution
condemning Chinese ex-president Jiang Zemin's human rights violations against
Falun Gong practitioners, and supporting bringing Jiang to justice. The Resolution of The University of Dar es Salaam Human Rights Association UDSM-Human Rights, Making Human Rights Reality The resolution of the University of Dar es Salaam Human Rights Association (UDSM-Human
Rights) against the persecution of Falun Gong (Falun Dafa) practitioners in
China: Whereas, Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) is a traditional practice of
body and mind based on the universal principle of
"Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance," and is commended for its devotion
to public service , and commitment to improving health in
mind, body and spirit; Whereas, the rights to life, liberty and security of person is enshrined in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) as per Article 3; Whereas, it is provided under Article 5 of the UDHR that no one shall be
subjected to torture, or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment; Knowing, that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and
religion as per article 18(1) of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR) of 1966; Noting, that Article 18(1) of the hereinabove referred instrument stipulates
that no one shall be subject to coercion which would impair his freedom to have
or adopt a religion or belief of his choice; Recognizing, that each state has the obligation under Article 4 of the
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (1984) to ensure all acts are offences under its criminal law; Whereas, the long time persecution of Falun Dafa in China violates severely
the international human rights law; BE IT RESOLVED that the University of Dar es Salaam Human Rights (herein
referred to as UDSM-HUMAN RIGHTS) and the University members (the Undersigned)
support efforts to bring JIANG ZEMIN to the court of justice (for his crimes of
torture and crime against humanity); BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution be forwarded to Dr.Kofi
Annan-Secretary General of the United Nations; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
and International Cooperation (the United Republic of Tanzania); The Chinese
Ambassador to Tanzania; and the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights in
Geneva-Switzerland. THE PEOPLE WHOSE SIGNATURES APPEAR BELOW CONDEMN IN THE STRONGEST TERMS THE
PERSECUTION OF THE FALUN DAFA AND EXPRESS THEIR STRONG SUPPORT TO ALL THE LEGAL
PROCEDURES TAKEN TO BRING THE PERPETRATORS TO JUSTICE. Twenty-Six Additional Cases of Falun
Gong Practitioners Who Died as a Result of Torture in China Are Verified in
September In September, 26 cases of Falun Gong practitioners tortured to death were
verified through civilian channels, of those 12 were killed in 2004, including
one practitioner who was killed in September, 2004. The twenty-six deaths occurred in thirteen provinces and municipalities
directly under the control of the Central Government. There were six in Hebei
Province, six in Liaoning Province, two in Hubei Province, two in Shanxi
Province, two in Shandong Province, and one in each of the following places:
Beijing, Anhui Province, Jilin Province, Sichuan Province, Guangdong Province,
Heilongjiang Province, Jiangsu Province, and Jiangxi Province. Among the
practitioners who died as a result of torture were factory workers, housewives,
government employees, and retired workers, owners of private companies, farmers,
taxi drivers, and others. The oldest practitioner was 78-year-old Wang Qirong from Jilin City, Jilin
Province, while the youngest was a woman Falun Gong practitioner from Sichuan
Province, who was about 30 years old, and whose name is still unknown. Fifteen
deaths were of senior citizen Falun Gong practitioners whose ages were over 50,
which accounts for 57% of the total deaths reported in September. Eleven women
practitioners were killed, which accounts for 44% of the death toll. The practitioners whose deaths were reported in September had experienced
both severe physical torture and mental torment. Their homes were ransacked, and
many of them were abducted and subjected to extortion. They were subjected to
all kinds of brutal beating and torture, as well as coercive brainwashing, being
sent to forced labor camps, detention centers, and brainwashing centers, and
otherwise abused and grossly mistreated at the hands of the local police and
persons from the "610
Office" who tried to force them to give up their Falun Dafa faith in
Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. Latest Death by Torture Case: Mr. Guan
Xuehe from Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province, China Mr. Guan Xuehe was a 50 year old ironsmith from Group Seven, Zhongxin
Village, Bude Town, Renhe District, Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province. In
November 2000, he was sentenced to one and half years of forced labor and
"re-education" by Renhe District Police Department. On February 15, 2003, Guan Xuehe was again arrested for distributing Dafa
truth-clarification materials and sent to Tongde Police Station where he was
beaten badly. The people involved in his arrest included: Zhang Youfu from
Tongde Police Station, Chen Hu (a security guard from Bude Town), Yang Kai, Cui
Fuli, Zhang Hongtai, Zhou Lurong and Song Qi'an (all of whom are from Renhe
District Police Department). On February 16, 2003, Guan Xuehe was sent to a detention center. That same
night, he was transferred to another detention center. At the end of March 2003,
he was sentenced to three years of forced labor. Before he was taken to the
labor camp, he was brutally beaten by police at the detention center. The
beating was so brutal that he could not even stand up. While being detained in the Forth Brigade of Xinhua Labor Camp in Mianyang
City, Sichuan Province, Guan Xuehe was often brutally beaten. Under the
tremendous physical and mental persecution, he developed lung cancer around July
2004. The labor camp drew blood from him every other day in the name of
"doing some tests on him." About half a month later, the camp
authorities sent him home, fearing that he might die in the camp. After he
returned home, at 8:00 on the morning of October 4, 2004, Guan Xuehe died in
Chengdu City Hospital. China: Ms. Li Xuewei Is Sentenced to
Seven Years in Prison after Four Years of Persecution Ms. Li Xuewei lived in Japan for seven years. In February 2000, when she went
to visit her relatives in China, she was arrested for having a Falun Dafa in
Japan newspaper with her. The Chinese authorities illegally detained and
threatened her. They revoked her passport, thus preventing her from returning to
Japan with her husband. After suffering four years of persecution, she was
illegally sentenced to seven years in prison on September 21, 2004. During this period, Ms. Li's relatives and friends were suffering severe
stress because of her situation. Her husband, who was heavily in debt, overcame
many difficulties to travel to China to help his wife. However, there are no
laws and no justice system to protect Falun Gong or its practitioners in China.
No attorneys have the courage to represent her case. Jiang's state terrorism
overrules the country's constitution and has become the "law" in
persecuting Falun Gong. Ms. Li's daughter turns six years old this year. Longing for her mother's
return, she often cries quietly because she doesn't want others to hear her. She
keeps saying, "When my mom is back, we'll go to Japan with my dad. We'll
never be apart again." Ms. Li is thirty-five, and worked as a kindergarten teacher. Her husband
found a job in Japan in 1990, so Ms. Li joined him there in 1993. In 1996, Ms.
Li suddenly contracted a serious case of pulmonary tuberculosis and was coughing
up blood. The medical examination indicated that her lung was perforated;
therefore she went to China for medical treatment. Although she tried hard to
find an effective treatment, the disease was not cured. However, she
miraculously recovered after practicing Falun Gong, and returned to Japan. In February 2000, Ms. Li went to China to participate in the Spring Festival
with her relatives. Policeman Liu Jie took her to the Huancui District Police
Department in Weihai City because she had a Falun Dafa in Japan newspaper
in her possession. The police Ms. Li righteously rejected their demand, "Falun Dafa has no secrets. It
is impossible for me to work for you. I would rather remain here than work for
you as a spy." Ms. Li tried to get her passport back, but the authorities refused. Ms. Li
moved to Changchun City and later returned by train to Weihai City to try again
to retrieve her passport. The police then claimed they had transferred the case
to the Jilin Provincial Police Department. When Ms. Li went there, she was told
that they had revoked her passport, thus preventing Ms. Li from returning to
Japan. In addition, her two-year-old daughter's passport was automatically
revoked because she couldn't apply for a visa to Japan. As a result, the family
has been torn apart. Upon hearing the bad news, Li Xuewei's husband was worried sick about his
wife and daughter. He became exhausted and bitter from the pressure and his
business went bankrupt. He had to resort to physical labor to repay a debt,
which is equivalent to hundreds of thousands of yuan. The family were to have
become permanent Japanese residents soon, but they have been torn apart by the
Chinese authorities. With no judicial authorities to hear her appeal, on August 1, 2001, Li Xuewei
went to the Tiananmen Square Appeals Office to personally appeal her situation.
She was detained, but was finally released because of the efforts of many
friends. Li Xuewei was again arrested at 6 p.m. on November 17, 2003, as she was
taking several Falun Dafa books and some blank CDs to fellow practitioner Huang
Yuxing, a pharmacist at the Second Institute of Jilin University. Five police
officers were lying in wait from the National Security Detachment of the
Changchun City Police Department, the Nanguan District Police Department and the
Quan'an Police Station. They took Ms. Li to the basement of a building in
Jingyuantan, a secret place far from downtown, used for torturing Falun Gong
practitioners. The perpetrators lit only a candle to create an atmosphere of fear. It was
very cold, so the police wore overcoats, but Ms. Li had on only light autumn
clothing. They tortured Ms. Li in two-hour shifts. They beat, kicked and hung
her up by her handcuffed hands. They then attempted to suffocate her with smoke
and a plastic bag. To intensify the torture, the police punched her stomach
while holding a plastic bag over her head. In addition, the police forced her to
do "flying airplane" (a particularly painful position) and
to stay that way for hours on end. The major abusers were from the National
Security detachment of the city police department. Policeman Ma from the Nanguan
District Department was also very vicious. He inserted bottles under her
handcuffs to further tighten them around her wrists. On August 20, 2004, after being illegally detained for nine months, Li Xuewei
was sentenced in court, but the case was returned to the prosecutor's office for
an unknown reason. However, on September 21, the court sentenced her to seven
years in prison. Insisting on her innocence, Ms. Li filed an appeal. Facing his wife's desperate situation and worried about his daughter, Li
Xuewei's husband had to return to Japan alone. The three members of the family
must now live in three different places. China: Eyewitness Account of Torture at
the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp I am an eyewitness to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners carried out
by the guards and collaborators (1) at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. Qi Fuying,
the guard in the third team of the second division, organized several
collaborators to act as hatchet men to persecute steadfast Falun Gong
practitioners. They often tied the practitioners up to torture them. Jiang
Chunxiang from Dandong City, Li Qiuling, Zhu Yanling from Jinzhou City, Mao
Hongxia from Benxi City, Zhao Lerong from Dalian City, Wang Deping from Anshan
City and Wang Shuyun, the guard from Jinzhou City Forced Labor Camp, were all
collaborators influenced by Jiang's lies. Li Qiuling tried to "brainwash" an older practitioner and did not
allow her to go to the toilet. As a result, she urinated on the floor and was
forced to clean it up using her underwear. Li Qiuling tried to brainwash
practitioner Bei Ying. Li smashed Bei Ying's head into a metal heater, causing
it to bleed. Guard Qi Fuying told the collaborators to tie up practitioners Zheng Juxiang
and Mi Yanli. They were tied up for about 15 to 16 hours, with urine and feces
in their underwear. This led to their legs festering. In addition, collaborator
Jiang Chunxiang applied iodine to Zheng Juxaing's legs. Because Wang Ling from Tieling firmly believed in Falun Gong, guard Qi Fuying
moved Wang Ling to a small cell at the number four building for 10 days. In the
cell, her hands were locked onto the "Tiger
Bench." Because she was stretched to the limit, she felt great pain in
her stomach. It was very cold between November and December, and the windows in
front and back were left open. The cold metal of the Tiger
Bench permeated Wang Ling's entire body, making her extremely cold. When
Wang Ling was released from the small cell ten days later, she was on the verge
of death. (After seven days in that cell, one's skin would usually start peeling
off the whole body.) Wang Ling was placed in a warm room to recover. Three days
later, her face, hands and feet all swelled up. Wang Ling was later transferred
to another forced labor camp, as the authorities were afraid of this brutal
persecution being exposed. In the second division of the camp, there are several buildings close to the
east gate. South of the gate, there were more than a dozen rooms. The first
floor is where practitioners are tortured. The floor was labeled, "SARS
Isolation Section." The north side of the building is a reception area.
Therefore, the building was also called the sham building. The labor camp conducted the most evil persecution against practitioners
between November and December of 2003. Every day a busload of policemen from
elsewhere arrived at the camp to help with the persecution. They took
practitioners into the sham building and tortured them using various torture
methods. Some practitioners were tied up, some were hung up and some were beaten
until they became unconscious. One day in October 2003, the camp forced the practitioners to harvest corn in
a field. Zheng Juxiang suffered from a prolapsed rectum, which bled whenever her
pants brushed her anus. Qi Fuying told collaborator Jiang Chunxiang to drag
Zheng Juxiang from the third floor to the field. Zheng Juxiang was in such pain
that she gave a blood-curdling scream. The sound upset Zhang Shohue, a
practitioner from Qiyuan Dohutuen. She grabbed Zheng Juxiang and pulled her away
from Jiang Chunxiang, which saved Zheng Juxiang from having to do labor. During
the whole incident, Qi Fuying remained behind the scene. This is what I have witnessed of the persecution in the Masanjia Forced Labor
Camp. More cases of persecution were carried out, but they have been hidden from
practitioners. Violent Acts at Gaoyang Forced Labor
Camp: Using Poisonous Snakes, Lizards and Five-Clawed Electric Batons Ms. Wang Chunmei, about 50, is a resident of Hezhuangzhi Village of Zunhua in
Tangshan City, Hebei Province. Because Wang Chunmei persisted in practicing
Falun Gong, being shocked with an electric baton in Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp
became a regular treatment for her. Everyday she had to face this cruel torture.
The guards rolled copper wires around her wrists, enabling the electric current
to pass through her whole body. On one occasion, she lost consciousness during
one of these torture sessions. When she regained consciousness she found blood
around the edges of her fingers and experienced a heart-piercing pain in her
hands. She discovered that the guards had used needles to jab the undersides of
her fingers. She lost consciousness again while the guards were torturing her
session. After they revived her, she felt a hot and tingling sensation on her
face and mouth. She realized that they had sprayed spicy ground pepper on her. In the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp, the guards did many horrible things. They
placed a thick wooden stick on top of both of her thighs. Then the guard Zang
Haili stood on the stick and rolled it around on her thighs. Her thighs turned
black and blue and swelled so badly that she had difficulty standing up. The
guards also handcuffed her out in a remote area and three times twisted a
poisonous snake around her neck. Each time she grabbed it and threw it down.
They also placed a lizard on her. Then they used the electric baton to shock the
lizard and chase it over her body until the lizard was dead. Then they
shamelessly said, "We're shocking the lizard not you." Wang Chunmei went on a hunger strike to protest this persecution. She
requested that the persecution cease. Instead, the police used five-clawed
electric batons to shock her one after the other and then force-fed her. If she
refused to eat, they kept shocking her with the electric baton. Time Out New York Reports on How Falun
Gong Wins Local Hearts Time out New York is a magazine about life and leisure in New York. In
its issue published on October 7, 2004, an article entitled, "What's up
with that?" written by Katerine Pushkar introduced a new scene appeared in
recent months on the streets in New York City. As millions of New Yorkers, she also noticed that Falun Gong practitioners
seemed to be everywhere. What's up with that? Katerine wrote, "If it seems like you're practically tripping over
peaceful, yellow-shirted demonstrators, that's because Falun Gong (or Falun Dafa)
practitioners have descended on New York en masse in the past month. They're
here for the same reason anyone else is here -- for the bright (Klieg) lights of
the big city." "New York is the media capital of the world,"
volunteer spokesperson Gail Rachlin explains. "We felt that coming here
would have a big impact." Katerine noticed that Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese meditation and
exercise practice based on truth, compassion and tolerance, has been banned as a
threat by China's Communist government since 1999, its followers reportedly
tortured. She said in her article, "The recent Republican convention -- and
its international news lens -- offered an easy spotlight. Falun Gong disciples
demonstrated during the RNC." Rachlin told her, "It had such a positive impact, people said, 'Why
don't we stay?'" The awareness campaign has drawn supporters from all over
the world to city sidewalks and parks, where they meditate and display gruesome
posters documenting abuse by Chinese authorities. Lifelong New Yorker Rachlin remains hopeful of their success. "If you
can win the hearts of New Yorkers," she says, "you can win the hearts
of anyone." Vancouver Sun: Activists Caught in
China's Web Wang Yuzhi's hands tightened into fists, her gentle facial features hardened,
and tears welled in her eyes as she described nine months of detention and
torture in China. The Falun Gong practitioner, now living in Vancouver, clearly understands the
terrible price of lost privacy when Chinese government authorities monitor
Internet and private e-mail communications. She had become one of the cyber dissidents imprisoned in China, the country
Reporters Without Borders described this year as "the world's biggest
prison for cyber dissidents." China not only boasts almost 80 million Internet users, it is also
responsible for jailing more cyber dissidents than all other countries combined. It has jailed 60 of the 68 cyber dissidents worldwide for what it considers
improper Internet communications. Wang, 49, was jailed in June 2001 when Chinese officials arrested her for the
third time after a reward had been posted for her arrest when she continued pro-Falun
Gong activities. Wang said she was arrested attempting to withdraw money from the bank after
authorities narrowed down her location through monitoring Internet
communications. In jail she was subjected to brutal force feeding, with tubes being forced
through her nose and her mouth. Coarse cornmeal in cold water was pushed into
her body. Her face became a bloody, infected mess of wounds. She thought she might go
blind. "I did not know whether I would be alive or dead, but I really have a
strong will to live," Wang said through an interpreter who translated her Mandarin into English in
an interview. "The pain was even worse than giving birth," Wang said of the
forced feeding that brutalized her body, bashed out her teeth and, on some
occasions, almost suffocated her. Reporters Without Borders' Canadian president Tanya Churchmuch said the
Chinese have a system of monitoring and censoring news which is much more subtle
than a country such as Cuba, where only a select core of the population are
permitted Internet access. "They do things which are a lot less obvious. They have hundreds of
thousands of sites which are blocked, different subject matter, like the Falun
Gong. "Say somebody tries to log on (to a banned site), all it will do is
redirect you saying something like: 'Server down. Website not found.' "It seems much more innocuous. It does not actually say: 'You are not
allowed to see this site.'" Many of those caught in China's cyber monitoring do not consider themselves
dissidents. "Much of it is young people or even students asking questions about
Tiananmen Square or talking about anything to do with any kind of liberties,
religious freedoms or anything like that who get traced back and they are
ultimately arrested." The Paris-based international reporters' organization's hopes that the
Internet would aid pro-democracy, human-rights and religious groups in China
have been damaged. "Initial hopes that the Internet would develop into an unfettered media
and help liberalize China have been dashed," an online report stated. "Many Chinese Internet users are very inventive and have the technical
know-how to evade Beijing's censorship. But the reinforcement of filtering
measures since the start of 2004 has made it much harder to access independent
information. "At the same time, exiled dissidents are becoming more active and
effective." [...] Jack He, a Vancouver software programmer, is one of those quietly involved in
the cyber battle. "I understand the situation in China. I know how they block the
Internet. I know how people are trying to help people in China to break the
blockage," he said before acknowledging he was active in aiding the flow of
information. "I know how they use the Internet to persecute Falun Gong
practitioners," he said. He was wary about saying anything too specific out of fear he would
jeopardize efforts to assist the flow of information in and out of China, or
bring more unwanted attention from the Chinese government down on Falun Gong
[practitioners], of which he is one. He said he did not want to reveal details of how he and people like him are
aiding dissidents in penetrating the so-called golden shield that China has been
constructing since 1998. The golden shield has become more sophisticated as cyber dissidents search
for ways to beat the system, according to a paper entitled Breaking Through the
Golden Shield, written by He. Censorship began by merely blocking Internet protocol addresses, preventing
web surfers from accessing pages the Chinese government decided should be off
limits. But when dissidents began using overseas Internet protocol addresses to
access banned pages they found a way around the censors for a time. Media websites such as CNN, the BBC, Voice of America, and Falun Gong are
among the hundreds of thousands of blocked pages. Chinese censors responded with detection systems that could detect such proxy
pages by recognizing offensive content within the pages. The same principle was applied to e-mail, He wrote in his report. Keyword filtering of e-mail servers was required by the state. Similarly,
discussion forums were ordered to install filter systems to block key words
relating to pornography, religion, politics and severe acute respiratory
syndrome (SARS). Internet cafes in China are also required to examine government
identification cards before someone is permitted to access the Internet. Surveillance software approved by police is installed and sometimes computer
screens are monitored, according to He's article. University of Toronto associate professor Ron Deibert is director of the
Citizen Lab at the University's Munk Centre for International Studies, which,
along with the Berkman Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School,
has researched the extent of China's censorship and how it can be defeated. Deibert and his colleagues ran tests that demonstrated the popular Google
search engine had been manipulated by the Chinese so that searches done within
China do not find pages offensive to the Chinese censors. "We can tell a lot about what they do not want people to know,"
Deibert said of the testing. The Citizen Lab also played a part in assisting human-rights organizations in
establishing proxy computers to defeat the blocking by the Chinese. Deibert says that someone doing work in China as he does in Toronto would be
jailed. He said the abilities of the Chinese authorities to detect attempts to
circumvent their blocking and monitoring have become much more sophisticated. "China stands alone among countries worldwide with the money that is put
into this and the matrix which is in place," he said. "There are people that I work with that have been in grave danger doing
this stuff, so we have to take very seriously their security." He said they have seen their research result in positive outcomes for the
organizations with which Citizen Lab works, but said it would be dangerous to
reveal the details. "I just cannot get into the specifics of it, because it would disclose
the methods which we are using," he said. Another organization assisting Chinese cyber dissidents is Dynamic Internet
Technology Inc., a U.S. company headed by Bill Xia, a former Chinese national. Xia also established a proxy network so people accessing the Internet in
China could visit banned websites. "We deliver software to users in China. With this client software they
are going to find our network, connect to our network so that people can visit
any website which they want," he said in a telephone interview. (Xia was so concerned about his personal security that he insisted his
location be described only as the east coast of the U.S.) He said the software they have made available to hundreds of thousands of
Chinese Internet users is so easy to operate it can be installed by double
clicking. He said encryption systems in the software would allow a person in China to
evade censors and access a Falun Gong web- site. Xia, who also practises Falun Gong, said he travelled to the U.S. to complete
his education and was amazed when he learned of all the information which had
been denied to people within China about their own country. Now, Chinese people use his technology to learn about subjects forbidden by
the Chinese government. "There are many stories which China tried to keep under control,"
he said. He said the government kept a tight lid on how bad the SARS epidemic
was in China and how dangerous it was to its citizens. "At the beginning the government was saying it was not dangerous at all
and almost nobody died [saying] 'It's fine you do not have to take any
precautions.'." Dynamic Internet Technology has provided assistance to Voice of America,
Radio Free Asia and Human Rights in China, Xia said. New York-based Human Rights in China executive director Sharon Hom said
assistance from organizations such as Dynamic Internet Technology has been vital
for her organization. As well as lobbying for more than 2,000 individual dissidents within China,
Human Rights in China has documented examples of prisoner mistreatment, and
brought it to the attention of the UN and other international bodies. They are also using technology supplied by organizations such as DIT to
provide access to information for pro-democracy and human-rights advocates in
China. People who have assisted the organization from within China have often paid a
high personal price. "They are in prison. They are suffering repression. They are under heavy
surveillance or they are losing jobs," she said. "On the other hand, despite very high costs, people are trying." While academics, human-rights advocates, and some corporations attempt to
assist the flow of information to and from China, Wang Yuzhi recounts her tale
of torture as many times as it is necessary. "Every time she recalls this experience it's very painful, but she is
still willing because here in this society people do not really realize what is
going on over there," the interpreter explained for Wang. [...] Radio Free Asia: Rights Group Says Falun
Gong Mother and Baby Died in Labor Camp 2004.10.15 HONG KONG--A follower of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement and her
eight-month-old son have died in a Chinese labor camp after traveling to Beijing
to petition the central government about their plight, a U.S.-based rights group
has reported. "Persecuting children on the basis of their or their parents' beliefs is
a fundamental violation of the rights of the child." Liu Qing, Human Rights in China Wang Lixuan and her son, Meng Hao, from the eastern province of Shandong,
were detained Oct. 22, 2000, while traveling to Beijing, the New York-based
Human Rights in China (HRIC) said in a statement. "The mother and baby both died at the Tuanhe Forced Labor Dispatch
Division in Beijing on Nov. 7, 2000. The coroner's exam determined that Wang
Lixuan's neck and fingers were broken, her skull was fractured, and she had a
needle stuck in her lower back," the statement said. Five documented deaths "Her baby, Meng Hao, was found to have deep bruises on his ankles and
head and blood in his nose. It is believed that little Meng Hao had been hung
upside down by his ankles," the group said. It said at least five children of Falun Gong followers had died as a result
of official persecution of their parents, while many more had been left in
straitened circumstances after parents were detained or sentenced for their
beliefs. It quoted the Global Mission to Rescue Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners as
saying that some under-age Falun Gong practitioners had been sentenced to
re-education through labor and been forced to submit to brainwashing. Others had become orphans or have lost the care of their parents, and also
lost their rights to education and other social services and basic human rights,
it said. Nationwide crackdown "Persecuting children on the basis of their or their parents' beliefs is
a fundamental violation of the rights of the child under international
law," HRIC president Liu Qing said in the statement. "The Chinese government should [ensure] that no child is subjected to
torture, detention, or loss of basic human rights because of the religious
beliefs of themselves or their parents," Liu said. Human rights groups estimate that hundreds of Falun Gong followers have been
jailed and tens of thousands sent to labor camps without trial since then. China banned Falun Gong in July 1999, after the group staged a massive silent
protest outside the main leadership compound in Beijing. The official Chinese media have consistently [slandered and demonized Falun
Gong to justify the inhumane persecution] Followers describe Falun Gong as a set of mostly age-old practices aimed at
self-improvement through physical exercises and spiritual beliefs. The movement
claims tens of millions of followers in China, and millions more in other
countries. Campbelltown Macarthur Advertiser
(Sydney, Australia): Residents sign petition opposing persecution October 13, 2004 An international fight against persecution has gained support from the people
of Macarthur. Falun Dafa -- also known as Falun Gong -- is a Chinese practice of
self-improvement and exercise with the guiding principles of truthfulness,
compassion and forbearance. The practice was banned in China in 1999 by the former president Jiang Zemin,
and practitioners say there has been a campaign of persecution and torture ever
since. The petition was started after Sydney man David Liang, 42, was shot in both
feet after he and eight other Australians arrived in South Africa to file a law
suit against visiting Chinese officials. Stacey Wang of Ingleburn said many Macarthur people supported the Falun Dafa
cause. "Australians, Chinese and Vietnamese all practice in the local
area," Ms Wang said. "Most of them practiced before the persecution and know that Falun Dafa
is very good and very helpful." Ms Wang said Chinese practitioners living
in Macarthur had been black-listed by the Chinese government and had had trouble
getting visas and renewing passports. Zoran Bulic of Ingleburn, a practitioner for two years, said Falun Dafa
offered health and psychological benefits. "It's a very simple practice but a very powerful one," Mr. Bulic
said, "it teaches people how to be good." "We would like to let everyone know about the terrorism and the evil
nature of the persecution," she said. "Even outside China, we deeply feel the persecution and we want to stand
up and say no to the evil." Ms Wang said Macarthur residents were quick to show concern about the issue. "The people agree that the Government should do something about
it," she said. Falun Gong Practitioners' Righteous Action in China Hundreds of Thousands Truth-Clarifying
Stickers Publicly Posted in Liaoning Province during the National Day Holidays By a Falun Gong practitioner in Liaoning Province, China For the October 1st National Day holidays, we designed a
letter-sized flyer with an adhesive backing listing the evildoers' names and
their crimes as publicized by the World Organization to Investigate the
Persecution of Falun Gong. We distributed or posted several hundred thousand of these flyers in cities
and different areas in Liaoning Province, which greatly shocked and exposed the
evildoers. Before that, we had made and posted a large number of similar
stickers. This exposure revealed the criminals and their crimes to their
relatives, neighbors, colleagues, family members and people around them. They
were very scared and dared not raise their heads among their local relatives and
acquaintances. Some were transferred to other jobs because of the exposure. Some could not
be promoted. Some of the culprits went to see Falun Gong practitioners, saying
that they would never persecute Falun Gong again. On the whole, these flyers greatly shocked the evildoers, who came to realize
the consequences of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Since then, they
haven't dared to persecute Falun Gong practitioners arbitrarily. A great change
has occurred in the situation in those areas. Righteous Thoughts and Actions Stop the
Police from Extorting Money from a Practitioner's Family I am a 47-year-old woman from Funing County of Qinhuangdao. I used to be sick
all the time, suffering from neurasthenia, nephritis and other illnesses. I took
medicine 365 days a year. On February 26, 1999, I started to practice Falun Gong. Since then, I have
been practicing the exercises and strictly following the universal principles of
"Truth-Compassion-Tolerance." Not long after beginning the practice,
all my physical suffering was gone. I used to be very weak and only weighed 99
pounds. Now I have completely changed: my weight has increased to 162 pounds,
and I can do all kinds of work. I've been very healthy during the five years
that I have I practiced Falun Gong. From the bottom of my heart, I feel so
grateful to Teacher and Falun Gong for giving me health and a happy family. On January 13, 2002, because I was distributing flyers clarifying the truth
about Falun Gong and the persecution in a market, I was illegally taken to a
police substation. The director and six policemen from the substation were
involved in the arrest. They went to search my home as well, but did not find
anything. At around 9:00 p.m., police officer Yang handcuffed me and forced me
to sit on a stool until 8:00 a.m. the next morning. When they removed the
handcuffs, my hands had two deep bruised lines on them. Later, I was sent to
Funing Detention Center, where I was detained for fifteen days. My husband is an honest and kind man. During my detention, aside from
expenses regarding accommodation and photos, the police substation extorted
money from him three times: 2,000 yuan the first time, 1,000 yuan the second
time and 1,000 yuan the third time. The money was given to Officer Yang every
time, without witnesses or any legal procedures. Each time, he asked my husband
to go to the police substation in the evening. At 3:00 p.m. the day after my release, Yang again broke into my home, this
time alone. He threatened and swore at my husband, asking for some sauces (worth
over 30 yuan). Then he demanded 500 yuan. At the time, I thought of Teacher's
words, "suffocate the evil." So I ran out and phoned the director of
the police substation. I also shouted loudly in front of my house, "Come
and see! This policeman broke into someone's home without justification and
extorted money from honest people. Tell me which item in the law allows you to
do so? Who asked you to do so?" A lot of people gathered around. Soon, Pan
Weixing, Assistant Director of the police substation came to my home with five
policemen. They persuaded me to let them enter the house and they took Yang
away. They looked very panicked and frightened. After that, I exposed the wicked
behavior of the police substation to the people living in the vicinity of the
substation. The director of the police substation declared that he would get his
revenge on me. I told them that I did not have any hatred for them, and that I only hoped
that they would not aid the persecutors and maltreat good people. After that, the leaders of the police substation and Officer Yang came to my
home, apologizing for what they did. They also returned 3,500 yuan. But they
still kept 100 yuan as a "deposit." The People Awaken to the Truth Middle School Classmates Work Together
to Clarify the Truth about Falun Gong In Northern China, one middle school student and all three of his family
members practice Falun Gong. He always explains the truth about Falun Dafa and
introduces the teachings to his classmates. He encourages his mother, saying,
"Don't be afraid, just try your best and Teacher will help you!" He
also informed his mother, "If we keep a righteous mind, all of my
classmates will help me." One day, their teacher in class asked who was practicing Falun Gong. He
raised his hand bravely and slowly, one by one, his fellow students also raised
their hands. Once, when he obtained some printed materials explaining the truth
about Falun Gong, his classmates had a friendly competition with each other to
distribute the materials. While hanging Falun Dafa banners, they also competed
with each other to see who had hung the banner highest in a tree and who had
hung it in the most aesthetically pleasing way. Some students also tried to follow the example of grownups who had gone to
unfurl Falun Gong banners on Tiananmen Square. They unfurled banners in the
hallways of the school and shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" Falun Gong Practitioners' Personal Experiences A Doctor in Taiwan: Falun Gong Cured My
Eye Disease My name is Lai Jiandeng and I am 53 years old. I am a medical doctor, an
ear-nose-throat specialist, and I started practicing Falun Gong in March 1997. I
have suffered from illnesses throughout my whole life. I fought other people for
self-interests, and my health declined by the year. In the past decade I hit
rock bottom and almost lost the desire to live. That was the time I found Falun
Dafa. From then on, my life changed completely. I study Western medicine and have a certain understanding of the treatment
and recuperation process of certain diseases. When I was young, I suffered from
various conditions. In the years right before I practiced Falun Gong, I was
afflicted with a stomach ulcer, stomach bleeding, a stiff back, inflammation of
the eye, dizziness and sciatic nerve pain. These problems took turns attacking
me. Treatments could only suppress them temporarily and could not prevent them
from recurring. It was the day before Tomb Sweep Day and the beginning of a long
holiday when the eye inflammation first came on. My eyes were red for two days,
and all of a sudden my eyeballs suppurated from inside. They swelled up and were
extremely painful. I could barely open my eyes and when I did, I couldn't see
anything. Pus had filled my eyes and it was as if someone had plastered my eyes
over. I cannot describe the intense fear I had of losing my sight, because the
next thing that would usually happen was my eyeballs would fester and I would
lose my sight. I immediately went to an eye doctor, who injected medication
directly into my eyelids. The injections are usually administered into the
muscle, under the skin or into blood vessels, but I was injected directly in my
eyelids and in the tissue around the eyeballs. Sometimes I had shots twice a
day. The condition subsided after about two weeks. That was only the beginning of a nightmare. The disease came back every
spring. The injections only suppressed the surface symptoms and could not treat
the underlying causes. Each relapse would last a month or so and I had to get
injections around my eyes, otherwise it would be difficult to control the
symptoms. I received prednisolone in large doses [a derivative of prednisone,
a steroid treatment]. After more than a decade, I was extremely afraid of this disease, because
over time I could develop kidney problems even if I didn't lose my sight, and I
could end up living on dialysis. This disease was also accompanied by ankylosing
spondylitis [chronic inflammation of the spine], and my spine started to
hurt more than 20 years ago. After I had a car accident over ten years ago, my
back hurt terribly on top of other complications that already existed. In the
winter my spine hurt when I moved, when I lay still, when I rolled over and when
I got out of bed. When I sat in a car, I could not tolerate the slightest
jarring. I had to push myself up with my hands to alleviate the pain, and it
also hurt when the car accelerated. My spine would hurt so much that I would
well up in tears when the car would go over a pothole or came to a sudden stop.
I was scared to death of going out in a car. Even when I walked at home, I could
not walk steadily due to my back pain, and the pain was there no matter what
position I was in. My mother was on her deathbed when I first saw Falun Dafa books, so I didn't
have the desire to read them then. Since I never obtained a good cultivation
method in any of the different religions, I assumed Falun Dafa was the same as
the others, so I didn't pay much attention. After my mother's funeral I picked
up the book Falun Gong, I suddenly realized that this was different from
all the religious books I had read, so I read it until 3:00 a.m. The next day, I continued to read Zhuan Falun and other Falun Dafa
books. It's hard to describe my feelings, but it was far deeper than anything I
had experienced before. When I read religious books, I felt that I had just
crawled out of the soil and saw the sun for the first time, and I felt the world
was wonderfully huge; with further understanding, I felt I had climbed up on a
building and when I look down, I felt my former understandings were trivial. But
when I read Falun Dafa books, all those feelings and knowledge became
insignificant in comparison, and I felt like I was looking down from the
universe. The difference was tremendous and I was truly happy. I realized that
Falun Dafa was what I had always sought after, even though I had no idea that I
was after it. The next summer, my stomach ulcer pain began to subside and then disappeared.
The unbearable pain in my spine was also reduced a year later. The inflammation
of my eyes came back several times. I did the meditation exercise since I could
not do the other exercises involving movement. Eventually the dizziness went
away. The majority of my illnesses are history. I am now healthier than I have ever
been. I have truly experienced something profound and supernatural. I devoted
myself to religion for decades but was never free from illnesses. As a doctor I
know about illnesses and it's easy for me to obtain medication. I took pills in
great quantities, but the pain was still there. Now I understand that only
cultivation can help a person become truly and completely healthy. Falun Dafa has given me guidance in life. It helped me to reduce hatred,
conflicts, and other bad feelings. I am able to see my shortcomings, and through
cherishing the chance to practice Falun Dafa, I will diligently improve myself. Because I Practice Falun Gong, I No
Longer Use Large Quantities of Medication My name is Tian Meiyun and I live in Taipei. In late November 1997, I received a phone call from a friend who told me
about Falun Dafa. When I read the book Zhuan Falun the words, "A
person should return to his original, true self--that's actually the true
purpose of being human," moved me. Falun Dafa is different from anything I
had studied before. When I realized that the purpose of being human is to return
to one's original, true self, my mind cleared up and I cried with joy for having
found the truth. I immediately registered for a nine-day Falun Gong class held
in Huangpu-xincun. I had been sickly since childhood. My husband said to me, "You are
taking medication 300 days out of the year." I suffered from migraines, a
syndrome where I kept seeing flying objects, arrhythmia, nervous imbalance,
twisting of the vertebrae, chronicle pelvic infection, a uterine tumor,
hydrocele and kidney disease. Neither Eastern nor Western medicine could help
me, and I lost confidence in both. I also practiced many types of qigong but my
condition didn't improve. I felt hopeless and helpless, and that life was
meaningless. In the first month after I started practicing Falun Gong, I read
only a few pages of Zhuan Falun every day because my eyes were still
sore. However, my body started to change. I had previously suffered from
frequent migraines. Now my head had a worse reaction and I even vomited. But,
after vomiting, my head no longer hurt! I also experienced great changes in my
urinary system. I knew Master was purifying my body for me and I should persist
in studying Falun Gong, no matter how uncomfortable I felt. I read the Falun
Gong books attentively and did the exercises. On the fifth day I felt as if I
was reborn. When I opened my eyes in the morning, I felt that the world was
beautiful and my body was very light. I straightened my back and was very happy.
I also discarded several drawers full of medication because I no longer needed
them. My relationship with my husband changed from being antagonistic to one that
was harmonious and caring. Three years ago my husband had taken on a project,
and unexpectedly we went bankrupt overnight. I felt as if my world suddenly came
apart. I was angry and bitter that my husband took on a project in a field in
which he was not an expert. We stopped talking to each other and lived like
strangers. After studying Falun Gong, I tried to walk a mile in my husband's
shoes and realized that he was trying his best to provide for his family. If I didn't have this experience, I may not have truly understood the joy and
changes after studying Falun Gong. It enabled me to face sharp criticism in a
tolerant manner and to face difficult situations with broad-mindedness and
forgiveness. I discovered that I was often stubbornly blaming other people in
the past. I used to be aggressive and overbearing, but because of Falun Gong
practice, I changed my attitude and have become warm and considerate. As a
result, I am now a better wife and mother. My anger and bitterness also
disappeared.
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then confiscated her passport. She returned the next day to get her passport,
when the police arrested her and illegally jailed her for 15 days. Afterward, a
stranger and Long Lin, an agent from the Weihai City National Security Bureau,
came to her home and threatened her. They said that only under one condition
would they let her return to Japan: "You must work for the Chinese
Intelligence Agency as a spy."
A petition calling for the Federal Government to protect the safety and basic
rights of Australian Falun Dafa practitioners has been signed by 2000 residents.
The petition calls for the Federal Government to realize that there is
increasing violence against Australian citizens and to understand that these
attacks are acts of terrorism.
Ms Wang said the petition was a way of bringing David Liang's plight to the
Macarthur region.
The petition will be sent to Federal Opposition Leader and Werriwa MP Mark
Latham and to Macarthur MP Pat Farmer.
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