Ms. Li Qiuxia Persecuted in the Psychiatric Ward and Rescued With the Efforts of Practitioners in and out of China

By Li Qiuxia, a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) On June 4, 2000, I was abducted from a People's Liberation Army farm and taken to the Third Section of the Psychiatric Ward of No. 261 Army Hospital. Three iron gates separated the Third Section from the other wards, and iron bars covered all the windows. More than 30 patients were confined to a room of about 50 to 60 square meters (about 600 square feet). They only allowed a little over an hour for everyone to go out of the room to relieve themselves.

When I arrived at the ward, a nurse charged towards me, grabbed my clothes and pulled them down in an attempt to make me change into the hospital uniform. I told her that I was not a patient. People should have a sense of propriety and if they want to change clothes, they should do it in privacy. A female doctor surnamed Yang asked me, "What's wrong with you?" I answered, "Nothing's wrong." She replied, "If there's nothing wrong, why are you here?" I told her that the reason was simple: I was being persecuted because I practiced Falun Dafa. I then told her about my experiences of cultivation. She said, "All the mental patients say they aren't ill. Practicing Falun Gong is a stubborn bias, which is a mental illness. We will have to treat you for three months."

While in the mental ward I was forced to take large doses (13 pills) of tranquilizers and drugs for depression every day. I told the nurses, "I am not a patient so I will not take any pills." The nurses said, "You have to take them." I threw the pills on the floor and crushed them with my foot. They pushed me to the floor and tried to force me to lick up the crushed pills, but I refused to cooperate with them. Then the nurses tied me to a pole, crushed the pills into a fine powder and used a syringe to force it into me . After taking these drugs, all the patients felt dizzy and unaware of anything. Some leaned on a table, some sat motionless on the chairs and others just lay down on the floor. For myself, I did not feel sleepy at all. I still silently recited the Fa, clarified the truth to the patients and shared my experiences of getting fit both physically and mentally after practicing Falun Gong. One day when I went to use the restroom, I noticed some pinkish and whitish substances in my excrement, and I realized they were the pills I was forced to take. Instantly I felt a warm glow in my heart and I silently said to myself, "Thank you, Teacher, for looking after me."

I practiced the Falun Dafa exercises at a regular time every evening. The nurse moved my bed to face the corridor so she could see me when I got up to do them. I took no notice of it and only thought that a practitioner should do the exercises. The nurse came to stop me from doing the exercises and pushed me down on the bed. I would just get up and continue to do the exercises. As punishment, the nurses applied electric shock to my head. They inserted two thin needles in my temples and connected them to an instrument that generated the electric shock. Each time, just before they shocked me, I would tell them sincerely, "What you are doing is persecuting a Falun Gong practitioner, and that is wrong." They would reply, "If you don't practice the exercises, then we will not shock you. Do you still want to practice?" I said, "When a person learns the truth about the real meaning of life, nothing can change his or her belief. Falun Dafa has purified my body and soul and I will not give it up!" They could not understand my firm belief in Dafa. I told them that Teacher taught practitioners to tell the truth and to always think of others first. Every time the nurses shocked me, they would tie me to a chair. I would silently recite Teacher's name. Although I felt uncomfortable and my head and body shook, my mind was totally calm and I was able to bear it. When they found that the electric shock failed to stop me from doing the exercises and believing in Dafa, they stopped torturing me. They secretly told me that they would just say they did not see me practice the exercises when they handed the duty over to the morning shift. I thanked them from the bottom of my heart for their understanding.

Before I went to the psychiatric ward, the nurses would designate patients to take turns cleaning the ward. After I arrived there, every morning at 5 a.m. I cleaned the corridor, the activity room, the toilet and the ward I stayed in. I also washed the dishes and emptied the garbage bins. Besides all that, I would help the nurses tidy up the wards, chat with the patients and use the teachings of Falun Dafa to guide the patients to look at their illnesses and deal with their tribulations and misfortunes with a correct attitude. I told them practitioners' cultivation stories and encouraged them to cooperate with their treatments to recover quickly. The patients all said, "Falun Dafa is very good." If they had known me earlier, they would have practiced Falun Gong. The nurses all called me the "nurse not on the payroll." I knew it was Dafa that gave me the wisdom and the abilities to do what I did.

On August 6, the head nurse said to me, "Go and get your things ready. You will be discharged." I asked her quietly, "Didn't the doctor say I would need three months of treatment?" She said, "Don't you know? Recently there have been a lot of phone calls from the United States, Canada, and Australia as well as different parts of China. The Political Department said they could not handle it any more and they were also told that people are coming to investigate." "What did they say on the phone?" I asked. The nurse recounted, "'Is there a Li Qiuxia there? Falun Dafa practitioners are not mentally ill. Why do you treat her as a mental patient? We have established an international psychiatric organization to investigate psychiatric abuse against Falun Gong practitioners in China and we will go to your hospital to investigate. You should discharge her from the hospital as soon as possible; otherwise you will bear all the responsibilities.' If we do not let you go home we'll be in trouble. That's why you must leave right away." I was sent back to my work unit and then I went back home.

After two months in the hospital ward, I enlightened to the fact that, no matter what circumstances a practitioner encounters, he or she must always maintain righteous thoughts and righteous actions to overcome their tribulations, and that practitioners are one body. Without the support from practitioners both at home and abroad, my tribulation would not have ended ahead of schedule.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/10/30/87980.html

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