Weathering the Storm, Chapter 4 of Part Three
A Novel by Zhong Fangqiong
Part III. Detained Eleven Times Coming Through the Ordeals of Repeated Detention and Torture Chapter 4: The Chinese Regime Uses Huge Lies to Deceive the People Sichuan Television Broadcasts Lies in its News Programs I was locked up inside a small room in Chengdu City's Liaison Office to
Beijing for a week and transported back to Chengdu under guard by riot police.
Once I arrived in Chengdu, I was sent to the Qingyang District Drug
Rehabilitation Center in Chengdu City and forced to attend brainwashing classes
for two days. All Falun Gong practitioners in Chengdu City who were arrested for
making appeals for Falun Gong were forced to take the two-day brainwashing
class. After that, I was sent to a local detention center. The original term of my
sentence was supposed to be 15 days. As soon as I arrived at the detention
center, like all other prisoners, I was forced to remove my clothes and was
strip-searched. When it came to Falun Gong practitioners, the guards
concentrated their efforts on confiscating our money as well as books and
articles written by the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi. Each practitioner
was forced to pay 15 yuan per day as living expenses. After paying the money,
each of us had to fish out a worn-out, dirty food bowl from a big water-filled
container that was left outside. Then each of us was given a pair of
crudely-made chopsticks and two pieces of tissue paper. That was all the
supplies we got for 15 days. After lunch, I started to practice the Falun Gong exercises. Before I even
finished one set of the exercises, an inmate told me, "You have an aneurism
of the cranial artery in one of your legs." "How do you know that?" I was very surprised. She answered, "As soon as you came in, I thought you looked familiar.
Your voice sounded very familiar too. I just couldn't remember where I had seen
you before. Once you started practicing the Falun Gong exercises, I remembered
that I had seen you on TV before. Last winter, I went back to my hometown to
help my family harvest wheat. After dinner, my family sat down to watch TV. The
local evening news program had a piece of news on you. You were inside a room
with several other people. You said you were a Falun Gong practitioner. You gave
your name and where you were originally from. You then rolled your pants up to
show something on your leg. After that, we couldn't hear what you said. Your
voice was cut off and we only saw the video camera rolling. The TV reporter
explained that after you began to practice Falun Gong, you developed an aneurism
of the cranial artery. The reporter also said that Falun Gong forbade you from
seeking medical treatment and you became paralyzed because of it. How come you
are here and not paralyzed?" I told her, "I have never been paralyzed. I was detained in various
detention centers for several months since last winter. After I was released, I
went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. That's why I was arrested again. The
TV footage you saw was taken on October 1, 1999 in the office of Business
Morning newspaper. That day, Business Morning published an article
that slandered Falun Gong and called it a cult. Several local practitioners and
I went to the office of the newspaper to tell the reporters there how all of us
had benefited mentally and physically from practicing Falun Gong. A reporter
took some notes, and there was also a video camera. I told them how I had
suffered from an aneurism of the cranial artery in my right leg since childhood
and how the condition got worse and worse through the years despite my repeated
visits to various hospitals. A surgeon misdiagnosed my condition and removed a
blood vessel from my leg by mistake. It caused damages in my cerebellar nerve
and I developed a serious cerebrovascular disease. When the disease flared up, I
couldn't walk steadily and even temporarily lost my eyesight. Two months after I
first began to practice Falun Gong, the aneurism of the cranial artery in my
right leg and the cerebrovascular disease that I was suffering from completely
disappeared. I used to have dark brown patches on my face. I spent tens of
thousands of yuan in cosmetic treatments trying to remove the brown patches but
nothing worked. The patches completely disappeared one week after I first
started to practice Falun Gong." The inmate was shocked and asked me, "So you are saying that Falun Gong
is actually good? How come when the program was shown on TV, the anchor said
that Falun Gong was bad? It is shocking that the media could lie like that. It's
hard to know how many people were deceived by the news about you. If I hadn't
seen you with my eyes, I would still believe what the news said was true. The
news about you was shown on TV more than once. I watched it one night. The next
night, I was washing my feet, and my son told me to hurry up and watch the news
as the Falun Gong lady was back on TV again." I asked her, "Which channel was the piece about me aired on?" She
answered, "In our countryside, we could only get a signal to watch one TV
channel. That is the Sichuan TV Station." I asked her, "If someone
performs an investigation on this in the future, will you dare to stand by your
story?" She said, "I certainly will. My name is Jiang Xianbi, and I
live in Fangsheng Town, Lezhi County, Sichuan Province. I own a bike store in
town. I am detained here because I bought a stolen bike." There were over 20 people in my cell, and all of them were shocked by what
they had heard. They were dismayed that the media dared to openly tell lies and
intentionally deceive the audience in order to slander Falun Gong. After they
learned the truth about Falun Gong, more than half of the people in my cell
started to learn the Falun Gong exercises with me right away. Some other people
in my cell told me that after they were released from the detention center and
allowed to go home, they would start to learn Falun Gong too. They also said
that they would tell their family members and friends that the things shown on
TV about Falun Gong were fake. The guards soon learned that many people in my cell had started to practice
Falun Gong. The guards took out the inmates individually and threatened them one
by one, "If you continue to practice Falun Gong, your jail term will be
extended, and you shouldn't even think of leaving this place." Despite that
threat, a few inmates still persisted in practicing Falun Gong. They were forced
to stand for a long time as punishment. At noon we went to the small store inside the detention center to buy some
personal items. Several Falun Gong practitioners, including me, chatted with Liu
Can. Because of that, the guards forced us to stand under the hot scorching sun.
It was very hot that day. We were forced to stand on a cement road, and could
feel the temperature of the ground beneath us rising. I had just bought a bar of
soap from the store, and it began to melt. Despite her old age, Liu Can was also
forced to stand with us under the sun. Repeated Detentions over a Long Period of Time One day after dinner, the head of the detention center asked all the Falun
Gong practitioners to gather in a room. He told us, "I don't want you to
come back here again. This is not the place for you. In the summer, the
temperature inside will be at least 50 degrees Celsius. The ventilation here is
very poor and the fans don't work at all. With so many of you being elderly, how
can you bear it?" We answered, "Chief, we don't want to come here
either. You know we aren't allowed to go home. After we finish serving one term
of detention, the police simply make us start another term of detention
immediately." The detention center soon implemented a policy - once an inmate was
released from the detention center, he or she couldn't be sent back to the
detention center on the same day. The police quickly figured out their way around the policy. When a Falun Gong
practitioner finished serving one term of detention, the police simply took her
out of the detention center, locked her up in the local police station for a
night, and then sent her back to the detention center the next morning. The
detention room in the local police station was very small and narrow. It was a
dark room without windows. The room had nothing but a chamber pot filled with
feces and urine. Weeks went by before the pot was emptied. It was around April
and May. The room had a terrible smell, and there were many bedbugs and
mosquitoes. I was covered with insect bites and couldn't go to sleep at night.
One night I was extremely tired and finally managed to fall asleep. When I woke
up and opened my eyes, I saw a toad squatting beside me and staring at me. I
tried to drive it out but I couldn't. One term at the detention center was supposed to be two weeks. When I
finished serving one term of detention, the police would bring me back to the
local police station before sending me back to the detention center the next
day. Since the day I spent at the local police station fell on a Sunday, my son
would come to see me at the police station every two weeks. But the
cruel-hearted policeman Wei Daping deliberately changed the term of my detention
from 2 weeks to 10 days. This way, my son would be in school on the day I was in
the local police station and could no longer come to see me. After serving five back-to-back terms at the detention center, I asked my
younger brother to sell my car cheaply since nobody was using it. In order to
force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their beliefs, the guards at the
detention center often cut off the water supply on purpose during the hot
summer. More than 20 people were held in a room that was slightly more than 10
square meters in area. Without any water supply, we couldn't wash away feces and
urine. The smell in the room was horrible. When we asked the head of our cell
block to give us water so we could clean up the mess, he cursed loudly: "If
you want to be comfortable, go to the 4-star Jingjiang Hotel. This is the way it
is here. Who asked you to come here?" Of course, when someone higher-up
came to inspect the facility, the water was always turned back on. Group Hunger Strike and Brutal Force Feeding The detention center notified the Chengdu police department about our hunger
strike. A division head named Feng Jiuwei and several other policemen brought a
gang of doctors and nurses from the Ankang Mental Hospital and tried to
force-feed practitioners with brutal violence. Each female practitioner was
taken outside of the cell by several strong men and then held down by 7 or 8 men
on a "bed" made of two long benches pushed together side by side. A
person would hold the practitioner's head down. Others would hold the
practitioner's legs and arms down. Another person would pinch the practitioner's
nose shut or press down on her neck while someone else opened the practitioner's
mouth by force. The practitioner would try to struggle. But after she was worn
out, the nurse would push a tube down her throat. The force-feeding session was very painful. I often threw up a large amount
of blood or vomit after each session. I couldn't stop tears from flowing down my
face because of the pain. At such moments, I often recited Master's poem
"Knowing Heart" to encourage myself. After we began our group hunger strike, we wrote a petition asking to be
released unconditionally. We were finally allowed to go home on May 24th. After I returned home, many friends came to visit me. Some said that they
were worried about me after they saw me on the TV. They tried to look for me
everywhere. They thought I was hospitalized and tried to find which hospital I
was in. When they saw me, they were happy that I was finally allowed to go home
but were also angry about the fabricated news about me. My Mother's Experience When I was at the detention center, the guards often came by in the middle of
the night asking me if I would continue to practice Falun Gong. I always replied
yes. As punishment, I was brought outside to stand for long periods of time
while freezing. I finally made it through half a month of detention. Wei Daping,
the policeman from the Wannianchang Police Station, took me from the detention
center. He lied to me and said, "Your daughter has been sentenced to 3
years at a labor camp for practicing Falun Gong. You will never see her again.
You can no longer live in her house." After lunch, he forced me to go to my
son's house. Once I got there, the police from the Gaodianzi Police Station who
oversaw the area where my son lived forced me to go back to my village in
Jianyang. Once I returned home, my husband was ordered to watch me. Even at
home, the police from the local police station still came to find out where I
was living and planned to continue to harass me. After the Chinese New Year of 2000, I secretly went to your home hoping your
son would start school son. Your house was so dirty that I spent three days just
cleaning up the place. I didn't dare to go outside because I was afraid the
police would find out that I had returned and force me to go home. If I went
home, who would be there to take care of your son? I couldn't go out to shop for
food. When your brother brought your son back home, he brought some vegetables.
After we finished the vegetables, we began to eat pickled vegetables. When we
finished all the picked vegetables, the only thing we had to eat was to make
some rice congee and add a little salt to it. After eating like this for a long
period of time, I am now used to it. I told myself, 'No matter how the Chinese
dictator Jiang Zemin and his gang persecute Falun Gong, I will continue to
practice it as long as there is a single breath left in me.'" I was very happy to see how strong my mother's faith in Falun Gong was. At
the same time, I was very disturbed by how far Jiang Zemin and his regime had
gone to persecute Falun Gong and its practitioners as well as fabricate lies to
deceive the public. First published in English at: http://www.pureinsight.org/pi/articles/2004/11/1/2583.html
A Senior Communist Cadet Imprisoned in the Detention Center
Several days after I was sent to the detention center, the police sent a 70
year-old lady named Liu Can to the detention center. She was the principal of
No. 69 Junior High School. She and her husband had been Communist Party members
for several decades and both fought in the Chinese Army during the Korean War.
Both of their children now live outside of China. Like me, Liu Can had been
imprisoned in various detention centers and the local police station for the
long time because she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. During her most
recent detention at the local police station, Liu Can learned that her husband
had fallen on the sidewalk when he went out to buy food and had seriously hurt
his leg. He could not take care of himself and had nothing to eat except cold
steamed buns every day. She wanted to go home to take care of him and refused to
go back to the detention center. Three policemen from the Jianshelu Police
Station stepped on her back and tied her hands behind her back. She was tossed
into the back seat of a police vehicle and forced to go to the detention center.
In the detention center, many Falun Gong practitioners had been repeatedly
arrested and forced to stay in the detention center for long periods of time.
Many of them were elderly people.
In order to protest our illegal arrests and continued illegal detention, we
started a group hunger strike in the second half of May. The head of the
detention center became scared and came to persuade us to give up the strike. We
told him, "No! We believe in 'Truthfulness Compassion Forbearance,' and
there is nothing wrong with that. We just want to go home." He said,
"You were sent here by various police stations. Our job is to watch you and
hand you back to them when they come to get you. We have no authority to release
you." We told him, "In that case, we are left with no choice but to
validate the Fa with our lives. Everyone knows that life is precious. But for
our freedom, our belief, we have no other choice except to hold the hunger
strike."
There was a female Falun Gong practitioner named Yan Dihui who was detained
along with me. She was in her 50s and worked in the Sichuan Province Textile
Factory. I saw her throw up large amounts of pus, blood and spit when the police
tried to force-feed her. She was in a tremendous amount of pain. Tears were
streaming down her face and she was gagging violently. But still she didn't
allow the police to force-feed her.
After all the visitors left, my mother told me what had happened to her after we
last saw each other.
"The day after you and your son went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on
December 3, 1999, I started to regret that I didn't go with you. I went to
Beijing by myself on December 6th to appeal for Falun Gong. I wanted to tell the
government about my personal experience after I began to practice Falun Gong.
But even before I got to the Appeals Office, I was arrested and detained at the
Chengdu City's Liaison Office to Beijing. I was locked inside a room with a
table and a few chairs. There was no bed. It was very cold so I put my two legs
on a chair to keep them warm. A security guard with the surname of Wang saw me
and thought that I was practicing Falun Gong exercises. He grabbed me and pushed
me outside. He told me to stand outside in the freezing cold as punishment. A
fellow practitioner named Wan Suhua told him, "She is too old and it is
very cold outside. Please let me stand outside in her place." After a
while, he pushed me inside. Two days later, I was brought back to Chengdu and
sent to a drug rehabilitation Center. The center used deafening loud speakers to
broadcast slanders against Falun Gong. Every morning after we got up, the guards
ordered us to run laps outside. Because I am too old, I couldn't keep up with
the others. So I was often ordered to stand outside for long periods of time as
punishment. I was also often not given any food to eat. The police then sent me
to the Jiuru Detention Center. I was still not given any food once I arrived
there. I will never be able to forget the first night at the detention center
when I couldn't sleep at all because I was too cold and hungry.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/7/19/79561.html
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