Choice (Part 2)

By practitioner Liu Jun from Jilin City

(Clearwisdom.net)

Preface: In the long, long river of life, it is Teacher who has chosen me and who gives me all that I have. When Dafa and Teacher are defamed, slandered and viciously attacked, I choose a right path to validate Dafa, defend Dafa and assist Teacher in Fa-rectification. Therefore, I named this article "Choice."

During these past four years, we have experienced the most cruel and most vicious torture and persecution of mind and body in the human world. There is no way to imagine how murderous, brutal, and contemptible the means are. The persecution has caused tremendous hurt and pain to me, to a large number of Dafa practitioners, and to their families as well. No matter what kind of threats and persecution I have been faced with, they did not agitate my righteous belief in Dafa and Teacher. Whenever I passed the test, passed the tribulation, suffered the brutal persecution, or endured great pains, what Teacher said at the end of the Fa-Lecture in Chicago, U.S.A., in June 1999 resonated in my ear: "Just by staying unaffected, you will be able to handle all situations"

It is Dafa that gives me confidence, courage and wisdom. This is how I am able to come unhesitatingly through so many huge tribulations. It is the Fa, not some personal effort to create the appearance of being steadfast, which creates all of this. I only did what I should do as a Fa-rectification particle in validating and defending Dafa. As Dafa practitioners, we should only follow Teacher's instruction absolutely and do what we should do, which would just be the most righteous.

I decided to write down the huge mental and physical changes I've experienced after being lucky enough to obtain Falun Dafa and do cultivation, and to also write about the pure and virtuous manifestation of Dafa practitioners' noble sentiment and selflessness. At the same time, I want to expose the fact that Jiang Zemin utilizes the national public security department, the legal system, forced labor camps, detention centers, jails, brainwashing classes, local governments, vicious persons, and police to employ despicable means and conduct inhuman, extremely wicked persecution both of body and spirit of Falun Gong practitioners who stick to the belief of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance, who do not hit back when beaten and do not talk back when slandered. I am only one of millions of victims. I wrote down the facts of the persecution I personally suffered to let those people in the world, blinded by lies, know the truth and give them a chance to support justice after they learn the facts. I have written down all of my experiences over the past four years to help fellow practitioners, so we can upgrade together. I covered not only what I witnessed when I was illegally detained in prison, but also my experiences from when I clarified the truth to the world's people and exposed evil lies in social circles. I have written down all that I have witnessed during this special historical period to validate Dafa and save the world's people.

I experienced much interference during the entire writing process, from starting to prepare materials to finishing the article. Sometimes it seemed I did not even have the strength to raise a pen and I had to exert great efforts to write out each word. Sometimes I felt extreme pains in my body. Sometimes the pen I used had too much ink. Other times it did not have any ink at all. At times my eyes could not see anything and were blurred. The exterior interference was also very big. I always had work I could not finish piled up around me. However, I felt that all the interference in the world would not be enough to block my resolution to continue writing. Finally, I finished writing down my personal experience from the past several years. My wish is that the practitioners who see it can understand and point out anything inappropriate.

People in the future will remember forever Dafa practitioners' earthshaking and grand feats of assisting Teacher in the Fa-rectification.

December 8, 2003

3. Validating and Spreading the Fa in Prison

At the time I was sent to the forced labor camp of Jinlin City, I learned that my wife was sent to Changchun City Female Forced Labor Camp as well. My son was left alone without his parents for the first time. My father was at home; however, facing the burden, he suffered a stroke and lost the ability to speak. My son took care of his sick grandpa as well as all the heavy farm work. They also had to face all kinds of threats and harassment from the public. How could they handle them? My worries about them brought me unimaginable suffering.

The forced labor camp put me into the No. 1 Team, No. 1 Squadron of No. 3 Division. There were about 20 prisoners in the team. They thought I was a convicted criminal like them and treated me with all kinds of deceit such as blackmail and insults. I explained that I was being detained for my belief not because I committed any crime, and I kindly shared with them my story about my family's struggles and my cultivation to be a good person according to the principle of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." Some showed sympathy; some were sarcastic; and some were indignant. My living situation improved after I explained the facts of Falun Dafa. I continued to take every opportunity to tell them about Dafa. At the same time, I held my behavior to a high standard, as a Dafa practitioner should, and took care of those who were homeless and had difficulties.

After a period of time, the atmosphere of the forced labor camp team apparently changed. The incidences of cursing and stealing became less and less, which even made the environment of the squadron improve. The team leaders and discipline police asked me how I was able to inspire such good behavior from those prisoners who the police considered to be the dregs of society, and who couldn't be changed even after being tortured with electric batons or beatings. I told them it was Falun Dafa that changed them and "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" woke up their kind nature. I explained that a person is not born bad. The notions in the post-natal life and the society influenced these criminal inmates which caused them to make mistakes. Kindness was a more powerful force than trying to change them by physical force. Physical force could only change the surface things, but goodness was able to make fundamental changes in their nature. The effect and consequence of physical force were negative. Those who were beaten might seek revenge later if they had an opportunity. Didn't using physical force form a bad cycle?

The team leaders and police found my thoughts to be quite different and often came to talk to me. I took all opportunities to tell them how Dafa had changed my family physically and mentally. Before long, the labor camp authorities changed some of their stubborn thoughts and knew Dafa was good. Therefore they did not, as before, put their effort into stopping practitioners from practicing exercises and would not interfere with practitioners practicing meditation at night. They also did not allow the criminal inmates to bully the Falun Dafa practitioners.

On September 27, 2000, an order came that the labor camp must make stronger efforts to brainwash practitioners, a squadron was formed to hold all the practitioners in the labor camp. The practitioners were forced to sit on a small low bench for 16 hours a day, to run for two hours and to carry stones behind their backs. The food provided was not sufficient, with only two corn buns per meal and a thin, watery, soup without any vegetables. In this way, the special brainwashing team was formed. Every day, once the authorities learned of any practitioner who could not run any more, could not carry stones any more, or couldn't stand up due to hunger, several of the labor camp personnel would descend upon him and start to brainwash him. Their ways were despicable and indecent. Long-time sitting on the bench made many practitioners unwell and many of them had scabies and pimples caused by the humid conditions, which were extremely itchy.

The police officer in charge of me was Wang from the education section. He had heart, bronchial and other diseases. Every day he would come to talk to me. I would start by focusing on his diseases and tell him the benefits my family had experienced through practicing Dafa. Wang sighed in despair. He said the authorities did not allow practicing it and his employer would not allow it either. If he practiced, his family would not have any income and his child would not have money for school. He had suffered these diseases so many years and just had to continue to suffer, he said. I told him the persecution of good people was a shame and was destined to be punished. The victims were not just Falun Gong practitioners but also all the people in China, including him. I said without the persecution, you would practice Dafa and have good heath to work and to live. How wonderful you would feel without any diseases!

Every time he talked to me, I would make use of the opportunity to expose the evil and introduce him to Falun Dafa. Once he told me that he was supposed to force me to renounce my belief, but instead, he was almost changed by me and he couldn't talk to me any more, otherwise he would be put in forced labor like me. Since then, he never came back. I understood his internal conflict, which was the evil consequence of this persecution.

Nearly two months of forced brainwashing did not achieve the authorities goal to break the will of Falun Dafa practitioners. On the contrary, the practitioners broke through the evil persecution and improved as a whole. Several practitioners who fell behind renewed their practice of Falun Dafa with the help of their fellow practitioners. The attempt to brainwash us as a group failed completely. We were sent back to our original teams again. Because I wrote down in my summary that Falun Dafa is good and I would persist practicing till the end, my forced-labor term was extended three more months. There were more than 10 practitioners whose terms were extended. The longest extension of the term was six months.

During the Chinese New Year of 2001, the forced labor camp suddenly became very tense. The number of police on duty was doubled. The practitioners were watched more intensely, even in the restroom. I sensed something must have happened. Just after the Chinese New Year, the camp officials required practitioners to gather and watch a propaganda video of the staged "Self-immolation" at Tiananmen Square. At that time, I already knew the incident was staged, the evidence was full of holes, and it was intended to frame Dafa and incite hatred against Falun Dafa. I shared my thoughts with fellow practitioners and we all had the same thoughts that it was to frame Dafa and to deceive the world. The next day we were asked to give comments during the discussion, and I told them my suspicions regarding the event.

I had been to Beijing before. I knew it would take about 10 minutes to get the fire extinguishers and anti-fire blankets from any buildings around the square, which was long enough for a person to burn to death. Who had seen the police carrying the fire extinguishers at their backs? Who shot the entire event? It was said in the video that Tiananmen Square was under a strict curfew. How could seven people from Henan Province without identification pass through the checkpoints and disperse themselves around the square? How was Wang Jindong not able to double-cross his legs after six years of practicing? What Wang Jingdong was purported to have said during the incident was totally unrelated to what other practitioners typically say when they appeal in Beijing. Dafa. How could Liu Siying [little girl who was alleged to have self immolated] sing and speak clearly after having a tracheotomy as a result of her burns? Falun Dafa is of the Buddha school. The founder of the practice, Mr. Li Hongzhi, clearly wrote in the Dafa book that killing or committing suicide is not allowed, and committing suicide is a sin. Genuine practitioners would never give up their lives casually. There were so many practitioners going to Beijing to appeal before and nothing like this had happened. I also told them that Falun Dafa practitioners live their lives based on "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" and everything we did would benefit people and the country. The video was intended to frame Dafa and make people, including the police, hate Dafa. Those police were shocked after hearing my analysis of the event and the discussion meeting was immediately closed. No one mentioned the self-immolation again. For a long time afterward, no official in the labor camp would use the event to attack Dafa. After the lie was exposed, many police changed their attitudes toward practitioners and became closer to them.

On March 7, 2001, higher authorities required the labor camp to again establish a special division to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. They specifically recruited the most vicious police and team leaders from the other divisions to violently beat practitioners day and night non-stop from March 12 to 14. It was really terrifying at that time. The electric batons in the hands of the police gave out the sizzling sounds without end; horrifying cries from the practitioners being tortured could be heard frequently; and the smell of the skin burned by the electric batons was in the air. Those police completely lost their minds and human nature. Usually, several of them would madly rush into a cell together, randomly grab a practitioner and start to violently beat or shock him or her.

In the three-day period, dozens of practitioners were seriously injured and some were rushed to the emergency room of the hospital. A 45-year-old practitioner Hou Zhanhai from Jilin City of Jilin province lost his precious life several months later due to the damage to his ribs and lungs by the beating.

Several days later, a squadron leader, Han Jing, with the nickname "demon" wanted to talk with me. So I told him about my family and myself, about the changes we experienced in our bodies and minds after practicing Falun Dafa. He seemed to be very interested in it. I also talked about my personal view on the beatings that had happened a few days ago and advised him to treat Dafa disciples well in the future. I told him that we were detained illegally, had broken no laws, and only wanted to be good people by following the principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," so it was wrong to send us to the forced labor camps, and the unjust verdicts would sooner or later be reversed. "Suppose it were your family members who were mistreated unjustly, wouldn't you feel sad?" I asked him. "Wouldn't you feel sorry to hit those nice people who never fought back? Only a few decades have passed since the Culture Revolution and those people who had been used as a political weapon to beat others during that period have all met with bad consequences." I then told him some real retribution stories I have seen with my own eyes. Our talk lasted the whole morning and I noticed tears of remorse in his eyes from the re-discovery of his conscience. He told me that he could not try to force me to renounce my belief and didn't want to either. He said that this was the first time in his life he had been moved by someone. He told me that his past attitude toward the world was to "hit others" first because otherwise someone else would bully him, and now after the talk with me, he wanted to think it over how to become a real person.

On March 27, 2001, the detention center transferred out 45 Dafa practitioners to the Tonghua, Liaoyuan and Jiutai labor camps. I was taken to Liaoyuan City Detention Center. At the beginning, 15 of us were sent to the concentrated re-education team. The police there already knew that they could not handle determined Dafa practitioners transferred from Jilin City Labor Camp. So they threatened us with several prepared torture instruments and said that they would put us on the "big hang up" [a torture form with both hands cuffed behind the back and only toes touching the ground, one is hung by a rope that is tied to the metal window frames] all day long until we agreed to renounce our belief to stop the torture against us.

We were not afraid at all. Instead, we warned them gravely that it was illegal to beat people. The firm belief of a practitioner could not be changed by any violent means. Our righteous thoughts shocked the police at Liaoyuan Labor Camp and greatly encouraged the local practitioners as well. We actively shared our understandings with the other practitioners. We told them that we should never betray our belief and conscience because of any remaining attachments of fear or anything else. It was totally wrong to write any dissociation statements. Some of them knew it was wrong but had just followed the others. They felt very sad and thought that they were no longer qualified to continue practicing Dafa and to be Master Li's disciples. They didn't know what to do and couldn't put their remorse and regret aside either. After the sharing with us, they saw where they had fallen behind and caught up immediately.

Since then, solemn statements to completely nullify the previous dissociation promise were turned in one after another. The whole labor camp was greatly shocked and all the police felt such panic that they violently beat and extended the terms of those practitioners who wrote the solemn statements and put them in small cells to be persecuted. [The detainee is individually locked up in a very small cell. The guards handcuff practitioners behind their backs in a fixed position, in which the practitioners can neither move nor lie down. The small cell is very damp and no daylight enters. Detainees have to urinate and defecate in the cell. Only half of a regular meal is served to detainees locked up in a small cell during the daytime. The stench in the small cell is so bad that it is difficult to breathe.] Some practitioners' backs were covered with bruises from the beating without a single good spot left; some practitioners' faces were full of blisters from the electric shock torture. Nevertheless, everyone was very determined and did very well. Fifteen of us from Jilin City wrote a report revealing the beatings and small cell persecution incidents, exposing the violent crimes and the human rights violations perpetrated upon us by the police. As a result, the labor camp decided to move the practitioners out of the small cells at once and ordered a halt to beating practitioners. The righteous thoughts and righteous acts of the practitioners this time had greatly frightened the evils and the police under their control, and greatly encouraged those practitioners who made mistakes before, making them more steadfast toward Dafa.

At the end of April 2001, six of us Jilin practitioners were taken by force to the Changtu City, Liaoning Province to dig a ditch for the underground cable. I was sent to No. 1 team of No. 1 Division and stayed at a temporarily rented place with two floors. The room was very small, dark and damp, and the disgusting odor made one want to vomit. It was very crowded and with no bed, so we had to sleep on the cement floor. We got up and had breakfast at 4:30 a.m., went to work at 5 a.m. and finished at 8 p.m. Each day, everyone had an assignment of digging a trench several dozen of meters long, 70 centimeters wide and 1.3 meters deep, which was over the physical limit of everybody. Anyone who didn't finish was punished. We had our lunch outdoors. In the early spring of west Liaoning Province, there were frequent sand storms. Once the meal was set out, it would be instantly covered with a layer of yellow dust, making the chewing extremely difficult. However, the biggest issue was drinking. All of the workers were only given 10 kilograms of water each day. For such heavy physical labor, it was only enough for half a day. Sometimes one of us would faint from thirst.

At that time, I had many blisters all over my body, some as big as a fist, and most were on the lower part of the body. During the day when I was digging the ditch, the sand stones on the two banks had rubbed the skin off my legs and buttocks; pus, blood and sweat were mixed with the raw flesh, creating a piercing pain; in the evening when I tried to take off my clothes, because the festering spots stuck to the clothes and dried out for a period of time, I would shiver from the pain with a cold sweat all over my body when peeling my clothes off my wounds. The pain was so strong that even today when I am writing the memory of it still makes me feel quite uncomfortable. My underwear was hardened from being soaked in sweat. Because there was no water for us to wash, we had no choice but to put them on again after rubbing them with our hands to soften them.

On the third day of hard labor, in addition to the blisters on my body, which were very painful, my left hand had become swollen so badly that I couldn't hold a shovel. I felt I couldn't do the labor. I asked the team leader for a day off. He told me, however, that I had only two choices. One was to write a "Dissociation Statement,"[to renounce my belief] after which I could be sent back to the labor camp or even be bailed out and return home because of my illness. The other was to die, after which they would just claim that I died from an accident. He said it was normal to see people die in the labor camp, and it was nothing unusual at all, because it was a prison, not a spa resort. I told him, "It is unfair for you to treat me like this. It is against human rights." He sneered and replied, "Don't talk about human rights with me here. It doesn't work here whatsoever. Go sue us. You guys from Jilin are so good at writing, go ahead and sue us, let's see who wins in the end." And he forced me to continue digging the tunnel. That day, my shovel broke so I couldn't dig. The authorities ordered a prisoner monitor to beat me up. His last name was Zhang, and he was very vicious. He beat me with bamboo clappers and a shovel, and left wounds and bruises on my face, head and everywhere on my body. My eyes had hyperemia as a result, and the eyesight of one eye has been weakened, even until today, because of the injury to the cornea. The wounds and pain, plus the blisters all over my body, caused me to have a high fever at night, and my whole body was nearly broken down. I couldn't eat food. The prisoner monitor came to check on whether I wanted to write the "Dissociation Statement." I told him, "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance are in the cells of my body; it is not possible for me to disassociate. I will not write any dissociation statement even if you kill me."

The team head roared in anger, and swore that he would start beating me every day from then on, until I either wrote the Dissociation Statement or died. On the day of passing the Xinkai River, the team head found an excuse to beat me by saying that the way I did my job was wrong. He brandished the shovel and chopped on my legs, waist and shoulder. My pants were chopped into my flesh where I had blisters. I fell and lost consciousness from the pain. My fellow practitioners sobbed and stopped him, telling him he would kill me if he continued. When I regained consciousness, my left leg had gone numb, and was bleeding so badly that the blood penetrated two layers of pants. A big cut on my shoulder was also bleeding very badly. And I had several egg-sized blood blisters on my head. I felt nausea and lost consciousness from time to time.

I felt I couldn't hold on any more and was going to die. I didn't have fear, I had only one thought in my mind: I cannot stain Dafa. Suddenly, I felt the Falun in my abdominal area rotating. It had been a few years since I had the same experience last time. This warmed my heart so much. At the same time, I felt a stream of warmth flowing from the top of my head to my feet, I felt extremely comfortable. I didn't stay lying down. Instead I stood up with the support of the shovel. It was that same afternoon that the team head started to get a fever, and his whole body ached so much that he had to roll over constantly to reduce the pain. His pain wouldn't stop even though he had several bottles of intravenous drip infused in him. Wasn't this his karmic retribution? I told him compassionately the principles about good being rewarded with good and evil with evil. He regretted treating me like that, and did not treat me as harshly any more from then on.

I understood it was Teacher's protection, and Teacher was right next to me, otherwise I would have been in danger of dying quite a few times. I repeated again and again in my heart, "Thank you, Teacher."

I was sent back to the labor camp on June 3. I had lost a lot of weight, and became very skinny. My face was dark and thin. My fellow practitioners who did not go out to do labor saw me and had tears in their eyes. The pain in my left leg stopped half of my body from functioning well, and I couldn't get out and do the labor. It was until then that I realized that I should not coordinate with them. I did not come here to do labor.

I recollected my experience of being maltreated during the period of laboring, organized them and reported it to the head of the labor camp. When the head of the labor camp talked to me about it, I told him that I was not violating the law to appeal in Beijing. It was against the constitution to sentence me to two years of forced labor, and I was wrongfully treated. All the brainwashing methods used in the labor camp were violating the law while claiming to enforce the law, and, moreover, they were violating human rights. I also told him about the benefits of both mind and body for my family after we started practicing Falun Gong, and some examples of the persecution that had happened to us. He told me, "We will start processing now and will release you in a few days."

During that time, Liu, the director of the Provincial Department of Jurisdiction Administration came to the labor camp for inspection. At the glove factory, as soon as he entered the room, he asked me, "You practice Falun Gong?" I said yes. He asked, "Are you going to continue practicing after you're released?" I told him, "I will continue practicing wherever I go. Dafa is so wonderful. It teaches people Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance, so why stop people from practicing it? It is good for the country and for the people, so why prohibit it? It is unfair to detain Falun Dafa practitioners, and it is against the constitution. We all are good people." He left without saying anything.

On November 9, 2001, the head of the division told me that the release letter had been issued for me, which would allow me to go home. But I needed to call home and had my family get a letter from the city's "610 Office." I called home. My son spent the following three days trying to get the letter but he couldn't get it. Because the city pushed it away to the district, the district to the town, and the town pushed it back. No matter what, no one issued the letter. My son was so anxious that he suffered from a large blister that formed in his mouth and he could not eat. On November 12, 2001, I asked to talk with the head of the division, telling him that if they still did not release me, I would conduct a hunger strike. They were afraid of my conducting a hunger strike and had a letter issued at the local "610 Office" right away. At 10 o'clock in the morning of November 13, 2001, after 670 day and nights' suffering in the hell-like environment, and almost dying a few times under inhuman and brutal persecution, bearing the strong faith to Dafa and Teacher, I walked out of the gate of the labor camp openly and nobly. I met my son who had been waiting for me, breathed the fresh air outside of the labor camp, and took the road home.

Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/3/2/45650.html
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/2/9/66934.html

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