(Clearwisdom.Net) Ms. Zhai Fengci is 50 years old and an employee of Xinghuo Machine Tool Factory of Tianshui City, Gansu Province.

Ms. Zhai began practicing Falun Dafa in 1996. Before that, she had all kinds of health problems, mainly with her heart. After she began practicing Falun Gong, continuous studying and practicing the exercises helped her greatly. All the diseases she had were gone, even her nearsightedness of many years was cured. She was in her 40's but looked like she was in her 30's. She looked radiant and happy.

On July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin initiated the persecution against Falun Dafa practitioners. In order to uphold Dafa and clarify the truth, Ms. Zhai traveled to Beijing twice to appeal for Falun Gong in spite of the prospect of severe persecution.

Ms. Zhai traveled to Beijing in March 2000 with other practitioners and was arrested. She was detained in the underground hotel of Tianshui City's Office in Beijing. Later Tianshui City police officer Feng Jitang took her back to the city, where she was illegally detained for 31 days. At the end of December 2000, when Ms. Zhai raised a banner at Tiananmen Square, Beijing police beat her and detained her in Xuanxu District Detention Center. She was transferred to nine different locations to be detained. She was sent back to her city's detention center in the middle of February 2001. She was released after five days of protesting by fasting. On the same night that she was released, police detained her again at the "forced brainwashing class." She again fasted to protest. The officials from her work unit took her to the work place and detained her. In March 2001 she was sentenced to two years of forced labor camp. She was detained in the First Mid-Level Team of the Women's Team of the Second Labor Camp of Gansu Province.

She was detained with inmates who were drug addicts and subjected to brutal persecution. The Women's Team implemented a hierarchy of responsibility for the monitoring of Falun Gong practitioners. The head of the labor camp and the women's team leader are responsible for their own mid-level team leader; the mid-level team leaders are responsible for their own class leader, who are also known as the head inmates of the cells; the class leaders are responsible for those drug addicts who monitor Falun Gong practitioners. The monitoring goes on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Whether practitioners are sleeping, eating, using the restroom, working, walking, or anything else, inmates watched them from all sides. Even while they slept, someone was on duty to watch them till dawn. A policy was implemented as incentive for those prisoners who were responsible for monitoring Falun Gong practitioners: the prisoners can have their terms reduced if they do well; otherwise, their terms are extended. They could get three merits each day. The police instigated the criminals to torture the Falun Gong practitioners, sometimes joining in the torture. Sometimes the police pull down the curtains during the day and beat practitioners in the cell. They have also forced Falun Gong practitioners to stand exposed to the sun in extreme summer heat for several days without water or food.

Despite this harsh environment, Falun Dafa practitioners still firmly practice Falun Dafa and do whatever they can to validate Dafa. At 9:10 a.m. on September 9, 2001, close to 50 Falun Gong practitioners in the Women's Team started to practice the Falun Gong exercises in unison. Falun Dafa practitioner Zhang Furong started doing the second exercise, and everyone joined in.

Once at a meeting, the head of the Labor Camp Tian Li publicly slandered Falun Dafa and Teacher Li. Zhai Fengci and other Dafa practitioners stood up and shouted loudly, "Falun Dafa is great." Tian Li was flustered and commanded prisoners to beat them to the ground and handcuff all of them. A cruel torture called "squat on the back" was used to torture these practitioners. The practitioner is forced to kneel and squat down on the ground under a bunk-bed. The lower bed is only 60-70 centimeters from the ground. Ms. Zhai's arms were pulled behind her to opposite corners of the bed, with about 3 feet between her arms, and her hands were cuffed together on top of the bed. She could not straighten her back or lift her head, or even rest her feet fully on the floor. Her toes sustained her whole body's weight. She felt excruciating pain in her shoulders, as if they had been broken. If she moved any part of her body a little bit, the handcuffs cut into her wrists. For 7 days and 7 nights, she was engulfed by extreme pain. Both knees were injured during this torture (sometimes she had to go to her knees when the pain was too much), her shoes were torn from abrasions, her toes became deformed, and she was vomiting and near death.

The labor camp police not only torture and persecute Dafa practitioners physically; they also torture them psychologically with forced brainwashing. Every week they would hold a so-called "lesson". The materials, TV programs, and videos they showed and lectured on were all fabricated to slander Falun Dafa. They also sent prisoners specifically to lead Falun Gong practitioners to betray Dafa. Hanging, beating, sleep deprivation, heavy forced labor, etc. were all used to shake Dafa practitioners' righteous belief and righteous thoughts. Ms. Zhai was handcuffed this way until she was in shock.

Last week, labor camp police force-fed her medicine, but she was unable to keep anything in her stomach. She could not even get up. Mid-level team leader Fan Yirong still constantly tried to brainwash her deep into the early morning, but Ms. Zhai could no longer hear her. She vomited, and went in and out of shock.

Two years and two months of torture in the labor camp left both of Ms Zhai's knees severely injured and swollen, and both hands deformed as well. She is unable to look after herself any more. Meanwhile, her daughter Zhai Rongxuan was expelled from her college for going to Beijing to appeal with her. She is currently on her own and homeless. Ms. Zhai's older brother was brutally beaten and fined tens of thousands of Yuan (1) for appealing for Falun Gong; her older sister was illegally detained, and has been beaten and fined several thousand Yuan.

April 24, 2004