By A Falun Gong Practitioner in Shenyang City

I'm a Falun Gong practitioner from Shenyang City. On July 26, 2000, I went to Beijing for the second time to appeal to the government. I wanted to go to the appeals office to tell them about my own firsthand experiences and to show them how Falun Gong is a righteous practice.

On July 29 around 9:00 am, I went with three people to No. 1 Yongdingmen in Beijing. Parked on the side of the wide road were over a dozen police cars, and dozens of plainclothes police stood (they had been there for some time already) at the entrance to the adjoining alley waiting to arrest Falun Gong practitioners. When we entered the alley, two plainclothes police intercepted us from behind and began asking us things like where we were going, whether we practiced Falun Gong, and which province we were from. Because we normally have a habit of speaking the truth, we told them the truth. But exactly for that reason, before we had even seen the main entrance of the appeals office we were shoved into a police car and hauled away to the Liaoning Province reception station in Beijing. Inside there were several other Falun Gong practitioners who had just been arrested. Among them were two students from Liaoning Province College of Traditional Chinese Medicine.

On July 30, Shenyang City police claimed to have sent us home. On the way, they asked for our addresses, saying that they would take us home based on the distance to our homes. However, the police van took us directly to the gate of the police station. We were later sent to Longshan Labor Camp.

Two team heads, Tang Li and Da Mu (who was transferred from the Zhangshi Labor Camp in Shenyang City) threatened to shock us with electric batons in attempts to force us to write guarantee statements [to renounce Falun Gong]. In the afternoon, the two team heads ordered a 14-year-old girl Han Tianzi, two students, one male and one female from Liaoning Province College of Traditional Chinese Medicine to their office. They used electric batons to force them to write the guarantee statements. The young woman's painful screams seized everyone's hearts. The torture lasted for a whole afternoon. When she was returned to the cell, she wore pants and a short sleeve vest. Her exposed skin was covered with bruises from the torture. There was not one area of uninjured skin. Fourteen-year-old Tianzi was unable to move her arms, but the camp head Bai and two persecutors continued beating her with electric batons.

During the night, Team head Tang called out more than a dozen practitioners to the corridor and forced them to do body-folding. [Body-folding refers to standing with the legs straight and close together, and bending the head down as far as it will go toward the feet, in front of the knees. The fingers point to the ground, the head is upside down.] The practitioners were not allowed to enter the cell to sleep until 3 am. We held a hunger strike to support our demand to meet the director. The persecutors then used shoes to beat us, and dragged some of us to be force-fed.

Among over a hundred Dafa practitioners who were held in the Longshan Labor Camp, more than half of us joined the hunger strike. The camp authorities thought I was the leader and transferred me to a vacant house at the foot of a hill. The house had been vacant for quite a long time as the inside was dark and humid, and the damp straw mattress was covered with dust. I slept on the mattress for two nights, and all my clothes were wet. The deputy head of the camp talked to me, and I insisted on meeting the director of the judicial bureau Zhang Xiansheng. He came to our No. 2 cell later. I said to him with a peaceful mind, "Mr. Zhang, in order to meet you today, more than 60 of us had to hold six-day hunger strike." The director saw that many of us could not stand up, and several elderly practitioners were sent to the hospital. We expressed that if they did not stop using electric batons on us, we would not begin eating. The director saw that we were determined, and had to accept our request.

Probably on August 11, the police from No. 1 Section of Shenyang City Police Department declared that Yang Yasen was sentenced to forced labor and would serve his term at Masanjia Labor Camp. Yang Yasen refused to sign the verdict, but he was still taken away. A couple days later, we heard from the police guards that ten more practitioners would be sent to forced labor camps. We began the second hunger strike.

The camp authorities called in a person who did not have the skill to force-feed us. Miserable cries were constantly coming out from the room where practitioners were force-fed. They randomly inserted tubes into our esophagus, causing some practitioners' noses or stomach to bleed. After 10:00 pm, dozens of policemen rushed into our cell and surrounded us. They dragged us, even though we were bare-footed, to a big van downstairs and drove us to Dabei Prison to force-feed us.

When we came back, some practitioners were sent back to the Longshan Labor Camp. A dozen more practitioners were sent to "Female Self-Improving School." We entered the school barefoot, after midnight. We continued our hunger strike. On the tenth day, the school authorities and police officers sent us to Dabei Prison to continue force-feeding us. Six to seven policemen force-fed me. On the 13^th day of our hunger strike, the principal of the school called in a doctor from Dabei Prison to force-feed us.

The doctor was insidious and cruel. He mixed corn porridge with a lot of salt and force-fed me. They then kept the tube inside me after the force-feeding, with one end in my esophagus, and the other end stuck through my nose. I was unable to cough phlegm and had difficulty breathing. The doctor said it would be quite convenient for the next day's force-feeding. They sent us to the Masanjia Labor Camp without waiting for our health to recover.

On the afternoon of September 25, 2000, I was sent to No.1 Cell, Team Four of Division One at the Masanjia Labor Camp. The room is small, but more than 30 people were in the room. Two people shared one bed, and we worked half the day and "studied" for the other half of the day. The labor camp often played videos to brainwash us. When I just entered the room, collaborators [former Falun Gong practitioners who have gone astray due to brainwashing and torture] started to tell me their enlightening along an evil path. When I went to the toilet, I saw several collaborators in a circle beating a Falun Dafa practitioner. They forced her to half squat, with arms stretching forward in a line. One week, several Falun Dafa practitioners, Zou Guirong, Su Juzhen, and Yin Liping, were beaten in the toilet. When I went to the toilet at midnight, I heard the collaborators saying, "If you are not reformed, you can not go back to sleep. Several days from now, we will shock you using electric batons and see how long you can endure it." When I lied on the bed, I often heard the sound of beating and abuse coming from the toilet. It was terrifying. Before, little did I know that Masanjia is such an evil place.

Every day, the collaborators used many different means to torture us both mentally and physically, and one means changed to another in a short time. Every day, there were abuses happening. Every morning when I woke up, I would have the thought of how to endure the day. With the support and instigation by the team head, the torturers were unscrupulous and did whatever they wanted to do, using soft and hard means to torture us.

Team Head Zhang Xiurong instigated collaborators Yu Xiaoli, Wei Hongwei and others to take me to the toilet, where they forced me to do half-squatting and forced me to craw back and forth with my hands on the ground and my legs pushing straight. One night, they took me to the toilet and forced me to sit in lotus position. They then tied my legs tightly and asked a collaborator named Chen Xiaoyu to slap on my face countless times. They also pulled my hair and slammed my head against the wall violently. They used such force that even the tiles on the wall behind my head cracked. Zhang said, "I shall make you feel so miserable that you would rather die than being alive, and yet you could not die."

One night in mid November 2001, at just past 11:00pm, I was surrounded by six collaborators, including Yu Xiaoli, Sun Lina, Yang Lin, Li Xuehuan, Yue Shuaiying and Zhu Yafen. They asked me to stand Mabu (a half squatting position), I refused. Yu Xiaoli became utterly discomfited and she took off her snickers and hit my face. She hit me so hard that I began to see sparkles in front of eyes. When she got tired, another one took over to continue to hit me. Some of them also slammed my head against the wall. Yang Lin violently kicked vital parts of my body. The beating did not stop until the next morning. My face was covered with blue and black bruises and my head swelled up.

One day, Yang Lin said to me, "The team leader said we did not know how to beat you. She told us not to hit your head, but your body so that no one could see the injuries." When there was no one in the toilet, they took me there again. Yu Xiaoli (from Dalian), Sun Lina (from Dalian), Yang Lin (from Fushun) and three others took off my padded trousers. They held my legs and pinched and twisted the flesh inside my thighs until I was bleeding. Sun Lina said obscenities while pinching my thighs. The abuse went on for the whole afternoon. The next day, I saw that all the wounds from their pinching were festering, covering an area of 3 or 4 inches wide, and my sweatpants and trousers were soaked with blood and puss. I asked Yang Lin to take a look at the wounds and asked for an old towel. I tore the small towel into two pieces and put them on the wounds. The towel was very rough and when I put them on the raw wounds, I experienced excruciating pain. The next day, Yu Xiaoli and the others came again to take off my trousers in an attempt to pinch my thighs again.

One day, around 8:00 am in the morning, team head Chang Xiurong gathered the most cruel beaters like Yu Xiaoli , Sun Lina , Yang Lin and Li Xuehuan in the duty room, and had them with a collaborator to force me to write a repentance. I refused to write, so they beat me together. Yang Lin had known that I had pus on my legs, and so she intentionally kicked the inflammed area with her shoe tips. When they were tired, they forced me to stand with my knees bent. Then they beat me again till they thought they failed to bend my will at the end of that afternoon. The day after, I saw the pus areas become dented from the kicking and were 1cm deeper than my normal skin. These areas bled with pus coming out, and had a disgusting smell. The wounds on my legs did not heal within 10 months and were painful and itchy. My legs were swollen and stiffened like two wooden sticks and had bruises everywhere. My lower lip was swollen with a deep cut and bled. My right hand, because I tried to protect my legs from Yang Lin's kicking , was also swollen severely. Owing to the pain, I did not dare to bend my hands' back. I could not use my fingers well. (I still have difficulty using chopsticks to pick up vegetables easily.) They wouldn't let go of me. They beat me day after day, and night after night. They also forced me to stand with my knees arched, do body-folding, and squatting. I remembered that collaborator Wei Hongwei pressed her body on me, her arm around my neck and preached evil things to me during one whole morning. He lied and told me that my daughter was hanging on the tree outside, and they could release my daughter if I wrote a repentance. During that whole afternoon, those persecutors, like Yu Xiaoli , pulled my hair and slammed my head to hit walls. Many areas of my head were swollen and some bled. My ears, due to their pinching, were also severe injured. They kept slamming my head against walls till I was so disoriented that I could not tell where I was. They ARE merciless monsters.

One day as I was squatting on the floor, Sun Lina suddenly grabbed a plastic stool and hit on my head so hard that she broke the stool. Sometimes when I was forced to squat, she would sit and clamp over my neck for a very long period of time that my neck ached for days and could not turn my neck. They tortured me so violently but covered up the truth. Even my roommates did not know I was being beaten and tortured. What I told were only examples of several incidents and I cannot even name them all. Being beaten, kicked and slapped on the face were common occurrence to me. Especially, the festering wound usually stuck to my pants and caused me extreme pain as they peeled off my skin when I was trying to stand up after long time squatting. They constantly assigned two collaborators to watch me and put me under extra surveillance because I was wearing blue-badge, a "special object" needs extra care. The two collaborators reported everything of me to the team head. I suffered extremely both physically and mentally. They tortured and harassed me in the toilet for over 15 days without letting me sleep , wash my face, brush my teeth, change clothes and sometimes did not allow me to even urinate. As I recalled, on one of the nights in December, Yu Xiaoli just came back from a meeting and told me, "We have three options for you." But I chose the third one of "unyielding." She then reported me to the administration, and I was allowed to live in the room again. I could have normal meals again but had to sit facing the wall every day. I had nothing left, no daily necessities, even no toilet papers. Since then, I could only wash and clean up without any shampoo or soaps, use worn towels as substitute for toilet papers while my period came. I suffered so much in just a short period of seven months. I really can't imagine how much sever torture those practitioners who entered here before me would undergo'

One collaborator said to me a number of times, "We couldn't have beaten you if the team leader hadn't given us the orders." It is obvious that the police at the Masanjia Labor Camp instigate the criminals to beat up Dafa practitioners, and the more vicious one is in beating us, the better they say he/she performs, and the more he/she gets praised and the earlier they get to released and go home. Those that beat people most savagely were released in January 2001 at the so-called "live-up-to-one's-promise" assembly.

At a meeting before the new year, collaborator Wang Chunying even openly provided false evidence in front reporters from the CCTV, Liaoning TV station and leaders of Liaoning provincial government by saying that there was no such a thing as beating people at the Masanjia Labor Camp. When Dafa practitioner Zou Guirong, who had been severely beaten by Wang earlier, stood up and said, "What you said is not true," she was immediately pushed to the ground and suffered more severe beatings later.

When I saw on TV, Su Jing, head of the female section at the Masanjia Labor Camp lying to journalists when being interviewed, "We use our genuine loving kindness...." I felt totally disgusted that she could make up such lies in the face of those bloody facts at the Masanjia Labor Camp. They are police officers and law enforcers, and yet they violate the law and train batch after batch of torturers. What is more ridiculous is that such a wicked person has been honoured as a national model worker, and those cruel and evil collaborators have become "well reformed" people, whereas the kind hearted Dafa practitioners who follow the principles of "Truth, Compassion, Forbearance" and who do not swear back when sworn at and who do not hit back when being hit have become the targets of their so-called reform.

On April 19, 2001, 10 determined Dafa practitioners were taken to the Zhangshi Labour Camp in Shenyang City by coach, where each of them was sent to a room and was put under tight supervision of one female collaborator (from the Longshan Labor Camp) and four male collaborators, who would follow them everywhere, even to the toilet. The collaborators would not allow the Dafa practitioners to sleep and forced them to squat until midnight every day. Even when we were allowed to sleep, the male collaborators still would not leave us alone. They slept in the same room, keeping an eye on every movement we made.

When I was at the Zhangshi Labor Camp, I heard that many Falun Gong practitioners had been sent to "newcomers" division before they were sent to the Zhangshi Labor Camp. When they arrived at the "newcomers" division, all their daily necessities such as toothbrush and toilet paper were confiscated. At meals time, they were divided into three groups; the first group would use clean chopsticks, the second group had to use the used chopsticks by the first group, and the third the group had to use the unwashed chopsticks that had been used by the previous two groups. We were not allowed much sleep at night (sometimes we were only allowed two hours sleep in the small hours). During the day we were forced to do handwork and would be shocked with electric batons or sworn at or beaten if we were not careful (e.g. if we did not sit straight, or if we closed our eyes or yawned). Dafa practitioners were not allowed to shave or have a hair cut, no matter how long they have been detained there, and some practitioners' beard and hair grew really long.

They now subject Dafa practitioners to such physical punishment at the Zhangshi Reform Center as sleep deprivation day and night, standing against the wall in the corridor. If one protests, one would be sent to the team leader for further punishment. Chen Xiu from Shenyang was "reformed" this way. She was once deprived of sleep for eighteen days and was put under high-pressure brainwashing.

On May10, we were than sent to the Shenxin Labor Camp. Upon arrival, we saw three practitioners Zou Guirong, Yin Liping and Yin Dongmei, who were sent here earlier for staging hunger strikes. Their terms have expired but none of them was released. Officials of the Masanjia Labor Camp went to the Shenxin Labor Camp, to declare to the three practitioners of the decision to prolong their terms. Then the practitioners staged the hunger strike again to protest. As a result, they were sent to Liaoning Province Underground Monitored Hospital. One day, Director Zhang of Shenyang City's Judicial Bureau came to the Shenxin Labor Camp to inspect. He said to me, "You should obey the rules of the camp; otherwise we'll shock you with electric batons. The electric batons are made for shocking people." In June, the labor camp demanded me to live upstairs with Wang Li. They brought four collaborators from the Zhangshi Labor Camp, and eight collaborators from downstairs, to persecute Wang Li and me. They did not allow me to talk with Wang Li, did not allow me to contact any practitioner downstairs, and even did not allow us to go downstairs for meals, and held us in the block-out brainwashing class. We didn't yield, so the class only lasted over 20 days.

After getting back to the downstairs, another two practitioners' terms were prolonged after the expiry date, including Wang Li and Wang Keyi. We wrote a co-signed letter to the leaders of the provincial government, stating that our terms should not be prolonged unlimitedly. However, no one concerned about our letter, so I started the hunger strike. Yin Dongmei and Wang Li did so too. The team head Guo Yong ordered the common prisoners to drag us to be force fed and injected. On the ninth day, Wang Li and Yin Dongmei were locked up in the small cell [The detainee is locked up in a very small cell individually. The guards handcuff practitioners on their back in a fixed position, in which the practitioners can neither move nor lie down. The small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. 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. During the night the rats are running around. The stench in the small cell is so bad that it is difficult to breathe]. During the night, as there were too many mosquitoes and insects, their skins were stung with many swellings. On the 12^th day, the labor camp head brought in the Chief Procurator and the section chief of Shenyang City Procurator's Office. One of them pressured me to talk. I explained to them the reason of my hunger strike, and the details of persecution that I suffered in the Masanjia Labor Camp. They regarded that it was normal for the police of the Masanjia to beat me, that they ought to beat me, and that this should not be a concern. They said if I die of hunger strike, the case would be treated as a normal death. I did not violate the law, it was the police of the Masanjia Labor Camp who were knowingly violating the law, it was them who are trampling the law. Through the conversation with them, my determination of hunger strike was more firm.

On the third day I was sent to Liaoning Province Underground Monitored Hospital. The underground monitored hospital is actually an old air-raid shelter which is dark and damp and is shut off from sunlight all day long. In this hospital, one was allowed to use the toilet only twice a day, each time for only 15 minutes. During this period of time one had to finish washing one's face and body, in addition to emptying one's bowels and bladder.

After I sent there, I found there were over a dozen prisoners there, including Zou Guirong, Yin Liping, Zhou Yanbo and Wang Jie. They were all reduced to skin and bones. The living condition there was very poor. I had difficulty breathing as there was not enough air. I found that the practitioners imprisoned there could not take care of themselves due to the severe abuse. They were unable to move themselves to go to the toilet, and needed someone to help them. So I decided to take food to them. (All of them were on hunger strikes after Zou Guirong was ruthlessly beaten by the police in the Shenxin Labor Camp during the interrogation at the underground monitored hospital.)

I witnessed that when they force-fed Zou Guirong and others, the police called in several male prisoners to violently perform the force-feeding. They forcibly cuffed and shackled Zou Guirong and Yin Liping. The police guards also instigated the male prisoners to beat us. They harshly inserted the tube into Zou Guriong over 30 times during the forced feeding to torture her. As a result, Zou spat out blood every day afterwards. Zou cried out with her hand pressing against her esophagus. When Zou was in the Masanjia Labor Camp, she had been forced to stand in the half squatting position for 5 days and 5 nights continuously, and she endured it without a drop of tear. But today she cried so terribly.

Seeing this, I decided to start a hunger strike. To prevent me from going on hunger strike, the persecutors told the police at the Shenxin Labor Camp to take me back. After going back to the Shenxin Labor Camp, I started a hunger strike again. Division Head Song ordered four male prisoners to carry me to the force-feeding area. Since I had spat out blood that morning, Song got the report and confirmed it, before ordering them to stop the force-feeding torture. However, I was forced to have intravenous drip. Afterwards I spat out blood three days in a row, and the doctor said I only had a few days to live. Fearing that I would die in the labor camp and to shirk responsibility, the labor camp called my family to take me home.

I wrote down my experience after I got home. I want to let people know the truth. I only went to appeal in Beijing to tell them the truth, but I was held for over a year with no chance to say even one word. I've been held in 6 different labor camps. I have suffered so much torture, both physically and spiritually, and stood the pain of having my family broken apart.

Nowadays, personnel from the police station and the community office go to practitioners' homes every now and then, to ask them to fill out forms or write guarantees, and to arrest people. They broke up so many practitioners' families. If they didn't arrest us, would we have lost our jobs and families' Many of us were doing nothing at home, even sleeping when we were arrested and dragged off to be sentenced to forced labor. Why do they treat us like this' Police often send wounded or even severely wounded practitioners to police hospitals. What crime did they commit' Our practitioners were arrested and beaten up or even sent to forced labor, only because they exposed the lies. Who's against the law'

Dear kind hearted people. Do you know that today I wrote this all down to tell you my experience of being persecuted' I'm taking the risk of being arrested and beaten up and sentenced again. I could even lose my life! But I believe that if I don't speak out about my experience as it was, I would be committing a crime against justice and conscience, and would be conniving with the evil. Dear kind-hearted people, if you could read what I have written here with my life and blood, you would have a right idea about Falun Dafa, and it would bring you a bright future!