(Clearwisdom.net) My name is Fan Meixia. I am a 43-year-old Falun Gong practitioner residing on Zilai Avenue, Haizhu Precinct, Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, China. Prior to practicing Falun Gong, I felt physically and mentally tired and weak all the time. Because of poor health, I was unable to work and had no choice but to rest at home for many years. However, my health still did not improve. In 1996, I had the enormous fortune to learn Falun Gong. Since then, I have been trying my best to conduct myself according Falun Gong's cultivation principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance," and to continuously remove my attachments to fame and wealth. Falun Gong's spiritual and physical cultivation practice enabled me to improve my physical and mental health. My health and my moral values continued to improve. As a result, I was able to work again.

Falun Gong had given me a brilliant ray of hope in life; therefore, you can imagine why I was stricken with shock and disbelief when Jiang Zemin ordered the banning of such a virtuous practice in 1999, due to his jealousy over Falun Gong and the overwhelming popularity of its founder.

On the morning of September 13, 2001, while I was making breakfast, the police from the Jiangnan West Street police station and Wu Yongmei from the Jiangnan West Street Street Administration Office suddenly broke in and forcibly abducted me from home. They took me to the Jiangnan West Street Police Station and then transferred me to the Haizhu Precinct's brainwashing class. More than seven months later, the staff at the Haizhu Precinct brainwashing class finally admitted defeat and decided that they could never force me to give up my belief in Falun Gong, so they threw me into the Hongshan brainwashing class in Huangpu, Guangzhou City on April 29, 2002. It is a brutal camp where I suffered from multiple types of the cruelest tortures. They have a team of torturers that subject Falun Gong practitioners to torture in rotation around the clock. The torture team subjected me to both physical and mental torture day and night. They forced me to watch video programs defaming and slandering my belief in Falun Gong and deprived me of sleep both day and night for a very long period of time. For example, they would often pull me out of my cell after 11:00 p.m., and make me stand while bending over for a long time, beat me up violently and subject me to many types of brutal tortures until dawn. The torturers would show up at any given time, day or night, and subject me to brutal beatings and every kind of torture imaginable.

In just several days after I was transferred to the Hongshan brainwashing class, they had me share a room with another determined Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Wang Xia from Huadu City. The torturers taunted me that night, "Look at Wang Xia. If you refuse to renounce Falun Gong, you will end up like her." Then several perpetrators started to beat and kick Wang Xia. Next they pulled her up by the hair from the ground and spun her body in the air rapidly until she became nauseated. As soon as the torturers dropped her body, they pressed her body face down against the ground and stuffed her head into a bucket used for toilet. This suffocating and humiliating torture almost killed her. She gasped for air, and kept retching the toilet water she was forced to drink before her head was stuffed back into the toilet bucket again.

While they were suffocating and humiliating Wang Xia, they kept taunting me, "Feast your eyes! This is what you will have if you refuse to renounce Falun Gong!" Sure enough, they subjected me to the same torture later, especially in front of newly arrived Falun Gong practitioners in order to terrorize and threaten them.

The torturers often yanked up me from the ground by my hair and spun my body rapidly in the air. I would end up feeling nauseated and lose a lot of hair. As soon as they dropped me down, they would knock me down on the ground. While I was still breathless, they immediately stuff my head in the toilet bucket (see the following illustration.) I would suffocate and pass out repeatedly with my face in the toilet bucket during the torture.

Torturers' Conversation (From Left to Right):

A: I will make sure you have a "great" time!

B: Let's see if you will practice Falun Gong or not!

C: Are you enjoying the taste of feces and urine?

D: Why don't we just drown her in the toilet bucket?

When I returned to consciousness, I often heard the torturers yelling, "There is no use pretending to be dead! There are many ways to make you suffer!" Following the suffocating torture, I would be subjected to many other forms of torture. They would often force me to lie on the floor face up and then drip hot pepper juice, hard liquor or hot mustard into my nostrils and eyes. They would also pierce my body, including my limbs, with a thick needle, causing excessive bleeding that would drip to the floor. The blood would dry and stick to my clothes, which caused a lot of pain when I changed clothes.

One of the captains of the torture team is a man named Qiu Chaohua. Qiu often tried to frighten me, saying, "I have many ways to make you renounce Falun Gong. I will even make your flesh separate from your bones." He repeatedly hammered on head with a smoking pipe, causing me to suffer from excruciating pain and nausea. He has also repeatedly beat me violently with a steel bar, inflicting the most unbearable pain on me.

While I was illegally detained in the Hongshan brainwashing class, I was covered with wounds and bruises all the time, but I remained steadfast in my belief in Falun Gong and kept sharing the wonderfulness of Falun Gong with others there. Mr. Wang Youcheng, the head of the Huangpu City "610 Office," feared that my speech and actions might reinforce the faith of other Falun Gong practitioners and thus compromise their brainwashing work, so he came to threaten me in my cell, "Fan Meixia, I will see to it that you get killed and buried here!" He also asked Mr. Qiu Chaohua and Ms. Huang Yan, the two captains of the torture team, to increase their torture on me.

From then on, I would suffer from the torturers' brutal beatings and other forms of cruel torture whenever I told anyone about how my physical and mental health improved since I started to practice Falun Gong and that I know from personal experience that Falun Gong is righteous and virtuous. One evening in mid-November 2002, Qiu Chaohua tried to make me curse my Teacher Mr. Li Hongzhi in writing. I refused to comply with his demand and declared that I would never do such a disrespectful thing. Qiu Chaohua was overcome with rage and told me that I would not live beyond that night.

Thus the torturers started to torture me in a new way. Qiu Chaohua ordered several torturers to make me sit in a chair with arms and tie my lower arms and lower legs to the chair. Next they stuffed my mouth with a filthy rag to silence all my agonizing cries. Then the torturers impaled my fingernails and toenails with bamboo sticks, and moved them back and forth to cause agony to the flesh under my fingernails and toenails. (Please see the illustration of the torture below.)

An Illustration of Impaling a Falun Gong Practitioner's Fingernails and Toenails

Next they stuffed a handful of dried hot peppers in my mouth to replace the dirty rag. After violently impaling my fingernails and toenails for a long time, they finally removed the bamboo sticks from my fingers and toes. Then Qiu Chaohua stomped hard on my toes with his hard rubber boots, which caused my entire left toenail to fall off.

I survived the torture that night, and I still did not renounce Falun Gong. When the head of the Huangpu City "610 Office," Wang Youcheng, heard that I had not succumbed, he ordered the torture team to continue torturing me. On the evening of December 3, 2002, Qiu Chaohua threatened me again. "You don't need to renounce Falun Gong, and you don't need to write the ˇ®Three Statements.' But you must write a public statement to declare that you are remorseful for praising Falun Gong, and read the statement at a meeting to other Falun Gong practitioners. Otherwise, I will personally make sure that you live in hell for the rest of your life!"

When I refused Qiu Chaohua's demand again, he and several other torturers started to beat and kick me violently. Next they pushed me all the way to the bathroom and knocked me down on the floor next to a toilet bowl as usual. As usual, they stuffed the toilet bowl with a mop and then pushed the flush handle to fill up the toilet bowl with water. Then they started to beat me up and then stuffed my head into the filthy toilet bowl to humiliate and suffocate me. However, their despicable tortures again failed to destroy my dignity or make me write the public statement. Next Qiu Chaohua ordered one of the torturers, Huang Qiuju, to stomp hard on my body. Then he produced an iron clamp and ordered Huang Qiuju to force me to jog forward by pulling my hair with the clamp. (See the illustration below.) I lost a lot of hair during the torture.

Qiu Chaohua watched Huang Qiuju executing the torture. When he realized that I had no intention at all of succumbing to their demand, he went completely berserk. "Bury her head in the toilet bowl!" Several torturers then knocked me down on the floor next to the toilet bowl, and pressed my head into the dirty toilet bowl. Soon I passed out due to suffocation.

I was illegally detained in the Hongshan brainwashing class in Huangpu, Guangzhou City for more than seven months. During that period of time, the torturers subjected me to many forms of torture, but they have failed to make me renounce Falun Gong. On December 17, 2002, they finally admitted defeat and sent me back to the Haizhu Precinct brainwashing class where I was immediately subjected to a new round of brutal torture. Four days after my arrival, the torturers there tried to make me transcribe propaganda books slandering Falun Gong. When I refused to comply with their order, they locked me up in a small cell at the end of the corridor on the ninth floor. The cold weather in December causes one to want to sleep more, but I was denied sleep while being confined in the small cell.

Several days later, a disciplinary staff member (a.k.a. torturer), Wu Xiaohong, deceived me into going to the tenth floor. There are two cells on the tenth floor. Before locking me in one of the cells, Wu Xiaohong said, "Have you made up your mind? If you refuse to renounce Falun Gong, you will continue to suffer from the torture and you will give in eventually. Why don't you give in sooner than later? It will save you a lot of pain." She saw that determination registered on my face and knew I refused to renounce Falun Gong, so she summoned several other disciplinary staffers, including Yuan Yuping, Che Yingchun, Chen Yuyan, and Yu Jinxia. Together they bound my arms behind my back, pulled them upwards by the wrists, and then tied each end of the ropes around the opposite shoulder. Next they made me sit with my legs crossed on top of each other, and then tied my legs with ropes to keep my legs in that position. The torturers even pulled my knees together until they were only less than seven inches apart. Then they pressed my upper body forward against my chest, and tied my chest and legs together to keep me in that painful position. Thus my body was painfully bent and folded, a position that made me gasp for air. But the torture did not end here. They tied a long strip of fabric to my wrists and then tied the other end of the fabric to the ceiling. They adjusted the length of the fabric to make my buttocks barely touch the ground, adding to my torment. (See the illustration below.) After this torture, I lost the feeling in my right hand, except for feeling numbness and pain, for five months.

I practice Falun Gong because I choose to believe in the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. I try to assimilate myself completely to these principles in my daily cultivation practice. During this process, I continue to purify and cleanse my body and mind and have obtained physical and spiritual health. But because of these noble aspirations, I am now illegally detained in a forced brainwashing class, suffering from these depraved perpetrators' cruel tortures. They have exhausted all means of attempting to make me betray my Teacher and my belief in Falun Gong. Jiang Zemin and his group have been persecuting Falun Gong practitioners for more than five years. Their ruthless persecution has already inflicted a wound on my mind that will never fully heal. I hope that one day we will bring Jiang Zemin and his henchmen to justice. By publicizing my story as a victim of the persecution against Falun Gong, I wish that all of my fellow Chinese compatriots will come to know the truth of Falun Gong and the persecution against Falun Gong. Everyone has the right to know the truth.

Posting date: 9/17/2004
Original article date: 9/16/2004
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Translated on 9/5/2004
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/9/3/83231.html

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