|
A Letter to Readers of the Chinese Business View Detailing My Personal Ordeal of Being Tortured and Persecuted
By a practitioner from Xi'an city, Shaanxi province
(Clearwisdom.net) Dear Kind Readers and Fellow Countrymen, On December 28, 2004, I read a report entitled "Falun Gong Concocted 30
Tortures, Fabricated Lies and Invented Fake Photos to Vilify the Government by
Accusing It of Persecuting Dafa Practitioners" on the news page of the Chinese
Business View. Reading this report, I felt a surge of emotion, as memories
of both my own torture and those suffered by other Falun Gong practitioners I
have known leapt into my mind. In order to help my fellow countrymen and other
kind readers make clear distinctions between right and wrong, and to safeguard
your legal right to know the truth, I couldn't help but take up my pen to write
a brief account of my own experiences with words found deep in my heart. I am a Dafa practitioner from Xian. Please forgive me for not revealing my
name due to the current illegal persecution of Falun Gong by the current regime
of the Chinese Communist Party. I began practicing Falun Gong in 1997 and
benefited a great deal, both physically and mentally, from the exercises and
from cultivating the principles of Falun Dafa, "Truthfulness, Compassion
and Forbearance." My xinxing and moral standards have risen and
illnesses that lingered for years have now disappeared. In 2000, I went to
Beijing to appeal in an effort to let both the leaders of the Central Government
and other citizens know the truth and the benefits from practicing Falun Dafa.
For this, I was arrested and sentenced to two years of forced labor. I appealed
several times, stating innocence, but my appeals were all rejected. I learned
that once the Central Government established its position on Falun Gong, making
appeals based on true experiences was no longer allowed. During the two years I spent at the detention center and the forced labor
camp, I suffered from inhuman torture administered by both the prison guards and
the drug addicts who worked for them. My torture included beatings (punching,
kicking, pulling hair and slapping the face), being denied sleep for four
consecutive days and nights while wearing handcuffs and shackles (this was
repeated countless times) and being cuffed and hung up outside for the public to
view, for as long as four consecutive days and nights in biting cold weather out
in the rain or in the snow. Someone sent a cotton-padded jacket to me, but the
prison guards ordered it returned, and instead forced me to wear the
"restraint jacket" made by the forced labor camp. My hands were cuffed
from behind and I was forced to stand, facing a wall, for several days and
nights without sleep. I was beaten by drug addicts who tied my hands to a bed
frame and beat me with police batons. Once I was on the verge of death after
being beaten with an "8.1" (August 1 is Chinese Army Day, hence the
name) Police Baton. I was black and blue from the waist all the way down my
legs. When I raised the issue of this violation to the prison guards at the
forced labor camp (according to Criminal Law: "Detainees have the right to
be free from corporal punishment, maltreatment and insult."), female guard
Yang Xiaojuan, and others, replied that, "A document issued by the Central
Government allows us to use this method to punish Falun Gong
practitioners!" When some other Dafa practitioners and I went on a hunger strike to protest
our inhuman treatment, we were force-fed. When other practitioners and I
submitted a joint letter to the forced labor camp officials asking them to stop
using illegal torture methods to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners, they put us
in isolation for several months. The various tortures that the Falun Gong
practitioners around me suffered are too numerous to record. The prison guards
used pliers to pull out practitioners' healthy teeth, they cuffed them to a
cement pole outside for several hours while it was snowing. Some of the
practitioners were handcuffed to an iron gate for 49 days in biting cold winter;
some were not allowed to touch their beds for several months (every day they
were only allowed to sit on a tiny stool to nap for three to four hours); some
were in comas as a result of being beaten; some were physically crippled or in a
state of mental collapse; still others were forbidden to use the toilet. One day as I made my bed at the forced labor camp, I found a heart-wrenching
20-page indictment revealing the tortures that Falun Dafa practitioners had
suffered in the forced labor camp. This indictment, which had been hidden
underneath the bed, recorded several dozen torture methods including: squatting
in horse-riding step, sitting on a Tiger Bench, being slapped on the
face by drug addicts, being forced to crawl on the floor while the drug addicts
rode on them as if they were horses and having socks or dishcloths stuffed into
their mouths so that they would not be able to shout. I, who do not shed tears
easily, could not keep from sobbing. In the forced labor camp even the self-described "dregs of
humanity" would use various torture methods to persecute Falun Gong
practitioners at the instruction of the prison guards. The current forced labor
camps and detention centers are aptly described as "the hell of this human
world." Such a description contains no exaggeration. Even the drug addicts
said that inside the forced labor camp the prison guards taught them nothing
good, but they did teach them how to be cruel. In 2003, when I returned home from the forced labor camp, I presented to the
leaders of related departments a report called, "Personal Experiences of
Persecution Suffered by a Falun Dafa Practitioner," which exposed the
illegal acts by those who are paid to uphold the law as they persecute Falun
Gong practitioners. I also presented a VCD containing Falun Dafa practitioners
and government officials from over 50 countries appealing to the Chinese
government to stop persecuting Falun Gong, plus a segment telling the truth
about the staged "self-immolation" at Tiananmen Square. My intention
was to draw the attention of related government departments to this matter. The
legal department conducted an investigation and found the facts of the report to
be basically true. However, I was arrested and detained for six months by the
610 Office for speaking the truth about this. During my detention I was beaten,
deprived of my right to go to bed and suffered both corporal punishment and the
restriction of my personal freedom. Under the law everyone enjoys freedom of religious belief. Despite this fact,
I was deprived of my rights to work and to live by both the 610 Office and my
work unit simply because I persisted in cultivating "Truthfulness,
Compassion and Forbearance." When I sought help from the Shaanxi Appeals
Office, I was refused entrance to the Appeals Office because I was involved with
Falun Gong. When I sought help from several law firms, I was told that because
the Central Government had already defined the nature of Falun Gong as a
"political" issue, lawyers were not allowed to defend Falun Gong
practitioners. One lawyer told me, "It is China's national condition that
once you have been branded with a political "hat" the law becomes
useless. We are unable to do anything about it." The Chinese Business View reprinted stories from the Central
Government's media department that claimed that Falun Gong practitioners
"invented" 30 torture methods. From my both own experiences, and what
I have seen and heard about, the number of torture methods suffered by Falun
Dafa practitioners far exceeds 30. The Clearwisdom website has received a great
many articles exposing the tortures used in the forced labor camps, so the
statement in Chinese Business View that "Clearwisdom felt like it
had found a priceless treasure" (with which to malign the government) is
absolutely untrue. All of the tortures that Falun Dafa practitioners suffered
during their illegal imprisonments have been hidden from the public. We need to
use all the modern communication tools possible to awaken what people know in
their hearts to be true, and put and end to these criminal acts! When Falun Dafa
practitioners get out of prison and stage "torture re-enactments" to
show the truth of what they have endured, can you say that they are
"fabricating lies," "creating fake photos" and should
consequently be labeled as "slandering the government?" Law
Enforcement Officials rearrested Liao Yuanhua and ten other practitioners of
Hubei Province for doing exactly this. Would you describe this as right or
wrong? The Chinese Constitution provides every citizen with freedom of speech and
freedom of the press. I think it is absolutely wrong for officials of the
government to use their power to suppress those who dare speak the truth. The media should fairly and objectively report the current realities of
modern society. Before 1999, we could find reports of grand celebrations of
Falun Gong, which had been spread far and wide, both within China and throughout
the rest of the world. On July 1, 1999, however, Falun Gong was illegally
suppressed and by the very next day all people could find was repeated
propaganda about the faked "self-immolation," and bogus reports about
insane murderers (said to have become so from practicing Falun Gong), all of
which totally deviated from the teachings of Falun Dafa. People could do nothing
more in response than heave a sigh. Finally I'd like to say a few words from the bottom of my heart to the
readers of Chinese Business View and my kind fellow countrymen. During
the various political disturbances brought about by small but well-positioned
factions, if you can remain calm and reasonable, rationally consider what is
being said without either blindly following or having strong emotional
reactions, and do nothing that will assist those acting with malicious intent,
you will help us all from becoming seriously misdirected. For the glorious
future of both ourselves, and our descendents, to safeguard the legal right of
all kind-hearted people to learn the truth, for the proper guidance of our
country and society, and to achieve truth, justice and the light of hope for us
all, let us exert all of the strength we have! A sincere advisor |