By a practitioner from Mainland China

Picture 1

Picture 2

(Clearwisdom.net) In early 2000, professor Ye from a college in Mainland China was detained for practicing Falun Gong exercises at an outdoor location. Since professor Ye's money was forcibly taken away by the police who arrested him, the detention center police forced professor Ye's family to pay 110 yuan to buy a blanket [a bedcover for his own use], as shown in Picture 1. The blanket was very thin. As shown in Picture 2, the inside cotton batting was made of the notorious "shoddy cotton." This kind of inferior product had been exposed on the CCTV's Focus Interview program. The "shoddy cotton" batting is crudely processed from used, discarded cotton batting from hospitals or from the trash bins.

Supposedly, the government should bring the manufacturer of this kind of "shoddy cotton" to justice. Nonetheless, the fact is the police sell these inferior products and force detainees to buy them and make a profit from it. The usual market price for a blanket like this is less than 20 yuan; however, the authorities forced detainees to pay 110 yuan to buy such a blanket plus a set of daily necessities that would normally cost 10 yuan on the open market.

As shown in Picture 1, a blanket that has been folded eight times has about the height of a slipper, which shows that the blanket is extremely thin and has little use in maintaining body warmth. During cold winter nights, professor Ye slept on a piece of broken wooden board placed on the cold, damp concrete floor. The only cover he had was this blanket made of "shoddy cotton." Professor Ye, in his 60s, had to huddle himself up and often could not fall asleep due to the cold.

In the detention center, Professor Ye was hung up many times with both hands cuffed, both feet off the ground or only the toes touching the ground, and hung onto a door or window frame with the handcuffs. Each time this lasted for several hours. He has also been locked in a small cage designed for convicts sentenced to death. The size of the cage was about half a cubic meter and shorter than a person's height. In addition, he and another inmate were locked together in this small cage that is too small for even one person. They could not stand straight or squat for hours; they were not allowed to go to the toilet, either. He almost died from this torture.

This "shoddy cotton" blanket is another testimony to the ruthless persecution a professor in his 60s suffered in China's detention center for his belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance during the CCP's so-called "best time in history for human rights in China."

Posting date: 3/14/2005
Original article date: 3/13/2005
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/3/3/96560.html

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