(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Tian Shuanluo is a farmer from Liuzhai Village, Yangping Town, Baoji County of Shanxi Province. She is 54 years old. Before she took up the practice of Falun Gong, Ms. Tian had many of illnesses, she was frequently bed-ridden and needed to take medicine and receive injections. Ms. Tian lived a very miserable life. In 1998, Ms. Tian started to practice Falun Dafa. Shortly afterwards, all of her illnesses were gone and she became a healthy person. Ms. Tian used to be illiterate, but after she began to practice Falun Dafa, she was amazingly able to read all the Dafa books, including "Zhuan Falun."

During these years in which the Chinese Communist regime has carried out their brutal persecution against Dafa practitioners, Ms. Tian has been arrested several times, and her house has been repeatedly ransacked. She has also been sent to detention centers and jails on several occasions. Once Ms. Tian almost lost her life, but because of her firm belief in Dafa and her righteous thoughts, she never forgot about her important mission in Fa-rectification. Under the merciful protection of our great and honorable Master, Ms. Tian escaped from the evil's den again and again, and she continued to merge into the current of the ongoing Fa-rectification to save sentient beings with her righteous thoughts and actions. This article is based on Ms. Tian's personal story as told to a fellow practitioner, who then wrote it down. The article was originally written on April 8,2004, but went unpublished until now. (It was originally published in Chinese on Minghui.org February 16, 2005.)

In the end of 2004, the police again illegally arrested Ms. Tian while she was preparing truth clarification documents. Ms. Tian is currently being held in the Chencang District Public Security Detention Center, Baoji County, Shanxi Province. More than 20 other practitioners are also being detained there.

I started to practice Falun Dafa in 1998, and I followed the ultimate universal principles of "Zhen-Shan-Ren" (truthfulness, compassion and forbearance) to cultivate myself, to upgrade my xinxing, and to become an even better citizen. Both my physical body and my spirit returned to a healthy state. Whenever I read the book Zhuan Falun, I would notice that each and every character in the book glowed brilliantly. It was Teacher who had saved my life as well as my soul. It was Dafa that made it possible for me to live a new and treasured life. I proclaim from deep down in my heart, "Falun Dafa is good, Zhen-Shan-Ren is good!"

One day in May of 2001, certain officials from the Baoji County 610 Office, along with the police officers Kang Baoshuan and Mr. Yan, suddenly broke into my house. They ransacked every room, emptied all the cabinets and took away my most valuable Dafa books, portraits, cassette tapes, a recorder and several meditation mats. On the 29th of that month, I went to Beijing to appeal against the unlawful house search. In Beijing, I met a policeman and asked him where the appeals office was. The policeman asked me, "Why do you want to go to the appeals office?" I told him that my house was ransacked because practice Falun Gong, and now I had nowhere to live, so I came all the way to Beijing to appeal. I continued to tell the policeman how I had benefited from the practice of Falun Gong and all the miraculous things that had happened to me after I started the practice. The officer said, "Falun Gong is really good, but our government no longer allows it." Then the policeman grabbed me and took me to a small room. In the room, I found that there were already 7 or 8 of my fellow practitioners and they were all handcuffed to a row of chairs.

One female practitioner's face was bleeding due to a physical, but she was nonetheless still patiently clarifying the truth to the police staff members around her. She saw me and said, "Don't cooperate with the evil, and don't yield to the persecution." This practitioner's words woke me up and I became even more steadfast in Dafa. Shortly afterwards, they dragged her away and police officers put water melon rinds on top of our heads and the water melon juice trickled down our necks.

That night, all the practitioners were forcefully transferred to another place. I was thrown into an iron cage with another practitioner. The next day, one police officer came over and asked me where I was from. I remained silent, so they decided to put me into the iron cage again. Seeing as there was already a male inmate inside the cage, I refused go in. Then members of the police staff grabbed me roughly and pushed me inside, locking me in. The police officers shouted to the inmate inside the cage, "Now she's yours, do what you want to her!"

The male inmate tried to assault me, but I resisted. Whenever he grabbed me, I would yell, "Help!" Eventually, the male inmate was taken away. I then began a hunger strike to protest the treatment, and the policemen handcuffed me and hung me up for half a day. Only after I was suffering severe back pain did they release me from the hanging. After they let me down, I could barely stand. Two police officers came over and started to beat my head with bamboo sticks. They also tried to drill into my feet with the sticks. While being subjected to these tortures, I kept clarifying the truth to the police officers. I told them that they should try to be good citizens and that they should treat practitioners well.

One of the policemen said, "I know Falun Gong is good. I know all those who practice Falun Gong are good people. I am going to get a Falun Gong book and learn about it."

Several days later, the police officers told me that they were going to give me some injections. I grabbed onto the metal handrail of the staircase firmly and refused to go. The police officers then started to hit my hands with metal bars and I was forcefully taken to a hospital. The physician at the hospital threatened me and said, "If you don't tell us where you're from, we're going to give you this injection and it'll make you tell us." I started to send forth righteous thoughts in my mind and asked Teacher to protect me. As a result, they didn't give me the injection, and I thanked Teacher from my heart for his protection. They continued to torture me, and finally, I was on the brink of losing my life. They decided to leave me alone and sent me back to the train station with another practitioner. The police had beaten that practitioner until he was bruised all over his body. We helped each other along the way, and many people saw us and asked what had happened; I told them that the police had tortured us simply because we practice Falun Gong.

After I returned to Xi'an city in Shanxi Province, I did the sitting mediation in the train station for more than an hour. I became high-spirited once more. Later on, I visited a fellow practitioner's home and stayed there, continuing to clarify the truth, pass out flyers and promote Falun Dafa. One day, several public security staff members suddenly broke into the place I was staying and tried to arrest me. I told them that I was a Falun Dafa practitioner, not a criminal. These security staff people said they had come to arrest Falun Dafa practitioners. One policeman took the book Zhuan Falun from my hand and asked me where I was from and how I obtained all the Dafa materials. I didn't answer. Then the security staff members began beating my legs, injuring them in the process. I shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" Later, I was detained in the Baoji Public Security Detention Center.

In the detention center, I learned that my son, my daughter-in-law and my baby granddaughter (who weren't practitioners) were all detained in the center. The food the center provided was very poor and soon my daughter-in-law had to stop breast-feeding her baby because she wasn't getting enough food to produce milk. My little granddaughter cried constantly out of hunger. A relative of ours came and took the infant home with him. The baby developed a very high fever, which lasted for several days, and then the baby fell unconscious. This made our relative extremely anxious and worried, and he spent all his time with the baby. I started a hunger strike to protest such inhuman treatment and my son and his wife were eventually released from the center. Later on, the Baoji County Education Committee and the Baoji County Public Security Department illegally sentenced me to two years in prison, but I refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing on my part. I refused to put my fingerprint on the sentencing paper and police officers had to take me by force to the Women's Forced Labor Camp of Shanxi Province.

While I was being held at the forced labor camp, I continued to practice the exercises and send forth righteous thoughts. I did not to respond to the roll call of prisoners and I refused to recite the prison's rules. When I practiced the exercises, some inmates would beat me and call me names. At night, they tried to force me to watch slanderous television programs about Falun Gong, but I simply refused to watch them. When inmates asked me why I didn't want to watch the programs I told them, "We practitioners are following the principles of 'Zhen-Shan-Ren,' we will never kill others or ourselves. All those TV programs are fake. They might be able to fool you, but they can't fool me."

A prison guard named Liu Junlan was furious when she heard what I said about the television programs and she shouted, "Beat her!" Several inmates came over and prevented anyone from hitting me, and that made Ms. Liu even angrier. She would then try to get at me from then on.

They threw me into a freezing room to break down my will. I said to myself, "I am a practitioner; I'm not at all afraid of the cold." Then I started to practice the wheel-holding exercise, and as a result, I began to sweat. I didn't feel the cold at all.

In order to protest the persecution, I continued my hunger strike. The prison police staff asked me, "So, why do you want to go on a hunger strike?" I told them, "I'm not guilty of anything, and I'm not a legitimate prisoner, so I don't want to eat the inmates' food." More than ten days later, the prison staff tried to insert a tube into my stomach to force- feed me, and they dragged me to the prison hospital and wanted to give me intravenous injections. I began to send forth righteous thoughts, and in my mind I refused to take any of their filthy substances into my body. The prison hospital staff spent more than 8 hours trying to give me the injections, and I was riddled with needle marks, but they simply weren't able to administer a single shot. Several days later, I was taken to a regular hospital in Xi'an city for a physical examination. While I was in the waiting room, I started to clarify the truth to all the people there. Then I was brought back to the prison, and I kept to my hunger strike. At that time, my physical body was extremely weak, and I thought to myself, "Maybe I won't be able to see Teacher in this physical body." At that very moment, while my life was in danger, a strong righteous thought developed in my mind, "I am Teacher's disciple, I still have my unfinished mission, and I shouldn't die right now. I must live on and I will see Teacher in this physical body." Then I started to recite Teacher's articles and the book Zhuan Falun, and I thought of Teacher's words,

"...one righteous mind can subdue one hundred evils." (Zhuan Falun)

I demanded to be released from the prison at once. Around noon the next day, I was given an oxygen tank and mask and sent back to my hometown. I realized that Teacher had helped me and that it was Teacher who had made it possible for me to escape from that den of evil.

After I returned home, I kept studying the Fa and sending forth righteous thoughts. Gradually, my good health returned. I continued to do the three things and took every opportunity to clarify the truth and pass out flyers.

One day, I ran across four young men and I gave them truth clarification material. One of these young men said, "This information is so valuable. We work at a print factory. May I please have another copy? I'd like to make more copies and send them to my relatives and friends." I felt extremely happy for him.

Another time, a lady said to me, "I'd like to give you one yuan for your information. I know it's not easy for you to prepare all these documents." I didn't take the money, but I was deeply moved by that lady's heart. There are just so many kind people in this world who are waiting for us to save them.

A thought suddenly came to me, "If I bought a copy machine, it would be great for clarifying the truth." Eventually, with the help of other practitioners, I really did buy a copy machine, and I learned to operate the machine very quickly. I started preparing truth clarification documents day and night. Because I inadvertently neglected studying the Fa, the evil forces took advantage of me and destroyed the truth clarification materials site that I had established. The destruction of the materials site negatively impacted Dafa, and I had to leave home, again becoming homeless. The evil issued a 10,000 yuan reward for my arrest. Under Teacher's protection, and with the help of practitioners and other kind people, I escaped from the evil's attempts to further persecute me. I moved from Shanxi Province to Gansu Province, and then from Gansu Province to Ningxia Province. Along the way, I begged for food and slept in the open fields. Blisters covered the soles of my feet as well as my face. I had to put up with hunger, thirst and cold. Quite often, I would end up in a lonely open field. Sometimes, finding shelter to hide from the chilling winds was very difficult. Especially at night, it was not always easy to find a resting place. When I was forced out of my house, it was still summer, so I wore only a T-shirt. As fall and winter came, cold winds started to whistle in my ears. Some kind-hearted people gave me some coats to wear. I also collected empty plastic fertilizer bags and stuffed them with paper, wrapping them around my body to keep warm. I only ate one package of instant noodles every two days. I traveled the countryside in these conditions for more than 10 months.

Later, I moved back to Shanxi Province, but I was afraid to go back to my hometown. I learned that my son (who wasn't a practitioner) was illegally sentenced to 4 years in prison after the materials site was destroyed. More than 10 practitioners from Baoji County were also implicated. Now my daughter-in-law takes care of my whole family. My granddaughter was only 3 years old and my grandson was only a few months old. In this way our harmonious and happy family was decimated.

The following is a list of telephone numbers for certain organizations that have been involved in persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners in Baoji County, Shanxi Province.

Office of Baoji City Administration: 86-917-3213141
Office of Baoji City Committee: 86-917-3214087 and 86-917-3252027
Office of Baoji City Disciplinary Committee: 86-917-3212942
Office of Baoji City, Weibin District Committee: 86-917-3234051
Baoji City Public Security Department: 86-917-3658240