(Clearwisdom.net) On December 27, 2000, I unfurled a banner with the words, "Falun Dafa is Good" at the gate in Tiananmen Square and called out, "Falun Dafa is good" and "Restore Master Li Hongzhi's reputation!" Immediately, the police charged towards me, grabbed me by my neck, and put me in a place full of detained Dafa practitioners.
We recited Dafa articles together. The police slapped, beat, and kicked us. Soon, we were divided up and sent to detention centers in different areas. I was sent to the detention center at the Haidian District Sub-station. Because I refused to tell them my name, the prison guard directed the cell leader to drag me outside, and force me to take off all of my clothes. Two thugs then pushed me against the wall while the cell leader used me as a punching bag to unleash his fury. They then forced me to hold my head with my hands and squat down. Two prisoners took turns pouring water on me from head to toe. They poured over a dozen basins of water on me. It was colder than ten degrees below zero at the time. The chill penetrated to the bones and made me shiver uncontrollably. From time to time, they pushed my head into a basin of water to suffocate me. They tortured me until I told them my name. Icicles formed in my hair, and the ground around my feet froze. It took me a long time to put my clothes back on.
Later, they put me in another cell where Mr. Wen Weilong, a Dafa practitioner from Shaanxi Province, was detained. Because Mr. Wen was on hunger strike to protest the lies and slander on TV, the police beat him until his buttocks were covered with blood and stuck to his pants. The police then tortured him with the "sitting board" (1) torture. The agony of this is unimaginable. The cell leader verbally abused him constantly and kept slapping his face and stepping on his bare toes with his hard-soled shoes. At night, two people were ordered to watch over Mr. Wen, and deprive him of sleep. In the severe winter, Mr. Wen had 30 basins of cold water poured on him, yet he was unperturbed and cheerfully recited from Master Li's poem,
Dafa disciples, thousands and millions,
Completing Gong and achieving Consummation at high places.
(from "Climbing Mount Tai," from Hong Yin, provisional translation)
The guards didn't allow us to talk. One month later, I was illegally sentenced to forced labor.
For the Dafa practitioners who just arrived at the dispatching place, dozens of guards would, with electric batons in hand, force practitioners to write a guarantee statement, promising not to practice Falun Gong. Two prisoners would also be assigned to monitor and shadow one Dafa practitioner. Practitioners were often forced to write their "understandings" about Falun Gong, to write statements denouncing Falun Gong, and watch fabricated news reports and videos that slandered Dafa. Besides the meaningless persecution through forced "military drills," the police also forced us to work at wrapping chopsticks in the morning and evening, work from which they profited.
After over 20 days, I was dispatched to the notorious Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp. Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp's facade was quite deceiving. It was roomy, bright, clean, decorated with TVs and fish bowls, and the quilts were folded neatly. Laughter could be heard inside and out, and when asked, all the detainees said that they had practiced Falun Gong. The prison guards often asked if I was comfortable, and there was always someone who helped bring me food, and tidied up my clothing, bedding, and other belongings. But they often came to "chitchat" with me. Actually, they intended to "transform" me. They tried to find out what my omissions were. Every day they surrounded and isolated me. As time went on, they became less and less caring, I was allowed less and less sleep, and the torment increased.
No matter how the outside people investigated, they could not see the true situation of the persecution.
The collaborators on the one hand tricked me into believing that they were still practitioners, and on the other hand they spread their evil understandings and deviated notions while carrying on as thugs. During the day, they took turns "chatting" with me, accompanied by beating and kicking, and tortures in the form of forcing me to drink cold water, standing against the wall in the "riding an airplane" (2) posture, deprivation of toilet privileges, etc. In the evening, they pushed practitioners who refused to give up the practice under the bed for a whole night. If practitioners still refused to write pledges denouncing Falun Gong, cold water would poured over them. The means used became increasingly brutal. I was even pushed onto the ground and had the "ribs rolled" (a brutal torture method).
Under the intense mental and physical pressure, I wrote, against my will, words that were disrespectful to Master Li and Dafa. Later, under the influence of drugs (both stimulant and depressants, and possibly something else), due to my own attachments, and the traitors' brainwashing, I broke down and became confused. During the ensuing days, I was sometimes lucid and sometimes muddle-headed, but most of the time I was muddle-headed. In my foggy state, they often slapped me, poured cold water on me, forced me to do the military squat, and did not allow me to use the toilet, among other tortures and humiliation. In the end I suffered mental trauma.
I was then transferred to the No. 6 Team, where I lost my memory for five days (this was what I read in their notebook). When I became a bit clearheaded, they forced me to take drugs again. The more drugs I was given, the more headaches and discomfort I experienced. My head felt like it had a ton of bricks on it. I could not raise my head, my nose ran, my mouth watered profusely, and my speech was slurred. I could not fold my quilt, put on my clothes, brush my teeth, wash my face, or even hold a spoon. In short, I could not take care of myself. I could not concentrate, and I had no memory to speak of. I was frustrated and agitated, and so uncomfortable all over that I yelled constantly. They said I was too noisy and interfered with their rest, so during the day, they tied me to the headboard and stuffed a pair of dirty socks in my mouth. They didn't allow me to use the toilet so I was forced to soil my pants. In the evening, they made a lot of noise, tied my hands and feet together, and put me in an empty room on the ceramic tile floor for an entire evening, not caring if I lived or died. On one occasion I drank some hot water and was burned internally. I broke out in a sweat. Even so, they still forced me to watch the slanderous videos, continued undergoing brainwashing, and forced me to write statements giving up and defaming Dafa.
Later, I vaguely realized that my mental state was not normal, so I asked to go to hospital for treatment. I went to Anding Hospital in Beijing, and the hospital's finding was that I suffered from psychosis. Before the assessment, the hospital needed to stop my medications for a few days. After the drugs were stopped, my symptoms all disappeared except for slight residual thought disorder. After the assessment, the guards forced me to take the drugs again, and the symptoms reappeared. This showed that my abnormal mental state was drug induced.
The guards then put me in the No. 7 Team's guarded chamber. At that time, I was like a corpse ¡V my mind didn't work at all. But the guards still ordered the prisoners to make me recite the prison regulations, and often administered corporal punishment. One night prisoners pushed a handful of drugs into my mouth. Not long after, I seemed to be levitating, and "bang," my head bumped against a sitting board and bounced off just like a rubber ball. I didn't feel any pain at all. The prisoners were so afraid that they opened the door of the guarded chamber in a hurry, and pushed me into the bed. On the second day, two prisoners carried me to the toilet. My urine was very dark and I almost died at the time (this was what a prisoner told me when I was released). After that, they didn't force me to take any more drugs. Gradually I got better, but in the evening, I often cried, laughed, and didn't want to go to sleep, but I have no recollection of this. After the hospital's assessment of psychosis was issued, the forced labor camp asked my family to come and take me home. In order to cover up the evil deeds of the labor camp, they let me out for recreation and to recuperate near the end of my imprisonment. Once when I cursed Zhou Yongkang, the prisoners used a boiling water bottle container to burn me as punishment. When I cursed Jiang Zemin, team leader Liu locked me up in the guarded chamber again.
During my detention in the guarded chamber, they often tied me onto the iron gate or a bed with a belt, and used a bunch of steel needles to pierce my body. They also used electric batons to shock me. Over one month after I was released, numerous puncture wound scars could still be seen on my body.
During my entire period in the forced labor camp, the most pronounced memory I have was the physical torture. In addition to the lies and deceit, and the forcible brainwashing that practitioners endured, the food we were provided consisted of spoiled turnips, spoiled vegetable soup and buns. When my senses were clouded, they induced me to drink dirty water from the spittoon, to drink urine and eat feces, and they deceived me and forced me to write materials defaming Dafa, and to write a statement giving up the practice. Four days after I was taken out of the forced labor camp for treatment, my symptoms all disappeared without treatment. I resolutely do not acknowledge what I have done in the detention center, and solemnly declare any statements made are null and void.
The above is what I can remember and what other people have told me about the torture I have been put through. Because of my cloudy mental state at the time, I cannot remember many things, not even the name of the team captain. Under such a state, I was also being used as a tool to transform other practitioners. I hereby sincerely apologize to those Dafa practitioners who were harmed by my actions.
I am only one of the millions of Dafa practitioners that have been persecuted. I am fortunate in that I am still alive. All over China, there are still many who are being secretly persecuted even more severely that I was, and even tortured to death. The torture and deaths are frequently covered up by the authorities. I believe that in the not-too-distant future all of these injustices will be redressed.
Notes:
(1) Sitting board torture - Every day, practitioners are forced to put their hands on top of their laps, with backs straight and sit on benches 18 hours per day. This sometimes continues for over fifty days. The authorities even limit practitioners' restroom use time. Because of the long time spent sitting on hard benches, practitioners' buttocks develop big sores that hurt badly. Practitioners cannot even urinate normally because of the pain. Because some labor camp conditions are very damp, and guards do not allow practitioners to have ventilation or the chance to get some sunlight, and since practitioners are locked up for so long, countless red scabies sometimes grow on the entire body of the practitioner. They are incomparably itchy and painful.
(2) Riding an airplane torture ¡V The practitioner is forced to bend down until he cannot go down any further, while the hands are pulled up and held up to the highest point, perpendicular with the floor.
Written on April 21, 2005
