Year after Year, My Family Is Still Shattered

By a Falun Gong practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net)

Today (the day the article was written) is Chinese New Year's Day 2006, and my family remains broken up.

My family of four was simple and happy. My father is a technical worker. My mother is a human resource person who was later promoted to be the Party secretary in a state-run enterprise. My older sister and I grew up in this peaceful family. We had never thought that our family could be broken apart.

My mother began Falun Dafa practice during the 1997 Chinese New Year and obtained Zhuan Falun, the book that teaches people to become good people by practicing "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." From then on my mother became healthy. She also became gentle. Her bad temper left and she became more considerate toward others. My family enjoyed the happiness and peace brought by the Buddha Fa.

On July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party launched the frenzied persecution against Falun Gong. All of a sudden, rumors and slander blotted out the sky and covered the earth. My mother could not ignore the lies and slander and wrote a letter to the General Office of the Communist Party, describing what Falun Gong was according to her personal experience and stated the facts that practitioners were all good people. While my mother was hoping for a response from the government, what transpired was a talk with representatives from higher authorities and police department officials. These people demanded that she give up her belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance" and informed her that "heavy discipline" would be in store for her if her case was approved by the higher authorities.

Due to my mother's good reputation and good personal connections as a result of her long-term sincere, kindhearted, and conscientious attitude at work, the person who had to carry out the task of "heavy discipline" loosened the requirement. He did it perfunctorily, by putting the incident in the record, persuading my mother to practice at home, and drafting a statement for my mother in private. It was over.

But for my mom, she hadn't had her from-the-heart words passed to the right person yet. In the wave of thousands of practitioners going to Beijing and appealing for Falun Gong, hoping to clarify the truth to the government and the population, my mother went to Beijing as well at the end of 2000. However, as soon as she arrived at the Golden River Bridge, a construction site at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, police interrogated and examined her. They demanded she verbally abuse Dafa and Teacher. How could a practitioner of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance" do this kind of thing? It went against even basic human morals! Therefore, my mother was arrested and sent to a police station in Beijing.

While the police were changing shifts, with righteous thoughts and the determination to clarify the truth to the world's people, my mother walked out of the police station. She called a taxi and arrived at Tiananmen Square, unfolded her banner and earnestly declared to the world that Falun Dafa is good! The police waiting at Tiananmen Square immediately beat her, arrested her, and sent her to our city's liaison office in Beijing. There she was tortured for several days before being taken back to our city and was then illegally detained for two months in a detention center. Afterwards she was transferred to a brainwashing center. When all this happened, my mother was expelled from the Party, her office was taken, and all her income and savings were frozen.

Around the 2001 Chinese New Year, when every other family was enjoying a reunion and happiness, my mother was in the brainwashing center. To express our family's heartfelt wishes, to uphold justice, and to deny the evildoers' violating human rights, my father, my sister and I decided to have our New Year's eve dinner with my mother at the brainwashing center. Because they thought their emotions would tempt practitioners to give up believing in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance," the authorities allowed family members to enter the brainwashing center. How could they understand that the basis for our decision and our basic morals such as "filial piety, kindness, charity, and love" all come from the great law of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance?"

The Chinese New Year passed, but the authorities' expectations weren't realized. My mother wasn't released, either. In April 2001, all practitioners at the brainwashing center carried out a hunger strike to protest their illegal detention and mental persecution. When my mother had been on the hunger strike for seven or eight days, officials notified my father to take her home. Worrying about my mother's health and safety, my father escorted my mother to her parents in the countryside and arranged for her to live with my aunties. Unexpectedly, the police from in the city drove over 2000 li (about 625 miles) to my mother in the countryside to harass her and demanded that she to report to them periodically, which was equal to house arrest.

In the summer of 2001, my mother came back home to fetch some summer clothes. A few days later, when my mother was washing clothes, the police suddenly arrived and took her to the Criminal Police Brigade. Seven or eight police officers interrogated her for eight days without a break and denied her sleep. The reason: they had found an anonymous truth-clarification letter. Upon investigation they suspected that my mother had written it. Without any findings, the police sent my mother to the detention center although, according to them, they "could not find grounds for a guilty charge." Hence, for the next several months, my mother was transferred between the detention center and the Criminal Police Brigade. In the end she was kept at the city police department and was interrogated every day. While in the police department, my mother was sentenced to two years in prison. Facing such evil persecution, my mother firmed up her righteous thoughts, let go of the thoughts of life and death, jumped out of the window, and walked away. She had to become homeless in order to avoid being illegally arrested. At that time, government agents illegally tapped our house phone. No one in the family knew her whereabouts. Our anxious pain was hard to describe.

The 2002 Chinese New Year saw our family coping with the intense pressure of the authorities' blatant threats to catch my mother and worrying about my mother's unpredictable life or death. We couldn't eat or sleep and spent an anxious New Year missing and worrying about our missing family member.

Later on my mother encountered an old classmate, who took her in. Then she was able to contact us, and our worries could finally take a break. Later on, my mother moved to a small city in the countryside near our hometown and rented a place to live with my auntie. My auntie is also a practitioner and was also harassed by the police. This began their life of having a home they could not return to.

To keep the world's people from being deceived any more, my mother and auntie did their best to clarify the truth by telling people face-to-face or distributing truth-clarification materials.

After the New Year my sister and I each landed a job. Worrying about my mother's safety and living environment, my father took my mother with him and lived where he works. In the new and strange environment, my mother still put Dafa as the first priority. Compassionate to people, my mother kept clarifying the truth and rescuing sentient beings. Not able to have contact with fellow practitioners and being short of truth-clarification materials, she clarified the truth by telling people and writing the truth on walls. One day in the fall, when my mother went out to make truth-clarification materials, the police arrested her and ransacked my father's place.

Hearing the bad news, my elderly maternal grandparents wanted to see their daughter, no matter how far they were apart. In prison, my mother knew that the evildoers would torment her parents with sentiments and trick them to persuade her to give up her belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." After long-term physical and mental torture such as being deprived of sleep and extensive brainwashing, my mother's appearance had changed a lot. If my grandparents saw her, it would be a blow to them.

After my maternal grandparents had overcome innumerable hardships, they finally arrived at the prison, only to discover that the authorities had changed their minds. They used more cruel tactics to torment my mother and my grandparents by not allowing her to meet my grandparents unless she gave up practicing Falun Gong. They were so sinister; they completely ignored good faith and human life. It was a very heavy blow to my grandparents. There is no way to describe their deep, worrying pain at not being able to see their daughter with whom they were so close.

My maternal grandfather passed away four months after returning home from that brutal blow, without seeing his daughter for the last time. Luckily my maternal grandmother had begun studying the Fa and understood the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance," and therefore was able to sustain herself, even through the huge pain of losing both her daughter and her husband, with a strong heart.

As of today, Chinese New Year 2006, my family has been persecuted so that my old maternal grandfather is now dead and my mother is serving five years in prison. I don't know how many days and nights I have to live through without seeing my mother again. I don't know when my shattered family will ever be reunited.

This is what the Chinese Communist Party's evil persecution has done to my family. And this is the reality of human rights in China, despite the fact that Jiang's group claims it is the best human rights period for China. However intense the evil, it cannot subdue goodness. No matter how wicked the lie, it cannot hide the light of truth. Jiang clamored for the elimination of Falun Gong in three months, but six years have passed. Falun Dafa practitioners are still all over China. People in more than 80 countries are practicing Falun Gong. And in many countries, Falun Gong practitioners are filing genocide lawsuits again murderers from Jiang's gang.

Life needs "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance." The world needs peace and stability. I appeal to kindhearted people to reach out a helping hand, to face up to, and to stop this bloody persecution.

March 14, 2006

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/3/15/122897.html

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