October 2000

This June, like many other Falun Dafa practitioners in my local area, I prepared to go to Beijing to appeal again. On June 23rd, 2000, because someone had leaked out information, a few dozen practitioners, including myself, were arrested at home, at the railway station, or on the train. We were forcibly taken to detention centers, drug-abstention centers, or asylums. Later on, some of the practitioners were put into labor camp. Maybe it was because of my strong will to not be taken by the evil force and my righteous thought of going to Beijing to appeal, I successfully walked out of the local police station and went to Beijing by transferring a few times.

On the third day, another practitioner and I chose to go to Tiananmen Square together. There were small groups of practitioners everywhere along the boulevard. We signaled to each other that we are Falun Dafa practitioners by hand gestures. From our conversation, we knew that they had also overcome enormous difficulties to break through the dragnet of their local police to come to Beijing. While we were talking, the police came up to beat and kick us and dragged us into the police vans. In the van, I was able to open the window and unfurl a banner reading "Truth, Compassion, Forbearance" outside the window. I also chanted: "Falun Dafa is good!" The people on the Square all watched me while I was chanting. The police rushed to me, violently beat me and tried to take away the banner. Two other female practitioners inside the van cried loudly: "Police are beating people!" and so they were also beaten brutally. After the police took away my banner, I said to them with a smile: "We Falun Gong practitioners are good people. For example, I have no hatred at all toward you even though you beat me like this." I paused a while and continued: "We have endured enormous tribulations to ..." At that moment, our van arrived at the center of the Square. To my surprise, the driver suddenly stopped the van, grabbed an iron rod as thick as a thumb from under his seat, and leapt towards me and beat me with the iron rod.

The first strike fell on my arm, followed by two strikes on my back. I immediately fell into my seat and became nearly unconscious. The other two practitioners asked me: "Are you OK?" I recovered a bit and the driver went back to his seat. I thought: "I'm a Falun Dafa practitioner, I shouldn't fall down, I must stand firmly." After I moved around a little bit, I almost fully recovered. A few minutes later, we arrived at Tiananmen Police Station. Many policemen, some of whom seemed to be officials, were standing at the door. I noticed that my arm had become swollen and a bloody lump with the size of a duck egg appeared on my arm. I therefore went to one official and said: "Please take a look..." Before I could finish, the driver and those policemen who had arrested me beat me fiercely once again, just like those sinister gang members on TV. They were cruel and merciless. They intentionally beat my chest, neck, head, stomach and waist. I was disoriented and almost fainted once again. In a daze, I heard a voice saying: "Stop." Later I was taken to a room and the policemen who arrested me followed me into the room. They tightly wrapped my banner around my neck and forcibly dragged me by my neck toward the door, yelling: "Let me see you unfurling your banner!" I almost fainted once again. In the daze I heard another policeman saying: "That's enough, let's stop." I struggled to stand up again and saw a short policeman holding a notebook and a pen asking me repeatedly: "Where do you come from?" Upon hearing this, my compassion suddenly burst out and I replied, almost choked with sobs, "I come to attain Falun Dafa." He asked: "Then, what is your name?" "I don't want to tell you because the local government will always treat practitioners who go to appeal with condemnation, labor education, fines, and confiscation of their property. So many practitioners' families have been broken up and some have been tortured to death..." He didn't say a word for a while, and then he waved his hand and told me to go to another side.

I went to the other side. It was a long and narrow backyard packed with practitioners. They were standing there and doing the "Holding the Law Wheel" exercise. I put down my bag and joined them. About half an hour later, I did the meditation exercise and felt that some energy was massaging my back and lots of bubbles were emitting from the flesh hit by the iron rod. After about another hour, the police ordered us to stand in lines to be transferred to another place. The reason was that there were too many practitioners and some of the practitioners would be sent to the jails in the suburban area of Beijing. I was the first one in the line. When I went into the van, I found that it was exactly the same van that took me here.

After we got off the van we found that we were at the Tiananmen Public Security Bureau beside the Tiananmen city gate tower. We were brought here because we refused to tell police our names. By 6 p.m., the head of the Bureau came and instructed: "You are welcome to tour Tiananmen; but you are not allowed to unfurl banners here. If you just practice in your homes, nobody will interfere..." I immediately replied: "You are saying that nobody will interfere if we practice at home, but this is not true. For example, we want to read Falun Dafa books but the government disallows the publishing of the books and we cannot buy the books from the bookstore, isn't this interfering? Isn't this restricting our freedom of belief? We are all genuinely practicing cultivation and striving to be good people, but the government puts bad labels on us, making people believe that we are abnormal. Isn't this seriously hurting us? We are peacefully appealing to the Central Government according to the Chinese Constitution and related laws. But the National Office of Appeal has become an 'Office of Arrests' or the 'Entrance to Jail.' Many innocent, kind practitioners have been beaten severely and even to death. Many have been sentenced to jail or forced labor. Many practitioners' families have been broken up and the elders and children are left unattended. A year has passed and the Central Government is still continuing on its own way. Isn't this committing crime against the people? If you think about this with your heart of kindness, you will find that a couple of individuals in the central leadership have become extremely evil!"

"Previously, we all told our names and addresses to police when we came here to appeal, and we didn't unfurl banners, instead we submitted appeals to the National Office of Appeal. However, after we returned home we were persecuted endlessly. Think about it: Jiang Zemin has committed wrong deeds but he didn't take any responsibility and pushed the responsibility totally on the local governments, causing the local police, local work units and the relatives of practitioners to blame and hate practitioners. Isn't this making the people fight against each other? It is exactly true. So, to awaken people's conscience, and to prevent such evil deeds from persisting, we come here to speak out for Falun Dafa with our lives." I said all this without a break and all the policemen were silent.

At this point, another policeman who looked like a low-ranking official interrupted me: "Hey, what rank of official are you in your hometown?" I replied: "I don't hold any rank, I'm just an ordinary person. The only difference between me and you is that I am genuinely practicing cultivation and striving to be a good person while you are suppressing us." He mocked me: "You are just a straw man!" I said seriously: "'Straw man is an insulting name the feudal monarchs used to call the people. The Communist Party claims that it serves the people and that the people are the masters while the Party is the public servant. What you are saying now is..." The previously mentioned high-ranked official sighed: "Serve the people, you all refuse to tell your names, and we are busy all day and night, who serves us?" I said: "You are not right. The people are also serving you. We all are workers and taxpayers. The money from the people's labor feeds you but you are not doing your duty. You are not comprehensively and objectively reporting the appeals of the Falun Gong practitioners to the Central Government. You are not distinguishing the good from the bad and you are persecuting good people..." Although I exposed their weaknesses several times, they didn't beat me and only punished me by making me stand on the cement ground for over an hour under the sun.

Around 8 o'clock we were taken back to Tiananmen Police Station and surprisingly the driver was still the person who had hit me with the iron rod. I smiled to him and said: "You must be quite exhausted today." He kept silent. I found his face was dark. Moreover, there were two big black circles around both of his eyes.

At night the police locked us, over 40 practitioners, in a room with iron railings. It was hot and crowded. The left side of my back was against the wall, and because of the pain, I let my right hand and the right side of my back dangle there. Two practitioners lay down to sleep and it became more crowded for the practitioners around them. The practitioners around them couldn't sit in lotus position and had to fold their legs, stoop down and bend their knees to sit there. When I saw this, I thought about the words of Teacher: "...At birth, one is assimilated to the characteristic of the universe. Yet as the number of lives increases, a collective form of social relations develops in which some people may develop selfishness and gradually their level will be lowered..." I realized that we practitioners were able to care for each other and be selfless under ordinary situations because the environment was not severe and it was easy to do that. Now that everyone had a very limited space, wasn't this a test for us, the future enlightened beings? Wasn't it a test to see if we could still keep the pain to ourselves and leave the comfort to others and get rid of all the selfish thoughts under such a harsh environment? Thus, I determined that although I was beaten the most seriously, I would not lie down to sleep.

After over 2 hours, the practitioners felt more and more distressed. Two policemen came up and I said to them: "Comrade police, we request to be separated into two rooms. It is too crowded and we cannot sleep." They cursed back: "You are even making requests at this place!" and left the room. After about an hour they came back and saw somebody reading Zhuan Falun. They shouted: "Don't read anymore, we're going to take a rest." I stood up and told the fellow practitioners: "Let us sit separately on two sides, male one side, female the other side, and try to let the elders sleep..." The two policemen immediately pointed their fingers at me and shouted: "You, come out!" When I walked to the corridor they kicked and beat me and cursed me for "making trouble." After the beating, one of them said: "Go fetch your bag." After I fetched my bag, he said: "Go." I thought he was going to single me out to torture me and I was thinking in my mind: "I don't know if my body can still endure this. But no matter what, I must pass the test even if I die." When I was at the door I asked him: "Where do you want me to go?" They ferociously hit me on my back and neck with their fists and said: "Go away!" Thus I was driven out of the police station at midnight.

I initially planned to stay longer at the home of a Beijing practitioner and go to Tiananmen once again on July 22nd. The Beijing practitioners urged me several times to go back home to study the teachings of Falun Dafa, so I went back home. Around July 22nd, the thought of going to Tiananmen Square a thousand miles away to speak out for Falun Dafa was once again in my mind. The local practitioners repeatedly advised me not to go and I began hesitating. On that night I had a dream. In the dream I saw a huge Falun spinning and covering the whole sky. Many practitioners were flying toward the sky and I also flew up. The next afternoon, I put down my farm work and went to Beijing for the third time. This time, Jiang Zemin and his pawns fully exposed their bandit-like nature in their methods of harassing the people. They deployed public and secret posts at all railway stations in the nearby provinces and on all the highways leading to Beijing. They forcibly searched the bags of all the passengers arriving in Beijing and required passengers to show their IDs and speak their local dialects. They searched the passengers' pockets and even their underwear. Any Falun Gong books would be immediately taken away. The daily floating population of a few hundred thousand were all searched over. I myself have witnessed a county official from a province outside Beijing telling people that even he could not enter Beijing. Many passengers dared not to speak while they were being searched. After being searched, they would blame the government loudly for being hooligan government. Many long distance buses with Falun Dafa practitioners on board were stopped. One driver said that there were four more road blocks in the city of Beijing on the way to Tiananmen Square. The practitioners who were detained in Beijing were all sent to jail and tortured, forced to reveal their names, and then they would be escorted back to their hometowns to be sentenced.

I was detected by the police at a place near a suburb of Beijing and detained along with a few dozen fellow practitioners. These fellow practitioners were mostly peasants from mountainous areas far away from Beijing. They were very poor, wearing ragged clothes, and they lacked information. This was their first time to come to Beijing to appeal. They were all very determined about Falun Dafa and they were not afraid of any persecutions. After three days of discussion, we all had big improvements. At 8am of July 22nd, after we did the exercises, we suddenly found that two clouds on the sky formed the shape of "22". After a while, another huge symbol of "7" appeared in the east. We applauded right away. The police also watched this scene. It disappeared after about half an hour. The police searched me three times but failed to find my banner. I discussed with these peasant practitioners: "When we hold the banner together later on, we should form a circle and protect the banner from being taken away by the police."

At noon, 20 people who looked like officials with three cameras showed up. I raised the banner and the practitioners immediately formed a circle and chanted loudly: "Falun Dafa is good!" Police and those "officials" all came over and hit our heads fiercely. They dragged me down to the ground, stamped on me and handcuffed me. One policeman said to another: "Go get an electric baton for me." I thought: "At most, I give up my flesh body." I kept talking to the police about the facts of Falun Dafa. Another practitioner was a veteran who had received many honors. When he was talking, those policemen were all silent. To my surprise, the police took off our handcuffs after about ten minutes and kept us under the sun. At this moment, a few more practitioners were sent here. They also refused to tell the police their names. The police initially planned to send the practitioners who refused to give their names to mental asylums. At 4pm, the local governments of those peasant practitioners dispatched vans to take them back. The police then forcefully stuffed us into these cars after beating us once more. We were thrown out of these vans at a desolate hill a few hundred kilometers away from Beijing...

After I returned home, I saw that my fellow practitioners had been sentenced to labor camp or jail one after another and I was very sad and pained. Later on I read Teacher's new article "Rationality" and I realized that Teacher had pointed out the direction of upholding and validating Falun Dafa and clarifying the truth of Falun Dafa to common people.