(Clearwisdom.net) Hearing the sad news of Mr. Yang Xiaojie's death I was deeply grieved. It felt like a knife twisting my heart, and I cried without stopping for a long time.

Mr. Yang Xiaojie and I used to be detained in the same prison. We experienced the persecution together and we were like brothers. I did not have a chance to see him before his death. The Chinese New Year's eve should be the day for family gatherings. It has been the traditional Chinese holiday for more than 4,000 years. That day, however, was the day of Yang Xiaojie's cremation. Mr. Yang Xiaojie persisted in his belief and was abused and tortured to death for upholding the truth.

Mr. Yang Xiaojie, who had just turned 40, was a strong and kindhearted person. He was a good husband. He also took care of and supported his elderly parents and provided for his wife (also a practitioner) and their child. His wife was illegally sentenced and now is held at the Hebei Province No. 2 Prison. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) destroyed and tore apart a happy and harmonious family because the couple exposed the CCP's lies to the public. During this inhuman persecution, Mr. Yang Xiaojie embodied the great forbearance of a Dafa practitioner.

The practitioners could seldom talk with each other, even if they were detained on the same floor or in the same building. A series of people constantly monitor practitioners' activities. They ranged from top to the bottom: the Brigade political head who was mainly in charge of the persecution of Dafa practitioners; the 610 Office agents; the prison guards; the guards on duty and the criminal inmates. They wanted to have their jail time reduced by reporting practitioners' activities and were never kind to practitioners. The conditions for the practitioners were extremely difficult.

Later, Yang Xiaojie and people in his group were moved to a new building. We rarely saw each other. Around October 2005, I heard he was very sick. I managed to have an opportunity to visit him when he was in a room under 24-hour surveillance. I was told that only two rooms in each floor had this kind of monitoring equipment. When I saw him he was not able to sit up. Due to long-term back pain, his spine was twisted and distorted. His body was bent into a 90-degree angle. If no one had pointed him out to me, I would not have been able to recognize him. He was very skinny and looked skeleton-like. His face was misshapen too. This once strong, healthy person who normally weighed 150 to 160 pounds had become a 55-pound skeleton. He still smiled at me as usual and said, "Hi. How did you get here? These tortures are nothing! We can't give up our righteous thoughts! " It was hard to imagine that those were his last words to me.

Before his death, Yang Xiaojie refused to be reformed. Guards from Education Division thus beat him severely, knocking out his front teeth. He refused to watch a TV show that fabricated rumors to defame Falun Gong. For that he was locked in a dark cell for a long time. He had been on a hunger strike. Prison guard Wang Gubin inserted a tube through his nose into his stomach for force-feeding. He cruelly inserted and removed this tube several times to torture him. Finally, this evil guard replaced this tube with a larger one and poured a cup of concentrated salt solution into his stomach. The sharp, intense pain made him sit bolt upright. Three or four guards had lost their grip on him, and then he began spitting blood.

Just several days before he died, his mother was notified that he was in critical condition and went for a visit. However, she was turned away twice and forbidden to see her son. By then, Xiaojie remained unconscious and was kept alive on oxygen. Several days later, on December 28, 2005, family members went there and took him out of the prison for outside medical treatment.

The Chinese ruling regime attempts to control people using fabrications, rumors, deceit and violence. They fear that people will learn the truth. They have spent all their resources and efforts persecuting their own people. They have really lost their senses.

There is a common saying "paper cannot cover up fire." After six to seven years of persecution, more and more people have come to understand. History will be fair. Years later, when people look back, the Chinese Communist Party will certainly bear a shameful mark of disgrace that will last forever in history.

On behalf of myself and the Dafa practitioners at the Shijiazhuang Northern suburbs prison, all of us send our deep condolences to Yang Xiaojie and express our sympathy to his family!

February 2, 2006