(Clearwisdom.net) My name is Fan Shude, a 56-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Shuangcheng City, Heilongjiang Province. Prior to obtaining Falun Dafa, I was plagued with more than ten illnesses. The most serious were myocarditis, severe stomachaches, kidney problems, and arthritis. I had to take pills and have injections all year long. I tried various kinds of qigong, but none of them helped me. Because of my poor health, I was easily agitated, resulting in conflicts inside and outside of my family. I felt that life was really a burden.

All my illnesses went away after I began practicing Falun Gong in 1996. I followed the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. My temper got much better, and I soon had a harmonious work and family environment. Those three years between 1996 and 1999 were truly a joy.

The communist regime's suppression of Falun Gong beginning on July 20, 1999 filled people’s minds with lies and slander. My husband forced me to remove a portrait of Master from the wall, forbade me to practice the exercises, and forbade me from going to Beijing to appeal. The local police went around arresting practitioners without following legal procedures. I covered myself with a quilt and sobbed.

The following is an account of the persecution I suffered over the years.

First Time

Three agents from the Shuangcheng Police Department, including then-deputy head Zhang Guofu, political section head Zhang Shiyao and policeman Liu Chunyang, extorted 2,000 yuan from me in October 1999 for making Falun Gong-related materials. My family paid the money without my knowledge. I still have the receipt, signed by Wang Enhua.

Second Time

Deputy police head Zhang Guofu, Jin Wanzhi, Zhang Shiyao, and Liu Chunyang dispatched two fully armed policemen to my home at 10:00 p.m. on February 3, 2000, right before the Chinese New Year holiday. Using the excuse that I lent another person a videotape of Master’s lectures, they took me to the police department. The next day they transferred me to the Shuangcheng Second Detention Center, where I was held for two months. My family was forced to pay a 3,000 yuan fine and 400 yuan for my food.

My husband, pressured by others, divorced me without my knowledge while I was in detention. When I learned of this, I almost collapsed.

The detention cell was damp and dark. Spider webs covered the ceiling and walls of this no more than 12-square-meter room. A huge wooden board with some space underneath took up most of the place, leaving only a small strip measuring 1 x 3 meters for us to move around. We had to relieve ourselves in a pail. I spent the Chinese New Year in the detention center.

There were a total of nine cells, each crammed with more than 30 people, sometimes even 40. It was so crowded that no one was able to lie on the wooden board to sleep. There were people sitting on the floor and on the pail. Some even crawled underneath the wooden board to take a rest. The detention center feared that the board may collapse and crush the people underneath it, but they couldn’t stop it. They eventually used a metal plate to block off the space between the board and the floor so no one could get underneath again. Even the guards admitted the room couldn’t hold any more people. When it came to meals, the guards gave us steamed buns made of spoiled flour and vegetable soup that had dead flies and ladybugs floating on the top, and mud sinking to the bottom.

The guards forbade most practitioners’ families to visit them. Even when family members did get a chance to see us, they blamed us for not taking care of them. It turned out the guards had brainwashed our loved ones and urged them to do this to us. When my five siblings came to visit me, guards cursed at and even beat them.

Third Time

I wrote, “Falun Dafa is good” on a light pole the morning of 2003 Chinese New Year’s Day (February 12, 2003). Then Shuangcheng City 610 Office deputy head Liu Shanzhong illegally arrested me and took me to the Shuangcheng Police Department, where Zhang Guofu and Jin Wanzhi sentenced me to two years of forced labor. Due to mistreatment at the Shuangsheng Detention Center, I had a relapse of my heart problem and failed to meet the labor camp requirements. Zhang Guofu ordered the then-detention center head Liu Qingqu to bribe Wanjia Labor Camp Hospital deputy head Song Zhaohui to make sure I got accepted into the labor camp.

Fourth Time

I went to the Xinyi Police Station in Harbin City to deliver truth-clarification letters the afternoon of August 1, 2007. The police not only refused to accept the letters, but held me down and handcuffed my arms behind my back. They didn’t remove the handcuffs until they noticed I had difficulty breathing. A policeman surnamed Gan attempted to extract a confession from me, but I firmly refused to cooperate with him.

The police took me to the Harbin City Second Detention Center at around 9 p.m. The detention center requested to see the results of my medical examinations, with which the police didn’t comply. So they drove me in the middle of the night to the Harbin Police Hospital for a medical examination, which showed that I had high blood pressure and a heart ailment. When we returned to the detention center with the results, the center officials refused to accept me, citing my illnesses. By then it was around 3:00 a.m. The police had no choice but take me back to Xinyi Police Station, where three policemen sat me down in a metal chair, handcuffed me behind my back, and shackled my feet to the chair. I couldn’t move.

The police tried to get me into a vehicle the next morning by dragging the handcuffs forward. The handcuffs cut deeply into my flesh, which hurt tremendously. They drove me to the Harbin City Second Detention Center, and the center officials declined again, saying, “You’ve come here twice. We don’t want to take in any sick people.” Policeman Gan then ordered other policemen to take me to the Harbin City First Detention Center, which also refused to accept me. The police got the same results at the Harbin City Third Detention Center. They next drove me to the Harbin Police Hospital for a second medical examination, but the results were the same. Not deterred, they took me straight to the Harbin City Fourth Detention Center, a facility right behind the hospital. A woman doctor there ordered me to sign the diagnosis. I refused. She turned the police down, saying, “No signature, no admission.” The persecutors again had to take me back to the police station.

The next morning, August 3, 2007, the police tried the Harbin City Fourth Detention Center for a second time, only to be refused again. Thus the police shuffled me back and forth seven times between the four detention centers in three days. In the end, police chief Zhao personally asked Harbin City Second Detention Center head Wang to accept me. I refused to cooperate, and four policemen carried me into the detention center.

While in detention I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good.” The cell head ordered criminal detainees to beat me. They also ordered me to mop the floor and then stuffed the filthy mop into my mouth. At night they monitored me closely. When I practiced the Falun Gong exercises in the morning, the criminal detainee on duty stopped me from doing it. Labor camp deputy head Zhao Fengxia put me in handcuffs and shackles, and used another set of handcuffs to connect the two. I couldn’t stand up. I had to bend my body and hold up the heavy shackles while walking, or even to use the restroom. At night I could only rest on my side for a little while. To reduce my use of the restroom I forced myself to eat very little, or nothing at all. Zhao Fengxia ordered the detention center doctor to force-feed me three days in a row. A group of criminal detainees held me down, while a few others sat on my legs. I vomited profusely every time after the force-feeding. After the ordeal I felt extremely uncomfortable every time I ate something. I had to vomit a bit to feel slightly better.

After 13 days of detention the police sentenced me to one and a half years of forced labor, on August 16, 2007 and sent me to the Qianjin Forced Labor Camp. By then I couldn’t eat or drink anything. The labor camp guards gave me injections of an unknown substance against my will. Once, under the directive of team lead Zhang Bo, three criminal detainees, a collaborator, a guard on duty, and a nurse carried me and the bed I was made to lie in to the middle of the room. These people held me down while doctor Liu administered the injections.

One day political head Wang Min cuffed my ankles separately to two posts of a metal bed. She also handcuffed one of my hands to one post. Three criminal detainees, the above-mentioned collaborator and a guard held me tight to give me injections. Another time guard Zhou Muqi wanted to tie me up to a bed with a thick rope, but she couldn’t do it satisfactorily because I was too thin. She flew into a rage and called in a nurse to administer injections into my hands, arms, and feet. Every needle prick was extremely painful. The nurse injected me 13 times.

After failing to make me write the three statements, deputy team lead Yang Yan deceived my son into writing them, claiming his refusal would result in my indefinite detention. I managed to grab the statements and ripped them up. Yang Yan got furious and snatched my electronic reader, which contained Falun Dafa books. They forbade me to study the Fa, do the exercises, or send righteous thoughts. As a result I was extremely weak and went from around 155 pounds to around 75 pounds. The labor camp released me eight and a half months later.