After 11:00AM on December 5, 2000, Ms. Liu Feng, a Falun Dafa practitioner and middle school teacher from Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, along with her daughter and several other practitioners, went to Tiananmen Square to unfurl Falun Dafa banners.
Liu Feng unfolded a banner and shouted, "Falun Dafa is wonderful" while she ran [through the square]. Police in plainclothes crazily ran towards her, attacked her and tried to grab the banner. They threw her onto the ground, stepped on her face and brutally beat her. At that time there were a lot of visitors in Tiananmen Square. Some foreign tourists took pictures of the scene and plainclothes policemen smashed their cameras. Two plainclothes policemen pulled Liu Feng into a police car. Liu Feng kept shouting, "Falun Dafa is wonderful." Her 12-year-old daughter, Liu Xiaoxue, with her bag containing food was also arrested and taken to the police car. Liu Feng and her daughter were then sent to a police sub-station.
This police sub-station detained six Falun Gong practitioners in total, all female. The practitioners were interrogated right after they were brought to the sub-station. All of them refused to tell their names and addresses. When Liu Xiaoxue was interrogated, the director of this sub-station and several other policemen intimidated the young girl, "If you continue refusing to tell your name, we are going to detain you together with a big dog." This young practitioner was not frightened at all. Then the policemen threatened her, "If you still refuse to tell, you will be detained together with those prisoners next door who are yelling because they are suffering from drug addictions." The little girl still didn't tell.
When Liu Feng was interrogated, a policeman asked her, "Did policemen treat you violently?"
She answered, "They beat us." At that time, her face still had footprints on it from the policemen at Tiananmen Square.
The policeman said, "That is normal. When police arrest criminals, it is legal to use violence."
Liu Feng said, "We didn't break the law, so we are not criminals."
The policeman said, "I don't want to argue with you about this. I am just doing my job."
Policemen then locked the Falun Dafa practitioners in an iron cage. The director of that police substation told the practitioners, "If you still refuse to tell your names, we are going to detain you together with AIDS patients." Shortly after, the director pushed one male AIDS patient who was addicted to drugs into the iron cage with the female Falun Gong practitioners.
Policemen later tricked Liu Xiaoxue and found out her address. So, Liu Feng and her daughter were sent to the Beijing Office of the Hebei Provincial Government. Liu Feng and her daughter were put in handcuffs. Their bags and bodies were searched and the 450 yuan (about US $60) they carried was confiscated. The police said, "You have to pay for all the expenses we incurred for arresting you." Police also confiscated the candies from the little girl's pocket and the biscuits and chocolates from her bag. Liu Xiaoxue remembered what she learned at school: it is not allowed to detain and sentence non-adults under 18 years of age. Besides, they didn't violate the law by walking in Tiananmen Square. So the little girl told her mother, and Liu Feng tried to negotiate with the police. But two policemen violently punched her head and face. Then policemen handcuffed Liu Feng and her daughter onto a secluded stair outdoors and viciously beat them for a long time. Every time they slapped Liu Feng, she would shout once, "Falun Dafa is wonderful." It was very cold in Beijing on that day and Liu Feng and her daughter were handcuffed outside for the whole afternoon. When an administrator from Liu Feng's workplace drove to pick them up and their handcuffs were removed, Liu Feng's wrists had been cut and were deeply bruised and her daughter's hands were stiff and numb.
Later, Liu Feng was taken back to Penghou Street Police Substation. She was detained there for one week, but then she was sent to Xinle Labor Camp on the charge of "taking the lead to go on hunger strike."
After Liu Xiaoxue was released and was sent back to school, her painting won a prize in a contest at her school. All five prizewinners, except Liu Xiaoxue, were granted the title of "Little Creator" and awarded prize certificates. Liu Xiaoxue went to talk to her teacher, "Since you don't give me any certificate, please return my painting to me." The teacher said, "Your painting is very good, but you have committed wrongdoings by going to Beijing. Your painting will first be held by the school."
[Note: To protect these practitioners from further harm, all the names used in the above article are pseudonyms.]
December 22, 2000