My name is Huihui. I started to practice Falun Dafa in July 1997. Like other practitioners, I had no political ambition. I just wanted to tell the government the truth about Falun Gong. As a result my family and I have suffered relentless persecution.
On the morning of July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin announced the ban on Falun Gong. I joined many other practitioners at the petition office of the city government to appeal. The police pushed us into buses and drove us to a suburban area. They told us, "If you have something to appeal, you should go to the central government. The local government cannot do anything." That afternoon, we went to the provincial government and got the same reply. I then went to Beijing. On my way to appeal in Beijing, I was arrested. The police wrote the "six No's": not appealing for Falun Gong, not practicing Falun Gong and not providing public facilities for the use of Falun Gong, etc., on the blackboard. They forced us to copy them and sign our names. They also forced us to watch the videotape defaming Teacher and Dafa. They pressured us to expose and criticize Falun Dafa. After I was bailed out, I kept writing letters to report the truth of Falun Gong. I never got a reply. The police in our district came to my workplace to investigate me. They sent special agents to monitor me. They came to my home and my workplace to harass me and to put pressure on my workplace and my family members.
On May 13, 2000, I went to Tiananmen Square to hold up a banner reading, "Falun Dafa is good." Several plain-clothes men rushed over to beat me. They dragged me into a police car. Two female practitioners were doing the meditation exercise outside the police van. They refused to stop. Two policemen tried very hard to carry them into the car. The policemen dragged them by their hair and beat their heads against the handle of the door. I stood up and yelled "Police should not beat people!" The police violently slapped my face, leaving it purple and swollen. The van was soon crowded with practitioners. We shouted together, "Police should not beat people." The police then slapped us all. A policeman glared at us and yelled, "Beat people? I have not slept for three days. Everyday, so many of you come here. I am dying of exhaustion!" When I saw his bloodshot eyes, I felt that he was really pitiful. Jiang Zemin forced him to beat good citizens.
The van took us to the Tiananmen Police Station. When the police asked me my name, I told them only that I was a Falun Dafa practitioner. Seven or eight policemen then took turns beating and cursing me to force me to reveal my name. I knew that if I told them my name and home address, my workplace and my family would face more pressure and be assessed more fines. I refused to cooperate with the police.
About one hundred of us from all over the country refused to disclose our names. We were detained in the backyard of the Tiananmen Police Station. We were denied use of a toilet for 12 hours. The police said, "Aren't you talking about 'forbearance'? I will find out how long you can forbear. Today I want to know who is the boss." Among us, there were 3 elderly practitioners who were almost seventy years old and a 6-year-old child. For a whole day, we practiced Falun Gong exercises together quietly. The police could not stop us from practicing. They brought in two big sound-amplifiers and played ear-piercing DISCO music in order to disturb us. They put high-volume speakers close to our ears.
That night we were put on a bus escorted by twice as many policemen and taken to the 13th Section of the Beijing Police Department. They punished us physically for an hour. Then 4 to 5 policemen searched our bodies. They dragged me by my hair and beat my head against the ground. They kicked my head and chest violently with their thick leather shoes. I lost consciousness for a while. When I came to, I had a headache. I looked down and found that I was totally naked. My body was full of purple and black bruises. A lot of my hair had been pulled out. A female officer came in and stepped back and forth on my body, blaming me for pretending to be dead.
During the 11 days of detention, I was denied access to my money and was not allowed to change my clothing. None of us were given any tools for daily living such as a toothbrush, facial towels, toilet paper and blankets. I stayed in four different cells and had contact with inmates who were detained for various reasons. Almost all of them had gotten to know Falun Dafa from the practitioners who had been detained there. Each day, they told me the touching stories of previously detained practitioners. They told me how practitioners had been tortured with electricity of 350 to 380 Volts and how they were force-fed through their noses. I taught them Teacher's articles. I helped them correct their bad habits and become kindhearted people. I wrote about seventy poems from "Hong Yin" (a book of poems by Teacher) and some articles of Teacher including "True Cultivation" (in the book Essentials for Further Advancement) on the wall using an aluminum shoe-button. The inmates often recited the articles of Falun Dafa with me, even though they would be punished or have their detention terms prolonged after the guards found out. When they talked about how they got detained because of committing wrongdoings before, they always sighed and lamented. They said they would never have gone to jail if they had gotten to know Falun Dafa earlier.
On May 16, another practitioner and I were taken to another room. At that time, we had normal meals everyday. Several strong men tied us to a bed. They plugged a tube into my nose and kept stirring the tube pretending to force-feed me. They yelled at me while moving the tube, "Tell us your name. Quick!" In this way they tried to force me to tell them my name. Then I was denied food and water for several days. 5 days later, I was sent to a mental hospital for force-feeding. This time, they plugged a thick and hard plastic tube into my nose. The nurse did that to me as the police watched. Both my throat and nose were damaged.
On the night of May 24, I was escorted back to the local police station. Four policemen took turns interrogating me 24 hours a day, never allowing me to sleep. They tried to find out the whereabouts of other practitioners. I refused to tell them anything. They asked my husband to bring our child to the police station and claimed that I could be freed if I told them where other practitioners were. The police drove my husband and my child away after my child cried for a while. At noon, they repeated that trick again. At last, they sent me to the detention center for 15 days for the crime of "disturbing social order."
I was sent to the detention center on the night of May 25. I was doing the meditation exercise in the cell and introducing Falun Dafa to those inmates. They all treated me well. After a few days, the guard found out and got very angry. The guard transferred me to a cell that held criminals. The guard urged the cell head (i.e., the strongest inmate) to beat me up. After 20 minutes of beatings, the guard was afraid that I might be beaten to death, for which he would be punished. The guard then transferred me to yet another cell. The detention center was actually a place for exploiting labor. The guard ordered me to work like other criminals. Everyday, I had to fix 4 big bags of holiday bulbs to be exported. It would take a beginner 15 hours to finish that workload.
On the morning of June 18, after I was released, I, as well as my child, got detained again on our way to join the group practice in a park. After 48 hours of detention, my husband bailed me out. My child was also detained for 26 hours.
At around 6am on July 13, over 30 people, including policemen from the local police station, broke into my home and tried to force me to attend "the transformation class." They said none of them could sleep if I did not go to the "transformation class." It was an order from their supervisors, and they would be fired if they did not follow it. I asked them why they were knowingly violating the law. They then dared not arrest me because they knew they did not have any legal justification. Later, the director of the police station came to my home personally trying to take me to the "transformation class." He forced my husband to take me downstairs. He demanded that my husband drag me to the police van. My husband was not a practitioner. He was a party official. But he still refused the unreasonable demand. He asked the police whether they had an arrest warrant or not. The director said he could not issue the arrest warrant. Then the police pressured my husband's workplace. A few directors of my husband's workplace had to write a pledge that evening. Meanwhile, my husband also wrote a pledge, promising that I would not go to Beijing. The police then left my home temporarily. It was already midnight.
The next day, my husband asked if he could have a vacation. His request was approved. The workplace even agreed to book the tickets for us. The higher authorities, however, stopped our plan. My husband was assigned to stay home and monitor me. A special lock was put on our door. Nobody could go downstairs. My home became a jail. We had to make phone calls to order food. My home was full of trash. Our child, who was on summer vacation, had to stay with us at home. On July 16, the director of the residential committee even gave me a call and offered to hold the "transformation class" in my home. I could not allow them to play the videotape that viciously slandered our Teacher and Falun Dafa in my home. Neither did I want them to bother my husband at his workplace. So when my husband fell sound asleep, I left home with my child and decided to stay in a rented apartment so that my husband could go back to work. However, the police had bugged my cell phone. They came to that apartment at night. Over twenty of them formed a wall by holding hands with each other so that we could not escape. They kidnapped us. They also confiscated my cell phone and sent me to the "transformation class."
The next day, I felt listless right after dinner. I did not know what they had added to my food. They took my child away. My child cried bitterly. The practitioners detained next door all heard it and were all shocked. The staff members of the "transformation class" included police officers and people from the XX politics and law committee and the XX party school. They tortured us mentally day after day. They forced us to give up our faith in Falun Gong. They asked us to practice Taichi or gymnastics instead. They forced us to watch the videotape that slandered our Teacher and Falun Dafa. They left the TV on high volume all night and did not let us sleep. Groups of policemen came into our room at will at midnight with cigarettes. They threatened to send me to a labor camp. I told them I would like to see an attorney in order to prosecute them. The reply was that no attorney dared to touch a Falun Gong case. To protest their actions, I abstained from food and water. A policeman videotaped my daily life including practicing Falun Gong. He said he was collecting evidence against me in order to send me to a labor camp. He also interrogated me at midnight. He threatened that I would be force-fed at will after being sent to the labor camp. During the "transformation class," my husband's supervisor also came to "transform" me. He said I would affect my husband and his workplace if I refused to write the pledge. He also said he was forced to write a self-criticism because of me.
My husband had been summoned to the police station to be interrogated for 6 hours. The guard in our apartment had also been called to the police station for interrogation. Under pressure, my husband and his supervisors came to the transformation class many times attempting to persuade me to give up my faith in Falun Gong. They asked me to choose between Falun Gong and my marriage. I always expressed that I would like to have both since there was no conflict between them. Before the crackdown against Falun Gong, my husband often mentioned to his colleagues that Falun Gong had helped me mentally and physically. Now he was criticized by his supervisors in a meeting and was accused of "promoting Falun Gong." His supervisors also said that they doubted that his thoughts still followed the party line. He was forced to write self-criticisms many times. It is clear that one must pay a severe price to tell the truth in a country ruled by Jiang Zemin. On July 31, my husband bailed me out and submitted a divorce request to the political department of his workplace. The director of that political department said, "You should have divorced her a long time ago." The court granted our divorce, citing the reason that "I had severely disturbed my husband and his workplace," and ruled that my child belonged to my husband because "I was not benefiting the child's body and mind by teaching him Falun Gong."
I was not free even after I was released from the transformation class. The police confiscated my ID card, monitored my phone and tailed me. The local police often came to interrogate me and called me once a day. On the morning of December 18, a dozen people, including the residential committee and staff members from the XX politics and law committee came to kidnap me again. They wanted to take me to the "transformation class" again. I ran back to my home in time and closed the door. They had to send a director to negotiate with me. They said that they would either take me to the "transformation class" or have people tail me 24 hours a day. They warned me not to call 110 (emergency phone number in China). Several days ago, I was tailed by people of unknown identity when I went out with my child. I then called 110 for the patrolling police. After asking some questions, the police did nothing. Instead, they asked me to call the police station. I reported the situation to the police station. The reply was "Why did you go out? Nobody would tail you if you would just stay home." Thus everyday, 8 people in total, divided into two groups, followed me 24 hours a day. During the day, two policemen on a motorcycle followed me. Two female police followed closely behind me, regardless of whether I was working, shopping, eating or meeting guests. At night, they stayed outside my home. They sabotaged my personal freedom and my right to privacy. Sometimes they would abruptly run into my office. I was not allowed to have any business trips either. They had severely disturbed my normal life. This lasted from December 18 of 2000 to January 2 of 2001.
On January 5 of 2001, I was forced to move out of my old apartment, even though I had purchased it. Even more outrageous, when I moved to a new place, the local property administration department received a notice from the police station to cut off my water and power supply. The new residential committee's harassment forced me to move out. Because the persecution was still escalating and because practitioners were often kidnapped, I gave up my newly renovated apartment and led a vagrant life. Later, I learned that the police and the XX politics and law committee had surrounded my new house and tried to take me away. However, they held my elder sister, who was in the house but who did not practice Falun Gong. For 4 days, they forced her to write pledges before freeing her. My elder sister had traveled a long way in order to see me. Unexpectedly, the people who had tried to take me away attacked her. She was forced to tell them my whereabouts. My sister then pointed to a 17-meter long rope tied to the window of the apartment on the fifth floor, and questioned them. They dared not answer.
In the past 19 months, countless families of Falun Gong practitioners have been torn apart. Numerous practitioners like me have been deprived of basic human rights: freedom of belief, the right to work, the right to raise our children and the right to live normal lives. Our only choice is to be tortured in labor camps or to live as vagrants.
Compared to the ten thousand fellow practitioners who have been detained in labor camps, my suffering is really nothing. My fellow practitioners are forced to do slave labor daily. The guards and criminal inmates torture them constantly because Jiang Zemin's regime wants them to betray their faith. We appeal to all the kind-hearted people in the world to stop Jiang Zemin and his accomplices from continuing their criminal activity.
April 2001.
