(Clearwisdom.net) I am Zhao Jun, a Falun Gong practitioner employed at the Dongfeng Mineral Company in Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province. In 2000 and 2001 my wife and I were illegally detained several times. The guards at the detention center incited other criminals to strip off all my clothes and pour basins of ice-cold water on my head and body. The guards handcuffed me and hung me by the handcuffs, and then pierced me with needles. When my wife and I were persecuted, there was no one to take care of our two children.

I began to practice Falun Gong in the autumn of 1998. Prior to that, all of my family members had illnesses. My ten-year-old son had cerebral cysticercosis (caused by a tapeworm) and a brain tumor. My wife had leg pains and pain in her esophagus. In addition, she had lumbago and urethritis (pelvic inflammation). I had heart disease. When we were beyond hope, we were fortunate to begin Dafa cultivation, Our diseases then miraculously disappeared. I have come to understand the essence of my life since beginning Falun Gong practice.

Jiang Zemin's regime began persecuting Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. In June 2000 my wife and I went to Beijing to appeal. The police in Beijing were arresting Falun Gong practitioners everywhere. Falun Gong practitioners went to Tiananmen Square to appeal. Police officers there brutally beat the practitioners. I saw how a male practitioner was beaten and slammed on the ground, and the policemen kicked his face brutally. His face became severely distorted.

Several days later I went to Tiananmen Square again. The police kicked my front teeth and knocked out an incisor. We then were illegally detained at the Tiananmen Police Station, where a practitioner told me, "My body is extensively injured. The police took me to a room and stripped off all my clothes. They used a strap dipped in cold water to violently beat me. I passed out. They used cold water to wake me."

They took us from the Tiananmen Police Station to the Haidian District Detention Center in Beijing, and then took us to the Second Detention Center of Qitaihe City and illegally detained us there for three months. This time I compromised and did things and said the words against my will.

After my wife returned, the deputy chief of police brutally beat my wife and then incarcerated her at the Beishan Second Detention Center in Qitaihe City. Our two young children were helpless. They went to their uncle's home, expecting to have breakfast. Their uncle was busy with his own affairs and often could not prepare the children's breakfast, so our two children went to school hungry.

Around September 2000, my wife and I returned home. In December 2000, my wife and I were arrested again, this time at the hands of agents from the Dongfengkuang Police Station. Because I said that Falun Dafa was good and Falun Dafa was righteous, deputy chief Jiang Weifeng held me at the detention center. Because of my attachments, I said again what I should not have said and did what I should not have done.

In 2001, I was persecuted again. The detention center guards ordered the criminals to strip off all my clothes and pour basins of ice-cold water on my head and body. The guards handcuffed me, hung me up, and then pierced me with needles, just like before. The criminals were ordered to torture me. They beat my temples with their fists, and hit my back with their elbows several times. I was tortured so severely each time that I could barely breathe. After one beating, they asked me if I would continue practicing. Later the policemen forced five of us practitioners to work for them.

Three months later, in December 2001, we five practitioners began a hunger strike and requested an unconditional release. With Master's help and the righteous help of outside fellow practitioners we returned home and continued validating Dafa.

April 4, 2007