(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong is a cultivation way of the physical and the spiritual, including improvement of xinxing and performing exercises.
Falun Gong practitioners are often asked when they are unlawfully arrested, "Will you still practice?" Some are thrown in prison simply for answering, "Yes." Party officials ask practitioners at prisons and labor camps the same question, and the first thing they order the practitioners to do is to write guarantee statements [to abandon the practice].
How absurd it is to try to coerce a cultivator to say that he/she will not practice Falun Gong! The Party's sinister intention is to make Falun Gong practitioners betray their belief and conscience. But practitioners blaze their own path, continuing to practice exercises despite unimaginable hardships, and this terrifies the Party.
Practitioner Ms. Li Xiuhong from Tonghua City, Jilin Province, was savagely tortured for doing the exercises in Heizuizi Women's Forced Labor Camp in Changchun. She rose early in the morning on June 4, 2008, to do the exercises. The guards shocked her with five electric batons, with their batteries fully charged, one by one. Guard Yan Lifeng said, "The Minghui (Clearwisdom) website says we shocked you with four electric batons. That's not enough--we'll use five this time." Guards Ye Yin and Wei Dan kicked her while shocking her with the batons. Ye Yin asked her, "Will you still practice?" She also violently slapped her face and hit her face with the handles of a pair of scissors, cut her hair, and struck her so hard she fell down. The electric baton attack lasted for an entire day. The stench of charred flesh filled the room.
Afterwards the guards tied Ms. Li to a Death Bed and immobilized her arms and legs with handcuffs and a belt. Unable to move, she had to be fed and had a bucket placed underneath her as a toilet. The limit for using the Death Bed on a single detainee is seven days, but she was tied there for two weeks. She was released so she could take a shower, and then tied back up. Her back became completely numb in time, and her legs were purple from lack of circulation. Her heart beat abnormally, and her blood pressure was unstable. She developed huge abscesses near her tailbone. They untied her legs only when pus was about to drip from the abscesses and tied her up again once the infections subsided. The Death Bed's metal bars made her muscles sore, and flesh near her tailbone turned black and numb.
Ms. Li Xiuhong was first tied to the Death Bed in early June 2008. Wang Lei refused to let anyone wipe her sweat away in July or give her a sponge bath or change her clothes. She remained handcuffed in September and October, which means she didn't shower in two months. Because she continued to refuse to write guarantee statements, she remained on the bed for nine months, until March 31, 2009.
She did the exercises as soon as she was let off the bed. The guards ordered inmate Wang Yuqin to tie her arms and legs with strips cut from bed sheets. They also beat her and shoved her around. At one point her head hit the pointed corner of the metal bed. Wang Yuqin told inmates Wu Cuie and Liu Fengqin, "Kick her legs until they break if she does the exercises again." She also said to thief Yang Yingxia, "If she does the exercises, you can beat her to death and don't worry about it, because the government is 'taking care of' Falun Gong right now so they won't have any place to appeal, so we can do anything to them without consequence."
Wang Yuqin poured water on the floor after seeing Ms. Li doing exercises on September 6, 2009, kicked her to the ground, pinned her down so the back of her clothes were soaked, and dragged her back and forth in a pool of water. Then she threw Ms. Li into the hallway.
When Ms. Li practiced the exercises as usual on April 25, 2009, convict Zhang Lijuan, who was serving time for financial fraud, grabbed her head and banged it against a railing. When she kicked Ms. Li's head, her face smashed into a heating pipe, and her mouth bled. Zhang Lijuan also shoved her to the ground in front of everyone, kicking her in the back. Inmate Lin Yuxue beat and injured Ms. Li many times, once scratching her neck, causing bruises.
Ms. Li persisted in doing the exercises despite having endured brutal torture. There are countless others like Ms. Li who put their lives on the line to uphold their right to believe what they choose. True practitioners of Falun Gong have never cowered under pressure of any form.
Guards at Jidong Prison in Beixinbao Township, Huailai County, Beijing, would not let practitioner Mr. Chen Aili sleep. They isolated him and demanded to know whether he would continue to practice. Whenever they asked, Mr. Chen would say, "Yes." The guards said, "You can't practice, even if you say yes." He replied, "But I'll still say yes!" The guards ordered inmates to pour boiling water on his head. The instant he came to, the guard seized the moment and asked, "Will you still practice?" He said, "Yes," before losing consciousness again. He was tortured with another pot of boiling water. Mr. Chen screamed in horrific pain, yet as soon as he caught his breath, he said, "Yes!" The guards ran out of ideas and gave up trying to "reform" him.
Communist regime officials are afraid when practitioners say, "Yes, I will practice." Given the mindset the Communist Party has instilled in them, these officials cannot understand the profound meaning of the practice. When they fail to bend the practitioners to their will after exhausting all types of torture methods, they can only stand in awe of such determination and integrity.
The word "yes" coming from Falun Gong practitioners shocks and frightens the evildoers, as it shows their great determination.
