(Minghui.org) I am from China, and my name is Wu Qilong. I am a Falun Gong practitioner. I was deported from South Korea and taken back to China on July 1, 2009. I subsequently endured illegal detention, brainwashing, surveillance, and harassment. The state security officers carried out this persecution. I was also forced to cooperate with them in fabricating news reports. I would like to clarify the facts surrounding my situation after I was deportated from South Korea to China.

I learned about and started practicing Falun Gong in Korea in 2004. From March 14, 2007, to July 1, 2009, I was held at the Huacheng Foreigners Custody Agency in South Korea because of my undocumented status. During that time, I filed three applications for refugee status. All three were denied on the grounds that I faced no danger if I returned to China. As a result, I was deported to China on July 1, 2009.

The state security officers quickly located me. They showed me their identification cards and told me, "Originally, the police were planning to arrest you, but because you returned from a foreign country, we took over." The fact was that there was pressure from the international community. The authorities had to resort to a different approach in carrying out the persecution against me. The officers kept harassing me, making phone calls every day, frequently visiting me at my workplace, and harassing me and my family at my home. They also monitored my family's phone communications. I was also subjected to brainwashing.

One day the state security officers held me in a hotel room. They ordered me to read an article that slandered Master Li Hongzhi. I pushed the article aside. They put it in front of me to force me to read it. The four officers took turns interrogating me, one after the other, so that I never got a break. After a while I couldn't bear it and asked to go to the restroom to get a moment of relief. Even then, they dispatched someone to monitor me when I was using the restroom and to take pictures of me. Throughout the day, my family kept calling me. I could not bear the torment and insisted that I be allowed to go home. At the end of the day, a head of the 610 Office shouted at me, "Wu Qilong, stop playing tricks with us. There is no escape for you!" (I later learned that I had been on their blacklist.)

After I returned home, I had a fever and started hearing things. I could not fall asleep all night long. The next morning, I felt something warm flowing out of my ear. It turned out to be blood. After that, my memory started to deteriorate. People sometimes had to repeat themselves several times before I could catch it. In the hotel room, I ate and drank what they gave me while they were trying to brainwash me. I suspected that they put something in my food and drink. When the state security officers came to look for me again, I told them about my symptoms. They replied, "It was not us." They also ordered me to write down the details of how I came to learn Falun Gong, the names of other Falun Gong practitioners that I knew, and who were the primary persons in charge and where they lived. They also ordered me to make phone calls to Falun Gong practitioners in South Korea to report that I was "safe." They also frequently coerced me to do what they wanted by threatening to harm my family. The officers took a picture of me and my wife, saying that it was only to be shown within the South Korean government.

It was not until later that I learned that they made up a story based on this picture. They fabricated a tale that someone I knew only online was my colleague. This "colleague" stated that reports online about my deportation differed from the facts. He went on to claim that he went on a trip to the suburbs with me and my wife and had firsthand information. He then said that he had taken the picture on that trip to the suburbs, and he was glad to post it online. It was a complete lie. Another outright lie in the person's online post is that he claimed to have asked me, "Were you persecuted by the Chinese regime on both occasions when you came back to China?" The fact is, after I left for South Korea in 2002, I never returned to China until I was deported back in 2009.

It could be that they were aware of the pressure from the international community. The state security officers held back any information about how I was under the Chinese Communist Party's surveillance and was being brainwashed. At the same time, they were producing false reports to prove that I lived quite well in China, without restrictions. The state security officers coerced me to meet reporters from South Korea several times. At first they said I was to meet those from KBS television station. Later, reporters from South Korean Chinese Compatriots News, a media I had never heard of, conducted the interview. The state security officers threatened me with the safety of my child. They told me to be careful about what I said, and to" think about my child." In other words, I had to say what they told me to say. They also said, "Not a single word you say to the reporters can be smuggled out by the reporters." On the day of the interview, they drove me to a place near the hotel and dropped me off so that I could walk to the hotel on my own. They told me to look natural. This was the background of my interview with reporters from South Korean Chinese Compatriots News. Here I would like to tell those reporters about the cell phone number through which they reached me: "You may think someone in the Chinese regime could have had my number, and they gave it to you. In fact, I did not have a cell phone at that time. The state security officers ordered me to carry my wife's cell phone with me at all times so that they could reach me around the clock. That was how they had my number."

From my conversations with state security officers, I have learned that they have comprehensive information on overseas Falun Gong followers. If you have participated in any activities, you face the danger of persecution. I was not able to and dared not say anything before because I was under constant surveillance and was being harassed, held in custody, and brainwashed. It is fortunate that I have escaped from China and am now able to set the record straight and tell what really happened.

I hereby appeal to the South Korean government: "For humanitarian reasons, do, by all means, offer political asylum to Falun Gong practitioners. The persecution of Falun Gong in China has not ended. I hope that no Falun Gong practitioner will ever be deported again."