(Minghui.org) It was in May 2003. I was handcuffed to a bed in a Chinese medicine hospital, where policemen guarded my ward around the clock. A man who looked like a doctor in a white lab coat came and talked to the policeman on duty. I could only catch a few words: “unsuitable for operation.”

My name is Cao Xueqin. I'm a Falun Dafa practitioner in Lingshui County Guang'an City, Sichuan Province. I was sentenced to three years of forced labor in July 2002 and detained in Nanmusi Women's Forced Labor Camp in Zizhong County.

In January 2003, I went on a hunger strike to protest the physical and mental torture. My weight dropped from 150 pounds to about 70 pounds after two months of hunger strike, force-feeding and frequent beatings by other inmates instigated by the prison guards.

I became very weak in May 2003. One day, I was lying in bed with my eyes closed. I heard division chief Li Qi come in. She checked to see if I was still breathing and left.

Later, a dozen prison guards carried me into a van and handcuffed my hands to two sides of the vehicle. The van took me to the Zizhong County Chinese Medicine Hospital. Policemen guarded my ward around the clock.

On the day after I was moved to the hospital, deputy chief of the forced labor camp Yin Dan came in and asked, “Have you decided to 'transform' (abandon one's belief in Falun Dafa)?” Hearing me answer “No,” she said, “If you don't transform, you will get a surgery.”

Later on the same day, another prison guard, Yang Zhengrong, and an inmate helping the guards, Cao Jiemei, both came to my ward and asked the same question and both threatened to “give me an operation” if I refused to renounce Falun Dafa.

Torture reenactment: Handcuffed to a bed

I stayed in the hospital for about five days. Then came a man about 5'6” tall in a white lab coat who looked like a medical doctor. He talked to the policeman who guarded my ward. I could only catch a few words like “unsuitable for operation” and “not qualified.”

After he left, inmate Cai Jiemei came in and told me that I was lucky.

The next day, the labor camp phoned my sister and notified our local 610 Office to take me home because of my health condition.

I have reflected on this incident many times in the past 11 years. I had been healthy before I was jailed and after I was released. I knew I didn't have any health issue that needed an operation.

Besides, from the way we were treated, it did not appear that ensuring our health was of any concern to the authorities. One prison guard once threatened me by saying, “You told me Falun Gong cured your illness—now I will beat you until the illness returns to you” and “China has such a large population, it is nothing if some Falun Gong practitioners die.”

After the forced organ harvesting crime was exposed years later, I realized that my experience was likely an attempt by the forced labor camp to sell my organs.