(Minghui.org) I recently read Master Li's response to a practitioner's question during the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference:
“Question: On this holiday, please accept all Dafa disciples' respect and gratitude. We will definitely do well and make Master happier and less worried.
“Teacher: Thank you! (Applause) Dafa disciples are all still being persecuted. You want me to be happy, but I can't be. How many Dafa disciples are being persecuted in those evil labor camps in China at this very moment! But I do appreciate your goodwill.” (Teaching the Fa at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference)
I realized that as Master's disciples we, too, need to care about each and every incarcerated practitioner, as well as their family members. Sine I had been imprisoned in China's forced labor camps, prisons, detention centers, and brainwashing centers, I know firsthand how miserable it is in these state-run facilities. I also know many of the thoughts, needs, and feelings of the practitioners imprisoned there.
While I was incarcerated, a group of fellow practitioners—some of whom I knew and some of whom I did not know—reached out to help me.
Since then, I have tried to help out as many imprisoned practitioners as I can. I often think about the needs of these practitioners and what they're hoping we do to secure their release.
I know a steadfast practitioner who absolutely refused to cooperate with the evil in a forced labor camp, even though he was often shocked with several electric batons, at the same time. Both the guards and inmates admired him. However, only a few friends and family members had ever come to visit him.
The local practitioners in his area did not even know that he had been incarcerated. I was later taken to the same labor camp as he was, thus I had gotten a chance to know him.
The guards had confined him to a very small cell. Since he did not have any money in his prison spending account, he could not afford even the most basic of necessities. In time, he had become extremely emaciated.
After I had been released from prison in 2012, I read an article in Minghui Weekly about his untimely death. According to the article, he had been injected with toxic, unknown drugs, right before he was scheduled to be released. Shortly after, he passed away.
I find it hard to accept the fact that such a steadfast practitioner has left this world. I can't help but think, “If the practitioners in his local area had expressed some concern over his whereabouts—after not hearing from him for so long—perhaps he would be alive today!” His death is a big loss for all practitioners, everywhere, as everyone is needed to help save more sentient beings.
While I had been imprisoned in a local labor camp, the practitioners in my area got together to send righteous thoughts for my early release. Camp guards told me that they felt a pressure whenever they entered my cell. Since they did not have the same feeling upon entering other practitioners' cells, they did not dare to beat me.
When my elder sister, a fellow practitioner, had visited me, she told the guard, “You refuse to let me visit my brother. Is it because you and others are regularly beating him?” The guard looked very worried.
Upon my release, the head of the local 610 Office said, “You are very fortunate to have an elder sister who cares about you. The other man was not so fortunate!” referring to the practitioner who had died from an injection of unknown drugs.
However, it was totally different when I had been imprisoned in a labor camp outside of my province. One guard even yelled at me, “When we bully you, what are you going to do about it? You're from another province and you don't have that many acquaintances here. If you want to go on a hunger strike; go right ahead. Nobody here cares if you live or die!”
I later found out that the practitioners in my area had searched everywhere for me, after losing contact with each other.
I once talked with the head of a state security brigade, while being detained at a local police station. As he was booking me, he became very arrogant. “I don't fear being exposed on Minghui or The Epoch Times!”he shouted.
After I told the doctors and police in the detention center about his wrongdoings, he was no longer arrogant with me. When I told the brigade head of the labor camp about this man, he listened very carefully.
“You should write down his wrongdoings,” he said while handing me a pen and paper. On the day that I was released from the camp, he said, “I'll give you a hint. You can either give up your belief in Falun Gong or you can file a lawsuit against the police.”
Actually, the perpetrators are afraid of being exposed to the world through the Minghui website. They anxiously browse the website every day and thoroughly read the articles. If we state any inaccurate details concerning their involvement in the persecution, they immediately accuse us of framing them.
But it is not enough to expose them on Minghui. Their wrongdoings should be brought to the attention of the local populous and upper-level officials, in order to stop the persecution.
With the New Year being just days away, I suggest that fellow practitioners, including all those overseas, send greeting cards to the imprisoned practitioners! The impact that these cards have on the practitioners there, the inmates, and the prison staff, should not be underestimated!
Article composed on December 29, 2014.
