(Minghui.org) In the lawsuit filed against former head of the Communist Party Jiang Zemin, Ms. Li Yan, a middle school teacher and Falun Dafa practitioner, described the torture and humiliation she endured during her six arrests and three forced labor camp terms. But the worst of all was being separated from her daughter for so much of her childhood.
When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Dafa in July 1999, Ms. Li Yan, 39, went to Tiananmen Square to speak out for Dafa and was arrested. She was removed from her teaching position and made to work in the library.
She went to Tiananmen Square to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa again on January 1, 2000. When she helped another practitioner hold up a banner, a police officer kicked her to the ground. He was about to stomp on her stomach when she cried, “I'm pregnant!”
Ms. Li was detained in the Fengtai Detention Center in Beijing for seven days. The room was so packed with Falun Dafa practitioners that it was hard to turn around. Her pregnancy made it an especially terrible experience, and she was not able to carry her baby to term.
Her third arrest in March 2001 was for distributing literature about Falun Dafa and the persecution where she lived – the residential buildings of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) General Logistic Department.
Even though she was six months pregnant again, she was kicked out of her residence. Her husband and father-in-law were reprimanded, and the disciplinary action went onto their permanent record.
Ms. Li's school arranged for her to live on campus. At the request of the authorities, the school sent a teacher to watch her around the clock. Security guards didn't allow her to leave the premises. She complained about the house arrest, which was hard on her pregnancy, but nothing changed.
When Ms. Li was arrested again on April 28, 2005, her daughter was taken away from her. The little girl, not yet four years old, kept turning around to look at her mother every step as she was pulled away. Ms. Li will never forgot the helpless, heartbroken look in her innocent daughter's eyes.
Ms. Li was held in a forced labor camp for the next two years.
When her daughter was six, they were reunited, only to be separated again a year later: Ms. Li was arrested in June 2008 and put in forced labor camp for two and a half years.
She was brutally tortured in the labor camp. After being released in December 2010, she was often in a daze. Her child, nine years old by then, had to wave her little hand in front of her mother's eyes to bring her back in focus.
Mother and daughter were separated again in March 2012, when Ms. Li was arrested and put into forced labor camp for the third time.
Ms. Li's father took care of her daughter when she was in the forced labor camp.
The fracturing of her family took a toll on the little girl. She got poor grades in school and refused to listen to adults. Her grandfather was afraid to answer phone calls from the school, because the teachers kept calling him to report that she was having problems at school.
After being released in July 2013, Ms. Li tried to re-establish their relationship and help her daughter to redevelop a positive attitude. She showed trust in her and shared her thoughts with her. On daily things, such as studying, eating right, and behavior, she told her what she would do following Falun Dafa's principles.
In time, the girl changed. She was more serious about her studies, and her grades improved. In the next three months, she went from tenth in her class to fourth, then first, and then number one in her entire grade! The walls of their home were full of her school awards over the past two years.
She was more considerate of others. She let the older people eat first, took care of her own things, and didn't ask for anything extravagant. She also provided her mother with what support she could offer.
Ms. Li had to do hard labor in the first forced labor camp.
She was severely tortured and humiliated the second time she was kept in a labor camp. The guards didn't give her warm clothes in the cold weather, just letting her shiver in a single shirt. When she found torn but warmer clothes to wear, the guards forced her to take them off and made her stand at night.
In the summer, the guards opened a window to let the mosquitoes in to bite Ms. Li and the other practitioners. They also forced her to sit on a high chair for 18 hours for several days in a room where the temperature was 104 degrees Fahrenheit.
The female guards stripped her clothes off and made lewd comments every day when they checked her cell.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners during the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law now allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.