(Minghui.org) It has been 16 years, but the horrible memory of being brutally beaten still haunts Mr. Zhao Shengwen.
Two police officers hit his cheeks and he immediately lost one tooth. He was not allowed to spit out the tooth, but had to swallow it. They kept hitting him so hard that most of his teeth came loose. He lost one tooth after another within a few days and in the end he had lost 25 teeth.
His ordeal happened in January 2000, six months after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the persecution of Falun Gong, a cultivation practice that requires its practitioners to follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.
Just as many of his fellow practitioners, he went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong. He went to Tiananmen Square on the early morning of January 28. After he shouted “Falun Dafa is Good! My Teacher is Innocent!” several plainclothes police officers dashed towards him, pushed him to the ground, grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him into a police van.
Locked into Metal Cage and Beaten
There were many fellow practitioners in the police van. They were taken to the Qianmen Police Station and thrown into metal cages.
Torture Illustration: Metal Cage
Acting Out Hatred
Soon Mr. Zhao's name was called. He was turned over to two police officers from his hometown. They pushed him into a van, after which they began to torture him. They hit his cheeks until they were exhausted. This resulted in his losing the 25 teeth.
Then, they took him to an office, where they handcuffed and hung him from a metal pipe.
An officer released him at 10 p.m. Then, that officer hit his back and the back of his head until he was too tired to continue. The officer said he hated Mr. Zhao because he dared to practice Falun Gong even though he was a Communist Party member.
The torture continued. They hung him again on the metal pipe, where they left him until the next morning.
In the morning he was taken back to his home town, Tai'an City, Shandong Province, where he was detained for another 15 days.
Workplace Persecution
His workplace demanded that he write statements declaring that he would give up Falun Gong, and he refused. Instead, he wrote that he would quit the Party.
The next two years, the 53-year-old mechanical engineer encountered many difficulties for his belief.
Although he was a technical staff member, he was assigned to the most labor intensive motorcycle assembly work. He worked 14 hours a day, but was only paid a pittance of 195 yuan per month until he retired in 2007.
His family experienced financial difficulties, especially after his wife became ill. They had at times only 17 yuan a month to pay for expenses.
