(Minghui.org) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has persecuted Falun Dafa and Falun Dafa practitioners for 20 years. With much gratitude to compassionate Master Li Hongzhi, I write about this special experience in my life to tell the world that evil cannot conquer what is right.
On May 13, 2003, Ms. Wei Xingyan, a graduate student at Chongqing University, was arrested for hanging up banners and releasing balloons that said “Falun Dafa is good” on them.
In the Baiheling Detention Center in the Shapingba District, Ms. Wei was raped by an officer in front of two female prisoners. The Chongqing police, procuratorate, court, and the 610 Office tried to cover it up and deny it after the event was exposed internationally.
Because I helped publicize this incident, I was illegally arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Someone knocked on my door the night of the 2003 Mid-Autumn Festival. When I didn’t answer, they knocked louder and then began pounding. When I still didn't answer after 30 minutes of pounding, they used an electric saw to get in.
They cut the door open and a dozen police officers broke into my home. One was still holding the electric saw in his hand when they rushed in.
I was calm and invited them to sit down. I gave them water and fruit, thinking that they should be saved and the evil behind them eliminated.
After I was released from prison, I heard a story about one of the officers from the 610 Office who broke into my home and arrested me.
Not long after they broke in and arrested me, this officer went home and told his mother-in-law about how compassionate that Falun Dafa practitioner was. “We broke into her home with a saw, searched it, and turned it inside out,” he said. “It was chaos. But, she was so friendly. She even served us water and fruit.”
After that, he applied to transfer away from the 610 Office and became a traffic officer.
On the night of the break-in, they didn't find what they were looking after searching my apartment. But they took away a miniature copy of Zhuan Falun that I kept in my handbag.
At about 1 a.m., the police took me away. My in-laws lived on the same floor as us, and they witnessed everything.
As the police were taking me away, my in-laws asked, “Where are you taking her? She is a nice person, and her child is still young. Stop!"
I was forced down the stairs, the old couple's voices echoing behind me. I was taken to the police station and tied me to a chair. One person was left to watch me.
At about five in the morning, the man watching me left, and only one officer remained at the duty desk.
I slowly moved my hands and felt I could take my hands out of the handcuffs. With strong righteous thoughts, I slowly took my hands out.
Seeing the officer on duty was asleep, I slowly got up, walked out the door, and ran to the gate. Just then the officer woke up.
He couldn't catch up with me, so he shouted, “What will I do if you leave?”
That made me stop, and I thought to myself, “Yes, if I leave like this, he may lose his job. He will resent me for that, and I don’t want that.” So I went back and sat in the chair. That afternoon I was taken to the Yuzhong District Detention Center.
They searched me and cut my waist-length hair very short. The person who cut my hair said, “You look nice and polite. What could you have done to be here?”
I said, “I didn't do anything wrong. I just told the truth and reported a real event.” I was taken to a small cell in the prison.
The cell head sat beside me and whispered, “Are you a Falun Dafa practitioner?” I confirmed that I was.
She said, “When I first ended up in jail, I met a Falun Dafa practitioner. She taught me to recite the poems and said they were written by Master Li. They were well written.” We became friends.
That evening, I made a bed on the floor and slept.
A 19-year-old deaf girl slept next to me. She was sentenced to eight months in prison for stealing a bag. She had two more months before her release. Looking at her young face, I shed tears.
She said to me with sign language, “I love you.” I held her hands on my chest and told her, “I love you, too!”
She understood what I meant and put her head in my arms. She also shed tears.
The next night, with sign language, I told her I had just learned: “Falun Dafa is good!” She replied with sign language, “Falun Dafa is good” and patted her chest with the palm of her hands, meaning, “I remember.”
A week later, I was taken to a guest house in the Shapingba District of Chongqing. That was a city-level “transformation” class dedicated to forcing Falun Dafa practitioners to abandon the practice.
The floors and hallways were covered with pictures slandering Dafa. I told myself, “Send forth righteous thoughts 24 hours a day from now on.”
I was not allowed to sleep for four days and nights because the police wanted to get me to “confess.” The head of the 610Office who had searched my home on the Mid-Autumn Festival night screamed at me, “I don’t care if you do not confess anything. We have collected all the evidence we need. We just want to see if you are honest.” People from the 610 Office clenched their fists as if to hit me, but they never did.
I knew Master protected me from being beaten.
On the sixth day, they said to me, “Our funds are limited and we don’t want to pay to stay here any longer. We have to leave even if you don't confess. We already have a lot of evidence against you.”
I began to recite the Fa every day at four in the morning on the days and nights of the interrogations. Nothing could interfere with me. Although I was not allowed to sleep for a few days, my mind was clear, and I knew Master was by my side.
A week later, I was taken to the Yuzhong District Detention Center again. As soon as I entered the cell, everyone surrounded me and asked questions. The deaf girl put her head on my chest. I told them about my experiences the previous week and why the police arrested me again.
In the detention center, officers came to interrogate me again. One said, “You are to sign the arrest warrant today.”
The other one said, “I will still give you a chance. As long as you say the exposure of the Ms. Wei Xingyan incident was directed by your master, you will be sent home, and you will never be held criminally responsible.”
I looked at him and answered calmly and firmly, “That’s impossible!”
Four practitioners, including myself, were taken to the First Intermediate Court of Chongqing on the morning of February 16, 2004.
During the trial, I said, “I love my motherland and I love the Chinese nation. I have not done anything illegal. I am a law-abiding citizen.”
Three days after the trial, I was sentenced to 10 years in prison. They sent me from the Yuzhong District Detention Center to Chongqing Women's Prison.
The prison refused to accept me several times. Then I was sent to the Chongqing Municipal Juvenile Correctional Center.
There, I insisted on studying the Fa teachings, practicing the exercises, and sending forth righteous thoughts every day. A guard said, “You don’t look like someone who has lost her freedom. You glow with health.”
I told her, “That’s because I am filled with Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.”
On September 29, 2004, I was sent from the Yuzhong District Detention Center to the women's prison again. I was told the Judicial Bureau had directed the prison to take me in.
I was taken to the fourth prison ward. The fourth ward was very strictly supervised. The ward head told me the rules and asked me if I had any questions. I said, “What you described sounds like standard management practice, but I heard that this is not the case for Falun Dafa practitioners.
“I’ve heard that some of them are not allowed to buy sanitary napkins, and they are deprived of basic human rights.” She asked if I believed it and I replied, “I hope it is not like that. That is violating basic human rights and is an intolerable injustice!” Perhaps my attitude touched her heart.
I was not beaten or cursed at by anyone in the prison, although it is an institution that that specializes in “transforming” Falun Dafa practitioners.
The person in charge once asked me why I didn’t “transform.” She said, “Have you thought about your family and children if you refuse to give up your faith?”
I answered, “I have never wanted to stay in jail, but I would rather be confined in jail for 10 years than give up my principles in exchange for freedom.”
It was a deep conversation, and I had many conversations like this. Every time I told them clearly and firmly, “Falun Dafa is great!”
When Wang Lijun was in charge of the Chongqing Municipal Police Department, Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun demanded a mandatory “transformation” of all Falun Dafa practitioners in Chongqing.
Thus, the Chongqing Women’s Prison began another round of brainwashing to try to “transform” determined Dafa disciples. The officers in the prison instructed the prisoners to take turns subjecting me to brainwashing me and depriving me of sleep.
The officer in charge of “transformation” again talked with me.
I told her, “It’s not right for you to deprive me of sleep. The human body needs sleep. It is cruel to deny it. In addition, you have deprived all those practitioners who refuse to abandon Dafa of their right to sleep.
“But, on your duty record, it shows that every night at 10 o'clock I am sent back to the prison cell to sleep. What kind of behavior is this?”
She was stunned, and from then on, she let me sleep.
In the prison, the officers directed the prisoners to place unidentified drugs in my mug, thermos, and rice bowl. But Master protected me time and time again.
I was on the list to have my blood tested. I asked Master to protect me and to never allow them to take my blood.
When it was my turn, three or four inmates helped the prison doctor to take my blood. The doctor first wiped my right hand with disinfectant, and the blood vessels could be seen clearly. However, to her surprise, she couldn't find any blood vessels on the backs of my hands.
She patted on the backs of my hands to let the vessels show, but they did not. Everyone said in astonishment, “There were visible blood vessels just now. How could they disappear like that?”
I said in my heart, “Master, thank you so much for protecting me!” With the compassionate care of Master, my blood was never drawn over the course of my 10 years in prison.
With the protection of compassionate Master, I repeatedly defeated the officers' attempts to persecute me. In this process, I never lost my compassion. I understood the enormous power of compassion.
When my term was about to end, an officer said, “In fact, we officers all respect you very much.”
Another officer said, “Seeing you are so persistent in it, I borrowed and read the book Zhuan Falun.”
The other officer said, “I also believe in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance after seeing your conduct.” It is the compassion of Master and the power of Dafa that have saved the sentient beings who witnessed my compassionate conduct.
Life in prison was tough. There was only one thermos of hot water per person per day.
This was the case in the spring, summer, fall, and winter. I gave my hot water to other inmates when they took a bath.
During my ten years in prison whether it was cold or hot, or how I felt, I always took cold showers. Apart from leaving some to drink, I gave all the rest of my hot water to other inmates.
Other than that, we had one steamed dumpling for breakfast once a week.
Because life was tough there, the inmates wanted more, as just one bun was not enough for most of them. Therefore, on the days we had buns, I would give my bun to others and only took a bowl of porridge.
I felt the kindness I manifested was second nature for a cultivator.
A prisoner in my cell was sentenced to death. However, her execution was delayed.
Her bed faced mine. Every night before going to sleep, she looked at me with a helpless look.
She later told me that her son was in the sixth grade but he refused to go to school because he’d seen her kill his father with a knife and was so hurt and upset that he couldn’t get over it.
The child’s grandparents tried every possible way to help him but in vain. Every time she called home, her family always said her son was extremely rebellious.
She asked me, “Can you help me write a letter to him to encourage him?” I agreed.
I wrote letters to her son, like a mother would, for three years. Later she and I were no longer in the same cell.
I met her again in the prison when my sentence was about to end. She told me, “It was your letters that changed my son. Now he has graduated from a technical high school and found a job.”
She later told her son the letters were written by me on her behalf. When her son came to visit his mom in prison, he said, “Please give my regards to the Aunty who wrote letters to me. Please thank her for all the letters. They helped me to understand the truth of being a man, how to live, and how to face misfortunes and difficulties. They got me back on track. Otherwise, I don't know what I would be like now.”
Every year during the spring and fall, almost all the prisoners suffered from flu. But I was never affected.
Those who lived in the same cell with me witnessed everyone else suffering from the flu, but not me. The supernormal state of my health made the other prisoners understand how extraordinary Dafa is.
They recited “Falun Dafa is good!” every day.
I am sincerely grateful to our great compassionate Master!