(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Gao Chunlian, 42, is a resident of Dasha Village in the Qingliangsi District of Zhuozhou City. Ms. Gao started to practice Falun Dafa in 1996. She was once an employee of Gaobei Toll Station in Jingshi Highway Zhuozhou Section, until she was dismissed in 2001 for practicing Falun Gong. On July 31, 2001, Yang Yugang, from the National Security Division, along with Zhang Wei, sent her to the Balizhuang Forced Labor Camp in Baoding City for a two-year term. The guards at the labor camp coerced detained criminals to physically abuse her through beating, sleep deprivation, etc.

On April 18, 2001, a Zhuozhou City National Security Bureau official found her telephone number when taking another practitioner into custody. Ms. Gao was then arrested at her home and sent to the Nanma Brainwashing Center. After escaping on the morning of April 21, she was arrested again on April 24, by the Beijing Babaoshan police, when she traveled to Beijing.

Ms. Gao was illegally detained in the Beijing Shijingshan Detention Center for 25 days. Every day, she was forced to sit up straight all day long, and was beaten whenever she showed signs of feeling tired. Ms. Gao was later transferred to Zhuozhou Detention Center, where she went on a hunger strike to appeal the illegal detention. The detention center head instructed Dr. Zhang Yugang to force-feed her. Zhang inserted a thick rubber tube into her stomach through her nostril. When the tube was pulled out, it carried a large amount of blood. One detained criminal cried upon witnessing this scene. Zhang then threatened Ms. Gao, "We will insert the tube into this nostril in the morning, and into the other nostril in the afternoon." Han Zhanshan, Party secretary of the Zhuozhou City Political and Judicial Committee, sentenced her to a two-year term at a forced labor camp during a city-wide gathering, and paraded her through the streets.

On July 31, 2001, Yang Yugang and Zhang Wei from the National Security Division sent Ms. Gao to the Balizhuang Forced Labor Camp. The guards coerced detained criminals there to physically abuse her and other practitioners and deprive them of sleep. The practitioners who did not yield were made to do extreme physical labor, including working with lead, climbing onto high iron racks, etc. Ms. Gao's hands were worn out and covered with blood and blisters. While working in the high temperature environment, she and other practitioners inhaled large amounts of poisonous lead every day without any protection. Some practitioners fainted from fatigue and some coughed up blood. In the winter, they were forced to work from 7:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with no lunch. Even in other units, practitioners had to perform labor for as long as 13 hours per day. For practitioners who did not yield, the labor camp officials did not allow their family members to visit them. Guard Zhang Guohong took away their pens and paper, preventing them from writing letters to their families.

On July 25, 2002, Ms. Gao refused to watch videos slandering Falun Gong. Guard Liu Ziwei thus pulled her into a small office and handcuffed her hands onto a chair. Guard Bai Jie also ordered someone to handcuff both her legs to the chair. During the night, mosquitoes were all over Ms. Gao's body. The guards kept watching her all the time, and did not allow her to sleep. Director Li Xiuqin and Yan Qingfen talked to her after midnight, until 4:00 a.m. (the time to get up and work is 5:00 a.m.). Because she refused to write a "guarantee statement" renouncing Falun Dafa, guards Zhang Guohong and Chen Yajuan took turns kicking her legs.

On August 12, guards Li Xiuqin and Zhang Guohong were on duty. Chen Yajuan shocked Ms. Gao with electric batons for refusing to yield. Liu Ziwei ordered several detained criminals, including Zhang Hong, Wu Xiaoli and Kan Chunjuan, to take turns beating her. The inmates grabbed Ms. Gao by the hair and knocked her head against the wall more than 40 times. They also slapped her face over 100 times and hit her in the mouth and jaw. They took turns kicking her legs. Liu Ziwei kicked her in the stomach. Four of them beat her for more than three hours. As a result, Ms. Gao's hair was all over the floor, and both her mouth and nose were bleeding. Her jaw was fractured and her face was swollen and deformed. Her left leg was injured and she could not walk at that time. Even now, she cannot walk for a long time nor perform heavy physical labor. Because of the beating, her left leg is thinner than the right one, and it often feels cold throughout the year. After the beating, Ms. Gao's head was swollen with a stinging headache and it hurt to lay her head on the pillow. After holding a hunger strike for three days and enduring severe beatings, Ms. Gao was forced by guard Zhu Man to stand up straight for an extended period of time. In attempts to "transform" Ms. Gao, the guards tortured her for more than three months. The mission of the labor camp was: "For those who do not yield, guards will not receive bonuses. They will torture you so severely that you would rather die." The goal of the torture is that when practitioners cannot bear the suffering any longer, they will give up practicing Falun Gong.

Because Ms. Gao stopped guards from slandering Dafa, her term was extended by 10 days. On May 28, 2003, a labor camp official contacted the Zhuozhou Police Department. Gao Jian, Party secretary of the Qingliangshi Branch, sent Ms. Gao to the Nanma Brainwashing Center. The next day, the brainwashing center director Gao Xuefei instructed Zhao Yinjiu, Wang Chao and Wang Lei to beat Ms. Gao. Wang Lei beat her with a rubber baton and force-fed her. Li Ming, director of the 610 Office, ordered the thugs to handcuff her to the bed. Every night for over a month, she had one hand handcuffed to the bed.

Because of the torture, Ms. Gao kept vomiting and her face turned purple. She is very emaciated and weighs less than 45 kilograms (99 lbs.). Du Yonglu insisted on not releasing her, and did not notify her family until she was in a life-threatening condition. Ms. Gao's family took her to Erkang Hospital for emergency care. In the hospital, several officers from the Judicial Divison of the Qingliangshi Branch tried to force Ms. Gao to yield, including Chang Dechun, Li Chunhua, and Wang Xuesong. They also sent people to monitor her.

During the two-year detention, Ms. Gao's father, who had experienced countless hardships in his life, helped look after her 9-year-old son. He had to take care of the whole family. He worried for his daughter and was often in tears. Neighbors often heard Ms. Gao's father crying in sorrow in his room. Sometimes he sat by the river and just stared at the water. Living in grief and worry all the time, his physical and mental condition worsened. On March 22, 2004 of the lunar calendar, Ms. Gao's father passed away at the age of 66. While Ms. Gao was in the labor camp, her 9-year-old son often cried in bed while covering himself with a blanket. He could not bear life without his mother. One year after Ms. Gao was sent to the labor camp, her son left his grandpa and went to stay with his father's family. When Ms. Gao was cleaning her son's pillow after returning home, she found it covered in tear marks.

In June 2005, Yang Yugang, from the National Security Division, together with Gao Jian, Party secretary of the local branch, went to Ms. Gao's home to look for her and harass her. As a result, Ms. Gao was forced to stay away from her home, and had to move from place to place.

As a Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Gao acts according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, and as a result both her mind and body have benefited. However, the Chinese Communist Party ignores all of these benefits and drove Ms. Gao's father to his death, and herself into homelessness.

Ms. Gao's experience is just the tip of the iceberg of the persecution in China. Since Jiang Zemin's regime started persecutinh Falun Gong in 1999, more than 3000 practitioners have been persecuted to death. How many families have been broken, how many children have lost their parents, and how many parents have lost their children?

June 18, 2007