(Clearwisdom.net) Editor's note: This is the personal experience of an elderly Dafa practitioner from Northeastern China. She went to Beijing to validate Dafa, but criminal police officers sent her to Liaoning Province and detained her in the Longshan and Masanjia Labor Camps. Eventually, after experiencing tremendous hardships, she broke free from Masanjia with her indestructible will.
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Under Teacher's merciful protection, I resisted the evil force, validated Dafa and endured over 575 days of evil brutal persecution because I remained steadfast in my righteous belief and thoughts towards Dafa. Finally on July 9, 2002, the authorities in the Masanjia Labor Camp were obliged to release me unconditionally. I hereby expose the torture and persecution against Dafa practitioners from the evil forces. At the same time, I am also writing to reveal practitioners' firm resistance against the evil persecution, the dignity of validating Dafa and the indestructible will.
At 9:00 a.m. on December 28, 2000, several fellow practitioners and I went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing again to validate Dafa. We were abducted by the authorities and escorted to the Tiananmen Police Station. We firmly refused to tell them our names and addresses. There were 600 to 700 practitioners in captivity, and most of them refused to do so. It was said that by the end of the year, practitioners who went to Beijing to validate Dafa were huge in numbers, coming at a rate of 1,000 people each day. At about 4:00 p.m., all of us were escorted to the Qinghe Detention Center in the Xicheng District. When we arrived, the yard was fully packed.
When it turned dark, the police drove two other practitioners and me to another police station. They abused us by taking turns to interrogate us and forbidding us to sleep. I firmly resisted all the time, and refused to tell my name and address. The vicious police were out of wits and had no choice but to drive us back to the Qinghe Detention Center on December 30, 2000. The next morning, we were again escorted to the police van. There were so many arrested practitioners from all parts of China who came to Beijing to validate Dafa that the detention centers in Beijing were full, so they had to send us to various provinces. They employed over 100 vans and the motorcade was so long that the lead car could not be seen. All the vans in the motorcade carried only Dafa practitioners. On the way, the criminal police from Shenyang City brought in two motor coaches and took away over 100 practitioners in eight vans. I was one of them.
We arrived at Shengyang at about 10:00 p.m. on the same day. The wicked police separately sent more than 100 practitioners to three different places. Fifteen of us were detained in the same cell of the City Administrative Detention Center. There were six cells here. Most of the detainees were Dafa practitioners.
Afterwards, I began a hunger strike, practiced the exercises and recited the Fa. I also brought forward three requests: be permitted to study the Fa, practice the exercises, and release us unconditionally. During those days I sat there energetically. When they measured my blood pressure on the 7th day of my hunger strike, it was quite normal (150-110) compared with my high blood pressure on arrival (220). We then took this opportunity to introduce Dafa to the guards and common prisoners.
Every day we studied and recited the Fa in turn during the daytime and practiced the exercises together in the evening. Our mood became better, owing to our diligence and advancement. On January 23, 2001 of the Chinese New Year, we sent our best wishes to Teacher Li in our hearts. Fifteen of us sat in a circle, crying. We all promised Teacher from the bottom of our hearts that we would certainly do well, and not let Teacher's merciful salvation down. Then we held a small-scale experience sharing conference and summarized our personal understandings of Fa as well as our heart-felt sentiments during the past 20 days.
The wicked police from the Shenyang City Political and Judiciary Committee often interrogated us. We firmly resisted. They then imprisoned us separately. All 15 practitioners were separated. Four practitioners and I were sent under escort to the Shenyang Police Station.
On February 2, 2001 we arrived at the Shenyang Police Station. We four were separated into different cells. There were about 30 detainees in each cell and five of them were practitioners. The chiefs of each cell were all common prisoners.
Before I went to Beijing I had just memorized Teacher's "Guiding the Voyage-- Teaching the Fa at the Western U.S. Fa Conference." Therefore, I recited this particular lecture to fellow practitioners. All of us almost cried. I believed it was because we had not listened to Teacher's lectures for quite a long time, and we all missed Teacher very much. Everyday we studied the Fa, recited "Lun Yu" [the preface of Zhuan Falun] and "Hong Yin"[the collection of Teacher's poems] and other lectures.
In the cells where Dafa practitioners were detained, we took over all the dirty jobs, and helped the common prisoners to learn how to be good people. Before that, they always had fights and snatched each other's belongs. The newcomer would be stripped naked, and be doused with cold water. Then other prisoners would beat him or her. Whoever had money and food would have all of it stolen. Groups after groups of Dafa practitioners were sent in. They introduced Dafa to the common prisoners and told them how to be good people. Gradually, we really changed the environment. Some even obtained the Fa and started to practice the exercises. One prisoner in my cell obtained the Fa and her body was purified.
Cell No. 305 got a new chief whose name was Gao Mingxian. She was very compassionate. She said all Falun Gong practitioners were good people. Nobody should bully them. She supported us in our practice of the exercises, and also asked us to teach them the poem "To be Human" in Hong Yin. Some said that once they were released, they would go to find the book written by our Teacher. The cell chief also arranged for us to tell them what Falun Gong was about, and wanted to know our experiences after practicing Falun Gong. Fellow practitioners Wenjun, Zhang Yaping and I explained the truth about the "April 25th event" to them and also the "Self-immolation" incident. Quite a few people said, "We should no longer be what we were before. We should act as good people." Some others said, "Had we known these principles before, we would not have been in captivity here." Dafa practitioners created a good environment here.
Part 2:
The "610 Office" [an agency specifically created by the Chinese government to persecute Falun Gong. It has absolute power over each level of administration in the Party, as well as over the political and judiciary systems] in Liaoning Province was extremely tough on the practitioners who went to Beijing to validate the Fa and were sent to here. They would never let any practitioner go before they got the name and address so they could send them away and relieve the pressure. The City Political and Judiciary Committee directly dispatched people to interrogate practitioners. They came once a week. The ones who interrogated me were three criminal policemen. They whipped me on the face with the edges of chopsticks. They would whip me if I didn't answer. As a result, bloody line marks were left on my face. They kept beating me for a whole morning. When I returned to the cell at noon, both fellow practitioners and common prisoners felt so distressed for me that they all could not help crying.
The next week they came to interrogate me again. They beat me on the face with a stiff plastic card despite that my wounds of last week had not healed yet. They also kicked me, over and over again, with their heavy leather boots, and pulled my hair and struck my head against the wall. They also forced me to squat half way down, otherwise they would beat me, and would pull me up after I fell down, and kept doing so, on and on. I kept silent and repeatedly recited "Lun Yu" [the preface of Zhuan Falun] in my heart. I was tortured from about 8:00 a.m. until 11:30 a.m. and became all wet, with my hair sticking to my face. I walked back to the cell by supporting myself against the wall. The common prisoners all cried when they saw me. They wanted to reason with the police and said it was too inhuman. The next day I started to protest with a hunger strike.
During the third week, these cruel policemen came to interrogate me again. They tried to make me squat when they couldn't get any answer. I didn't squat, and firmly resisted. They then kicked me with their leather boots and whipped me with a notebook. They kept asking while beating me, "Are you going to tell or not?" I said firmly, "I am not going to tell you anything, even if you torture me to death." Three months later, they still had not gotten their way. They illegally sent me to Longshan Labor Camp in Shenyang City without any legal evidence or procedures.
On May 12, 2002 I arrived in the Longshan Forced Labor Camp. I firmly and righteously said, "I am here to rectify the Fa." On the second day, they started to take turns to attack me. Each shift was taken by two of them and lasted two hours, respectively. They attempted to extort a confession by depriving me of sleep. I firmly resisted. They detained me in an empty building under construction. The team leader led the collaborators who had been brainwashed to take turns to attack me. [collaborators are former Dafa practitioners who have gone astray due to brainwashing and torture.] Three or four of them took each shift, every six hours during the night. They tortured me mentally by depriving me of sleep. They all spoke at the same time, which almost made me feel dizzy. I resisted by repeatedly reciting "Lun Yu." At last they were exhausted and said, "It has been quite long, what do you think?" I then started to say: "All you said were twisted and evil understandings. I cultivate according to Teacher's Fa and principle. Yours are evil understandings, and you should enlighten and return to righteousness. What you are doing will harm both yourselves and others." I recited to them a paragraph in Teacher's new article "Suggestion"
"...for attachments, for absolving himself, pushed the boat along the current and intentionally accepted the evil understanding. If these kind of persons went on to deceive other practitioners, then they had already committed the sin of damaging the Fa."
Failing to achieve their goal, they again besieged me and didn't allow me to sleep.
Seeing me on a hunger strike day after day, the chief of the labor camp couldn't sit still anymore and came to me in person, asking me to eat, tell my name and address, and to give up practicing Falun Gong. I told him of the three requests prior to my hunger strike, and clarified the facts to him, that "Falun Dafa is the righteous Fa; it's evil that you damage Dafa; one righteous mind can subdue one hundred evils. I must validate the Fa. Don't damage Dafa so that you will have a chance to position yourself when the Fa is rectified. Don't follow Jiang to go to hell." The camp also produced several lecturers from the universities to come and talk with me. They switched the topic, seeing my supernormal state during the hunger strike. I told them the reason why they should not exert pressure on university student practitioners, and should instead support their practice.
Five days after my hunger strike, the criminal policemen started to cruelly force-feed me. More than ten people used a very thick plastic tube as a substitute, and violently pushed me down. They didn't care for my life or death. As a result my esophagus was torn due to the force of the tube insertion. I endured tremendous pain, and they did not stop until I vomited blood. They assigned collaborators who were brainwashed in the men's forced labor camp to spread self-deceiving lies. I exposed their evil nature. Then they beat me. I shouted, "Suffocate the evil." The collaborators ran away. Having no alternative, 12 days later, they escorted Li Rong and me back to the Shenyang City Detention Center.
On May 25, 2001, I returned. I became emaciated. I lost over 22 pounds. When the practitioners in the cell saw me, they hugged me and cried, "They persecuted Ms. Zheng so badly." A common prisoner who had not believed in Falun Gong and went against it in the past admired me very much after hearing my experience of validating the Fa in the Longshan Labor Camp. The common prisoners on their own initiative recited "Hong Yin" [Teacher Li's book of poetry) and asked me to teach them to recite. A common prisoner who could never memorize the prison regulations in the camp asked me to teach her to recite the poem, "Suffering the Will " and could very quickly recite the poem. A few days later, the camp released her.
Some people asked me, "Why didn't you give in, even under suffering such big tribulations?" I told them, "In order to save sentient beings, Teacher encountered countless tribulations. The Fa Teacher has taught us benefits both the nation and the people. It has uncountable benefits but does no harm, but Jiang runs the persecution by fabricated and outright lies. Do you know that what Teacher has suffered, all these injustice never happened through the ages, yet he is still offering salvation to people with great mercy, regardless of their nationalities? If I don't do well, I will feel remorseful to Teacher. I would rather give up my life in order to safeguard Teacher and the Fa."
I was happy for the prisoners' sense of righteousness. Seeing their changes, I became more confident. Half a month later, the vicious police escorted me to the Liaoyang Detention Center. Before I left, both the fellow practitioners and the prisoners all bade me a tearful farewell. Their concerns for fortified the decision in my heart that I must do well.
(to be continued)