(Clearwisdom.net October 5, 2003)
I live in the Northeast China and started cultivating Falun Dafa in July 1997, when I was 17 years old. Before I started my cultivation, I did not recognize the value of a good education or the meaning of life, and my grades were bad. Through cultivation in Dafa, I found the meaning of life; I passed the required national tests, and started to study medicine.
My family runs a clinic and we have easy access to medicine. My mother took countless drugs but was unable to cure her arthritis for 30 years and suffered from many side effects of the medication, before she started her cultivation. After we started cultivating within Dafa, my father's high blood pressure and heart disease, my younger brother's migraine headaches, my mother's various illnesses, and my osteomalacia were all cured. Three of my maternal aunts and two uncles all became healthy because they cultivated Dafa. Amazingly, one of the aunts can read through Zhuan Falun now, although she never went to school and was illiterate before! My previously dysfunctional family had become harmonious and peaceful.
This was the situation when the persecution started on July 20, 1999. My younger brother and I went to the State Department's Appeal Office in Beijing on January 13, 2000, but found that at the place all applicants were arrested on the spot. All vehicles belonging to the Provincial Beijing Liaison Offices were waiting there along with 50-60 plainclothes police officers. I started to sit in the lotus position after I was arrested and a policeman immediately shouted at me viciously to stop. I continued to sit still and he kicked me with his leather boots. They asked me stand up, so I practiced the second exercise in the standing position. They shouted at me, threatening to chop off my hands if I continued to do the exercises. Just then, a very nice policeman called me over for a talk. He asked me why I had come to appeal and what the teachings of Falun Dafa were. I then told him that Falun Dafa is teaching people to be good, to cultivate their hearts, do good deeds, be kind to others, and to give up their greed and all desires. I further told him that we are required to look inwards for our own errors when we run across conflicts and that I enlightened to higher, deeper inner meanings through studying Dafa. I also explained that I used to be suicidal, because I had a congenital deformity, and no hope in life. I said that by cultivating Falun Dafa, I learned that the purpose of life is to cultivate into a person of high virtue. He understood what I had to say.
We were then taken to the Liaison Office of city A in Beijing, where they took down my home address, took away all our money, some policemen even doing body searches for money. They extorted more than 500 Yuan from my brother and me. We started reading Zhuan Falun, since two fellow practitioners brought their books with them. Suddenly two policemen stormed in and cursed loudly, grabbing the hair of the fellow practitioner who had been reading the book. We were shocked. We heard more tragic cries accompanied by curses coming from the hallway. I saw through a gap in the door how four or five policemen beat that fellow practitioner, who was rolling on the floor for more than ten minutes. One policeman stepped on the practitioner's head, forcing him to face the floor, and then intentionally twisted and pressed down hard on his head. My heart ached when I witnessed these events. This scene was deeply impressed upon my heart.
On the next day, the police sent us home in handcuffs. At our local police substation I was asked whether I brought any money. Later I learned that the State Government required us to pay 120 Yuan each for our train tickets. In addition, the police in Beijing and at the local substation charged us twice the amount again. We were detained in the police substation more than ten days. In the meantime, my mother, who had gone to Beijing to appeal, was intercepted at the train station and held in a detention center. My father was arrested while treating a patient. They detained the three of us in the same cell. Thus, four out of five family members were illegally detained at the same time. Only my sister was left at home to send supplies for us to the jail. Our family was forced to pay a total of 9,500 Yuan at that time. An additional 20 thousand Yuan were extorted from us later, which constituted our combined savings of many years.
During the past four years, my father has been jailed or imprisoned in labor camps five times in 20 months, and my mother three times in 11 months. Police detained me six or seven more days after illegally detaining me for 15 days, in order to force my brother and me to sign the so-called "Guarantee Statements" [In this statement the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practicing Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.] promising not to appeal during the period of the congressional meetings, and then released us. Now I solemnly declare that my signature was coerced and that my "Guarantee Statements" are null and void. My younger brother, who used to attend middle school in city B, had to pay 9,000 Yuan alone. His principal forced him choose between cultivating Falun Dafa and going to school. He chose in favor of Falun Dafa, and was expelled by the school; he was reimbursed only 500 Yuan of the total fees. My uncle took me to city C, so I could continue my medical studies.
During summer vacations, when I came back home I missed my parents, who were imprisoned in the labor camps. I also heard that one of my father's brothers became destitute and homeless in order to avoid being illegally arrested at home again. His wife cried everyday. When one of my other uncles went to a relative's house to temporarily hide from being arrested, he was turned away! Fortunately, another Falun Dafa practitioner took him in. I also heard that a policeman with an electric baton shocked my father, who has high blood pressure and heart disease more than ten times, each time lasting more than ten minutes. One sadistic person kicked my father in the chest, causing him such extreme pain that he was not able to take deep breaths for 4-5 days. I dared not to visit my father, because all visitors have to step on Master Li's photo and curse Master. I was so anguished that I was close to collapsing!
The deceptive propaganda was still blanketing the whole country. We heard news of Falun Dafa practitioners being tortured, raped, and killed every day. The trust in our government that I had formed since childhood had been totally destroyed. I was preoccupied with heavy thoughts every day, my conscience and fear clashed with each other. Under the influence of this cloud of sheer terror in Mainland China, I succumbed to the evil. My whole personality changed. I had no more goals left in life and my grades went down. I started to compete with my classmates, no longer being truthful or compassionate, and I even started drinking. I cried loudly, why did the vicious thoughts come back after I had eliminated them so thoroughly?
I realized that my decline was because I was no longer a Falun Dafa disciple. Since there were no more moral restrictions in my mind, I lost the guidance of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance. I lost control and I betrayed my conscience. I still realized that I could not leave Falun Dafa, and that I must cultivate Falun Dafa in order to be a good person. Thanks to a fellow practitioner's strong righteous thoughts I found my way back to the righteous path after 18 months; I left the dark valley of the soul. I kneeled in front of Master's photo, and sincerely repented. I no longer pursue comfort or fear death. I no longer fear the evil of Jiang and his regime. I am no longer separated from Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance, and try very hard to clarify the truth to people.
I had been transferred from my previous medical vocational school to a medical college in City B more than a year ago, where no one knew I studied Falun Dafa. My kind schoolmates had all been deceived by the lying media. I then started to explain the truth to them. One day, a video slandering Falun Dafa was broadcast on our class TV. Four or five of our classmates shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" This incident shocked the whole school. Three days later, Vice Principal Liu took me to my dorm, asked my opinion on the so-called "Tiananmen Self-immolation", and illegally searched my personal belongings, where he found my Dafa Books.
They continued to interrogate me in the Principal's Office; one teacher recorded our conversation. I then analyzed in detail how the government staged the "Tiananmen Square murder/framing incident." They asked me to write a "Dissociation Statement" [A statement to declare a dissociation from Falun Gong and promise not go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong]. I refused, and requested several times to call my family, which they did not allow me to do. At one point, the Assistant Principal went to look for the Principal, he assigned two teachers to watch me. I told them that I demanded my basic human rights and freedom of belief. In reply, Teacher Zhang shouted at me, "We'll see if you still have human rights when you are dead!"
My homeroom teacher Sheng had been assigned to watch me during dinner at the dining hall. Not a single classmate dared to speak with me. The principal came, but still would not allow me to call my family. He asked me to pay a fine. I told him that my family had already been fined more than 20 thousand Yuan, and that they have no more money. He asked me again to sign a "Dissociation Statement" But I firmly replied that we were trying to be good people, and refused to sign. The Principal said, "Then you have to be expelled." I argued that this was not fair. Finally they forced me to write a resignation letter stating that I wanted to resign because I had no money for my tuition, while in fact I had already paid 4000 Yuan in tuition for the semester. I did not get back this money when I left. They withheld my Dafa Books and my address book. When I went back to our classroom to collect my study materials, I was escorted by three teachers. My classmates were shocked. They never imagined that I would be expelled just for cultivating Falun Dafa. The leaders of the school said to me, "If you write a "Dissociation Statement," our school will welcome you back any time."
I want to condemn dictator Jiang for cruelly persecuting good people who follow the great virtues of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance! The crimes Jiang and his regime have committed must be put on trial on the stage of history!