(Clearwisdom.net) When the 2004 Chinese New Year was approaching, Dafa practitioners detained in a prison in China realized more and more the importance of improving and cooperating as one body. In order to strengthen the communication and sharing among practitioners, they produced the first issue of a new magazine named The Dawn.
Several of the practitioners created The Dawn, and it was planned that future issues would in turn be produced by other practitioners detained in different sections of the prison.
Articles in The Dawn include those that expose the persecution, share individual cultivation experiences, and encourage the practitioners who were sent to brainwashing classes to step out from their passive endurance and harmonize into one body, such as "To fellow practitioners: letter to fellow practitioners detained in the brainwashing classes." There are also lists of persecutors to expose the perpetrators and their crimes.
Several days before the Chinese New Year, one practitioner was tied on the "dead person's bed."[1] The practitioners detained in the same section staged a hunger strike to request release, and quickly passed the message to practitioners in other sections. On the morning of the Chinese New Year's Eve, eleven practitioners from one section wrote a joint letter to the prison chief and demanded a response. It was mentioned in the letter, "The New Year is coming soon. We heard a Dafa practitioner was once again locked up in the small cell. [2] We also want to celebrate the New Year, and we want to celebrate it together. We want to see her come out alive!"
For the whole morning, all practitioners sat together peacefully, sending forth righteous thoughts and waiting for a response. At lunchtime the prison authorities relented, and the practitioner was released from the small cell. The practitioners had shining smiles on their faces, and even the non-practitioner prisoners were moved to tears.
[1] Dead Person's Bed: The four limbs of the practitioner are stretched out and tied to the four corners of an icy-cold metal bed.?The practitioner cannot move at all, nor is he allowed to get up to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom.?This treatment would last from several hours up to more than a dozen days.?This type of cruel torture causes severe damage to the practitioner both mentally and physically.
[2] Locking up in a small cell: The detainee is locked up in a very small cell individually. The guards handcuff practitioners behind their backs in a fixed position, in which the practitioners can neither move nor lie down. The small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. Detainees have to urinate and defecate in the cell. Only half of a regular meal is served to detainees locked up in a small cell during the daytime. During the night the rats are running around. The stench in the small cell is so bad that it is difficult to breathe.
March 11, 2004
