(Clearwisdom.net) In February 2001, four Falun Gong practitioners, including myself, went to Beijing to appeal against the persecution. We were tortured both physically and mentally until we revealed our hometowns. As soon as they got the information, and without following legal procedures, the Beijing Yanshan Public Safety Bureau called the local police station to take us home. We heard that high-level authorities would punish officials at the city, district, and village levels whenever practitioners under their jurisdictions went to Beijing to appeal. The punishments included being dismissed or demoted from their current positions, having their wages reduced or loss of bonuses. To avoid these kinds of losses, the local Public Safety Bureau paid the Beijing Public Safety Bureau a bribe. On the way home, Ma Xingbin, the director of the Tiemen Police Station in Macheng, said to us, "The Yanshan Police Station ordered me to pay 5,000 yuan cash. I paid 3,000 yuan. After we get back, I want you to repay me even more. Otherwise, you and your families will be severely punished and your lives could be at risk."
On February 2, 2001, Ma Xingbin, Chen Kongmo and the director of the Macheng Zhongyi Police Station, Peng Teng, as well as personnel from the Macheng Zhongyi Police Station handcuffed us and locked us in an office in Beijing. Another practitioner, Wang Nan, was also detained with us. One of Wang Nan's hands was handcuffed to a pipe, and his other hand to another practitioner. The second practitioner was handcuffed to the third and we were all linked together. I was the last one in the row so my right hand wasn't handcuffed. They didn't take the handcuffs off when we ate. They handcuffed male and female practitioners separately if we were using the bathroom. During the day, we had to squat on the floor. At night, we slept with our hands cuffed to the iron bed. As we were all handcuffed in a chain daily, we asked if practitioners could rotate as the last one in the row so at least one hand could get some rest from the painful handcuffs. The police not only didn't allow this, they handcuffed us even tighter. On our way to the police station, Ma Xingbin handcuffed Ms. Wu Xiantao's hands so tightly that they quickly turned black. We asked Ma to loosen the handcuff but he ignored us. He only loosened Ms. Wu's handcuff right before we reached the train station to prevent others from seeing the torture. Today, Ms. Wu still has a scar on her wrist from that torture. When another practitioner and I went to the restroom on the train, although we were handcuffed, Chen Kongmou (male) left the door of the restroom open saying that he had to watch us.
On the train, the police beat and kicked the male practitioners. They forced Mei Jigang to get under the table. Mr. Mei's head and legs were cramped together. He couldn't sit or lie down and his back and bottom were right next to an extremely hot heater. Even the passengers standing beside the seat could feel the heat. The police forced Mr. Mei back under the table when he tried to crawl out. We tried to stop the police's cruelty but the situation didn't improve because our righteous thoughts were not strong enough. Everyone in the train car witnessed the torture, including the train guard, but he ignored it because the police told him to.
After a long time, Mr. Mei was finally allowed to get out from under the table after several of us persisted in asking. Five practitioners then sat with two other passengers and two officers around a table. The five of us tried to occupy less space and leave more room for others. Even though we were sweating and dizzy, some practitioners stood up in order to make others more comfortable.
On the afternoon of February 14, 2001, we arrived in Macheng and were taken to the Tiemen and Zhongyi Police Stations still handcuffed together. Police from the Tiemen Police Station wanted to leave the men and women in one room overnight. I protested and warned them, "If you do this, I will go on a hunger strike immediately and will sue you once I get out of here." They saw that my attitude was firm and they gave up the idea. However, the police from the Zhongyi Police Station did it anyways. They handcuffed both male and female practitioners to an iron window in a detention room overnight. We were not given any food or water and were not allowed to use the restroom. On the morning of the 13th, a cook from the police station gave each of us a small bowl of porridge. I said it wasn't enough. The cook then told me that the police station director gave orders not to allow us to eat very much. They planned to torture us with hunger.
At around 8 o'clock that morning, the police called me into an office and asked me about my appeal in Beijing. He wanted to know who asked us to go, who else was involved, etc. I refused to answer. Yang Guangming from the Tiemen Police Station brutally beat me with a wooden rod measuring two feet long and half an inch thick. Yang ordered me to kneel down. I refused, and he kicked my legs from behind. I sat on the ground but wouldn't kneel down. Yang beat me for a while and told me to stand up. Each time I refused to follow his orders, he would beat me. I didn't give him any names of other practitioners or tell him where the information came from. I said that I had asked practitioners to go with me in order to help stop the persecution.
Between 8 a.m. and noon, Yang Guangming continued beating me and Mei Jigang, who was in another room. Yang was breathing heavily and sweating from the exertion, and his eyes were red. Yang would beat us brutally if our answers were inconsistent with each other. Officers Chen Kongmou and another with the last name of Wang recorded the interrogation. When it was time for their lunch break, they stopped beating us. By that time, I couldn't stand up anymore due to severe injuries on my legs and buttocks, from which I did not recover until September 2001.
One day I was feeling nauseous, with chest pain, blurry vision, dizziness and lightheadedness, but it occurred to me that because I am Teacher's student and I practice Falun Dafa, I would be fine. I didn't faint but I still felt awful. I slowly knelt down holding onto a table. I was aware of my father bringing me a comforter. I did not want my father to feel worse about my suffering and I forgot to expose the evil to him.
Because of our appeal, The Tiemen and Zhongyi Police Stations abducted all practitioners who usually practiced at home and brought them to the police stations and prisons to monitor and brainwash them. The police were afraid that those practitioners would appeal in Beijing, so they beat and harangued the practitioners, harassed their families and fined them with what they called a "guarantee fee" (between 500 yuan to 2,000 yuan). The increased persecution was meant to stop practitioners from going to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa. The director of the Zhongyi Police Station, Peng Teng, and his subordinates tied many male practitioners to their scooters and made them run behind the scooters. This happened more than once. Some practitioners were so tired that they were rolling on the floor with stomach pain and nearly lost consciousness. The police forced practitioners to clean the streets in Zhongyi, making them pick up garbage and animal excrement with their bare hands. The police took off the practitioners' warm clothing and tied it to street poles. Then they poured cold water on the practitioners, trying to freeze them. Later the police brought a pot of boiling water and poured it onto the freezing practitioners. The police also used mop handles and chairs to beat the practitioners until the sticks and chairs were broken.
The police stuffed used toilet paper into practitioners' mouths, and ordered the practitioners to denounce Teacher and step on Teacher's pictures. Practitioner Luo Kaijun picked up Teacher's picture and threw it into the flames of a stove, in order to protect Teacher from this terrible verbal abuse. The police were angry that they didn't get to insult Teacher anymore so four police officers picked up Mr. Luo and threw him onto the ground. The police continued doing this until Luo Kaijun fainted. Then they poured cold water on Mr. Luo and continued their tortures. Mr. Luo was tortured close to death. His head was swollen, his flesh was torn open and his internal organs were damaged. Luo Kaijun never recovered from all of his injuries and died in June 2002 after being released.
The police in Tiemen and Zhongyi colluded with each other to persecute practitioners in both areas. The persecution included monitoring the practitioners, confiscating their household property, collecting fines, torture during interrogation and extorting confessions. Two officers from Tiemen went to the Zhongyi Police Station to beat and verbally abuse Ms. Wu Xiantao. The director of the police station and the head of the 610 Office ordered the Tiemen police to brutally beat Mei Jigang on numerous occasions. They tortured him with electric batons, handcuffs, wooden rods, and their bare hands until their hands and feet were tired and hurting and the wooden rods were broken.
During the first few days of imprisonment, the police kept us in a detention room where we ate, drank and used the toilet. After Yang Guangming brutally beat me, my lower body was swollen and bruised. I couldn't walk, and lay on the floor for two days. I didn't eat the food the cook sent in because I wanted to protest by going on a hunger strike and therefore get released. I did the Falun Gong sitting meditation at night and could walk again after two days. Ma Xingbin asked why I wasn't eating. I said that we hadn't violated any law by going to appeal and I requested to be released without charges. Ma started to yell and scolded me as soon as I started to clarify the truth. I stopped clarifying the truth to him because I thought he imprisoned us only because he was forced to by higher authorities. My thoughts were not righteous and I didn't insist on the hunger strike. Ma saw that I couldn't walk but he still hired a thug and paid him 50 yuan a day to persecute us.
One day, the police took me and Mei Jigang to a shelter and forced us to take off our clothes. The thug ordered the practitioners in the shelter to fill buckets with cold water and forced me and Mei to step into the water with our bare feet. Mei only had shorts on. The thug asked me to take my top off. I scolded him and he stopped. We stood in the cold water in February for an entire morning. Another practitioner locked in the shelter with us refused to cooperate with the evil and was forced to stand in the cold water too. The thug told us to go inside the yard because he didn't want people from outside to see us. I understood that I should not cooperate, but my righteous thoughts were not strong enough to really do it. I felt tremendous pressure and didn't do well. The thug saw that my bucket wasn't full enough and ordered other practitioners to add cold water. Another person who lived in the shelter tried to help us, and poured some hot water into the bucket. Though it got cold quickly, we were still touched by her kindness. The thug came to us and asked, "Is Falun Gong good?" We shouted, "Yes!" He slapped us and Mr. Mei was bleeding at his mouth. The thug shouted, "If you say Falun Gong is good again, I will throw you over the dam and drown you."
A staff member from the police station came to get us and bring us back to the detention room. The thug yelled, "It's too early. I haven't punished them enough." That kind staff member told us to put our clothes on and said "Let them go." Later, the thug tried to persecute us many times and the kind staff member protected us. The Tiemen TV station wanted to film us being "transformed" and the kind staff member refused the request immediately.
My family and Mei Jigang's family all worked outside of Tiemen. The 610 Office, the police station and the county government tried to extort money from them. They sent the head of the village and two thugs to Wuhan City to find my husband and his parents and attempt to extort 20,000 yuan from them. If my family refused, the perpetrators said they were going to imprison and torture my husband (not a practitioner) and confiscate my in-laws' property. My family was so terrified that they hid themselves. My husband escaped to another place and hid for two months. Later he told me, "The thugs pressured us to such an extent. If I wasn't thinking about my parents and our children, I would have jumped into the Yangtze River."
Since the authorities couldn't find my family, they decided to tear down my house. On March 8, 2001, they tore down my house and sold all our possessions, taking all the proceeds for themselves. Later, I heard from villagers who were at the scene that people from the police station, 610 Office and the village government supervised the demolition. There were about 7 to 8 cars. The head of the village, Li Zhengquan, ordered all the supervisors and others to tear down the house. Those who participated were rewarded with 20 yuan and those who refused were fined 20 yuan. Two of the supervisors knew that Falun Gong was good and refused to tear down the house. They were removed from their positions later. When they authorities tore down the house, they didn't inform my family, who were in Wuhan at that time. I was illegally imprisoned in the police station and heard about this incident only later. Mei Jigang's house was also illegally torn down five days after mine was. The perpetrators didn't use any paperwork and didn't leave any evidence. The only evidence was the two destroyed houses. It's been five years now that our families haven't had a permanent place to live.
There are eight people in my family. Life has been especially tough during the holidays. Because of the financial losses and the mental stress, my husband and father-in-law often couldn't stand it and verbally abused me. My husband would even beat me. They let their anger out on me. Sometimes they seemed to be going crazy. I felt terrible and my heart was bleeding. They wouldn't listen to my truth clarification. I could only work as hard as possible at home and ignore their accusations. I felt sorry for them because they too had suffered due to the persecution. I talked to them and served them peacefully. Slowly, they understood me and realized that this was all persecution. They still feel sad every time they recall losing our house.
In the spring of 2001, Mei Jigang and I were imprisoned in the Tiemen Police Station for over 30 days and then transferred to the Macheng First Prison and illegally imprisoned for a month. Without any legal procedure, they sentenced each of us to one and a half years in a forced labor camp. On April 25, 2001, they announced this verdict in a court and wouldn't allow us to appeal or testify.
After Mei Jigang's house was torn down, Mr. Mei, his children and his 70-year-old grandmother lived together. One of his children was about 8 years old and the other was a little over 10. His wife worked out of town. After Mei Jigang was released from the labor camp, he didn't have a place to live and had to leave his children to work out of town.
After I was released from the forced labor camp in 2002, I went to the village government to ask for my house back. They refused my request. I visited the court and the procuratorate but they all told me that although it was illegal to tear down a house like that, they did not dare to touch my case. I went to the economic committee and the head of the 610 Office. The economic committee asked the village to pay for the house but the village government refused. The village offered to rent me a house temporarily but wouldn't give me any promises. Over the next several years, I visited the 610 Office and the county and village governments repeatedly. They continue to transfer the responsibility back and forth. Once, they decided to give me a house and an owner's certificate but later changed their minds. My experience with them has only been that of deception and dishonesty.
List people who were in charge of tearing down the houses and the participants:
Director of the Tiemen Police Station: Ma Xingbin (left the position now)
Assistant Director of the Tiemen Police Station: Xu Jiping
Educator of the Tiemen Police Station: Yang Guangming (left the position now)
Officers from the Tiemen Police Station: Chen Kongmou, Wang (last name, left the position now), Zeng (last name)
Secretary of the Tiemen Township Political and Legal Committee 610 Office: Huang Liwen (not the head of the township)
Assistant Secretary of the Tiemen Township Political and Legal Committee 610 Office: Zhu Zhixiong
Head of the Tiemen Township: Mei Jianhe (left the position now)
Head of the Tiemen Township Liujiawa Village: Li Zhengquan (home phone number: 0713-2081038)
Staff of the Tiemen Township Liujiawa Village government: Xiong Guoying, Yu Nengcai, Yao Xiangang
Head of the Tiemen Township Maojiadawan Village: Mei Guangliang and others
