(Clearwisdom.net) In July 1999, I went with my father to Beijing to appeal to the Central Government regarding the mistreatment of Falun Gong. After almost two weeks of travel, I returned home in late July. One evening several weeks later, at around 8:00 p.m., the government sent police officers to ransack our home. They flipped over every corner of our house. They took away all our Dafa books, music tapes, and promotional materials. They also confiscated a souvenir picture book we bought at Tiananmen Square as so called "evidence." They messed around for several hours and still returned at midnight to search my grandmother's room.
When I woke up the next morning, the entire house was a mess. We lost almost everything, including correspondence, papers, paint brushes, cups, birthday videotapes, and more. My father was captured and taken to the police station. My grandmother, already 86 years old, was disabled due to a stroke and had to be taken care of by my father every night. That night she stayed awake the whole night. When I woke up, she held on to me and cried out aloud. I assumed that my dad would come home after a few days. Now I know I was wrong. The next time my dad walked thought our door was in the summer, two years later.
After this incident our home was ransacked on a regular basis. I clarified the facts about Falun Dafa to the police officers that came to ransack our home and told them that my father was a good person, and that he had never done any bad deeds. He used to have many health problems, but after he started practicing Falun Gong, all his diseases disappeared. I told them that my dad did not do anything wrong, so they should not have arrested him. Because I always clarified the facts to the police, they also put me on their watch list.
The policemen threatened my father, who was in captivity, by saying, "If you do not 'reform', your son will be next!" That year, I was still in primary school.
We lost contact with my dad after he was arrested. I could not get any information about him anywhere until several months later, when I was told that he had been sent to jail in another province.
Every morning, my grandmother would wake up and inquire about my dad, "Where has he gone? What is he doing? When is he coming back?" I was afraid that my grandmother could not take it if I told her that my dad had been sent to jail, so I told her that he had gone abroad. I did not tell her the truth even on her deathbed. But still, my grandma sobbed and called my dad's name every day. For a long time, whenever I came home from school and saw the misery at home, I could not hold back my tears. My mother had to work during the day and work overtime during the evening, so I was frequently left alone with my grandmother. Grandma was tortured for over a year but never saw her son return. In the end she left us with a broken heart from all the suffering. We requested that my dad be allowed to attend my grandmother's funeral, but the police refused our request because some "conditions" had not been met. As a result, my father was denied the opportunity to see his mother one last time.
After my father was arrested, I was abandoned by many of our neighbors, acquaintances, relatives, friends, and classmates. They believed the propaganda publicized by the media, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that slandered Falun Dafa with lies and smears. They started to talk about us behind our backs and stopped visiting us. When I felt very sad about this, I remembered my dad telling me to always listen to Teacher's lectures, "Be resolute cultivating Dafa, the mind unstirred..." ("True Character is Revealed" from Hong Yin Volume II, Version A) This calmed down my heart, and I no longer cared about those hurtful words.
In early 2001, the CCP staged the "Tiananmen Square Self-immolation." Every work unit was asked to cooperate with the propaganda, and all CCP members (even students) were told to proclaim in writing their condemnation of Falun Gong. According to the requirements of the CCP, my school called for a conference and told all the students to sign their names on a booklet that slandered Falun Dafa. I refused to do so and left the conference.
During the "Political Science"graduation exam, students had to answer a question about Falun Dafa. Without hesitation, I did not answer the question. When the results came back, I had failed the exam. I was notified to do a make-up exam in "Political Science" and was told that if I did not pass the "Political Science" exam, I would not be granted my graduation diploma. I decided that I would rather not graduate than to answer the question that I skipped on the last exam.
The police also used various measures to try to force my father to write a so-called repentance statement denouncing Falun Dafa. He refused to write any such statement, so the police cruelly and violently tortured him.
When my dad was about to be released from jail, the police station, the 610 Office and the local government sent eight people to evaluate the results of the brainwashing on my dad. During their visit, my father firmly said to them, "My Master has been unjustly slandered and disgraced. Falun Dafa practitioners are being persecuted and wronged. We are all good people. We have not done anything wrong. We request that our Master's reputation be restored." The policemen and cadres were greatly irritated by my father's words. They were determined to retaliate eventually.
When my father was released, he was already as skinny as a skeleton. When he came home, he wanted to see my grandmother. He called out to her, "Mother, I am home." But he only saw my grandmother's picture and her empty bed. He was dumbfounded. His mouth fell open but he did not cry. My dad was silent for several days.
I had been looking forward to my father's release, hoping that our peaceful life would be restored. I was wrong again. The police and people from the 610 Office ordered my father to inform them every time he traveled. As soon as he got home he was put under surveillance. He was stalked day in and day out. We also received phone calls from people asking to speak to my dad. People sat near our house around the clock. This has created an unnerving environment for us. I was very nervous. It felt like we were covered by a big shadow. It was like something bad was about to happen. There was not even one day of peace after my dad returned.
Several months later, my father went out but did not return. He was again arrested by the police. Within a month my mother received a registered letter containing a sentencing notice from the government. My father was again sentenced to three years in jail. This time the police had secretly arrested my dad and completed the sentencing rapidly. It was a prearranged sentencing.
When my mother took me to visit my dad, she cried very hard. Dad was treated with fascist-style cruelty and violence in the prison. He was tortured to the brink of death. He told me that whenever a Dafa practitioner arrived at the prison, they would lock him/her up in a cell, stuff his/her mouth with cloth, and close all windows and doors. Then the police would send six or seven criminal inmates in to beat the practitioner. Some were beaten to disability, some even to death. My father had internal bleeding in his stomach after the beatings. Yet they did not let him eat and only allowed him to sleep for a very short period of time in the evenings. The inmates threatened my dad, saying, "It is very common for people to be beaten to death in the prison. I will torture you until you are dead. I am backed by the police who wear the state logo on their caps. The police have asked me to deal with you Falun Gong." My dad reported the violence to higher authorities, but the police came back to accuse my dad of lying. They also transferred personnel around in order to cover up the evidence.
Finally, my dad was again released from jail but he still did not get his freedom back. He told me, "As a practitioner, it does not matter if one goes through some misery. Even the jail stay could not change my mind. I have to do the three things well to cooperate with Teacher's Fa-rectification process. I have to keep my pre-historical vow made lifetimes ago."
Through the storms of the past several years, I have come to realize that as long as the persecution by the CCP does not end, there will be no peaceful life for me.