(Clearwisdom.net) Lily (assumed name) is a middle-aged college instructor. She is in good health. Her husband is doing well professionally and her father and mother-in-law are retired senior cadres of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). After she began practicing Falun Dafa, she was enjoying her life. However, after the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, she was separated by thousands of miles from her loved ones for eleven years.

In autumn of 2010, Lily was interviewed by a journalist in New York.

Arrested and Released for no Reason

In the summer of 1999, Lily was arrested. She didn't know why, nor did the people who arrested her tell her why.

Recalling what happened more than 10 years ago, she thinks that the event was and is still now quite absurd: "Upon returning home after performing the Falun Dafa exercises I saw some strangers in the lobby. As I approached the elevator, eight plain-clothed officers stopped me and asked that I follow them. I asked them what it was all about. They said they didn't know. They were just following orders."

Lily was taken to a police station. A division chief talked to her but couldn't give a reason for her arrest. He just repeated what the officers said. He was just following orders.

After being detained for 16 hours, an official from the college came to take her back. The college party secretary, the college president, two vice presidents, department party secretary and a party branch secretary waited for her in a conference room. The college party secretary recognized her and said, "You are a good person. Why did they arrest you?" She replied, "I don't know, neither did they."

In fact, the Higher Education Bureau had told the college party secretary and a vice president about a leader of Falun Dafa in the college. They were surprised to hear that and were further surprised when they saw Lily. The leadership in the college later told her that it was her duty to cooperate with them. She replied, "A citizen has both duty and rights. It is written in the constitution that a citizen has freedom of speech, freedom of belief and the right to know. I need to know why I was arrested and why I was let go. I have the right to be fairly treated."

Persecution Widespread

I emigrated from China more than ten years ago. Today, the phones of my relatives are tapped. There are two types of persecution: one is quite open and the other is hidden and perpetrated in secret. In my department a teacher was arrested and sentenced to prison. This is the open persecution. They monitor people, set up meetings without the individual and make you attend a class in a hotel on special occasions to keep you from showing up in public. When it comes to awards or issues concerning promotion, they keep you in the dark. These are the hidden types of persecution.

In China, practitioners working in an institution face both the hidden and open types of persecution. The family members of a practitioner also face significant pressure, because their phones are tapped, they are monitored and their homes are ransacked. Visitors are also watched and may be required to register. Children of practitioners are not allowed to attend school, because their parents are not politically correct. If a family member is a practitioner, the CCP adherents ask everyone about his or her attitude towards Falun Dafa and may force them to sign denial papers. This will force family members to demand that the practitioner renounce Falun Dafa to avoid trouble, as in China guilt by association is practiced. Therefore, this is not just a persecution against practitioners. It is a way to remove righteous thoughts and conscience from the Chinese people's minds. The depraved actions by CCP members are not confined to prisons or detention centers. They appear everywhere in society and a practitioner and his or her family are constantly under pressure.

(to be continued)