Name: Jia Jitang (贾继堂)
Gender: Male
Age: In his 40s
Address: Zhangguanzhuang Village, Hedong District, Linyi
City, Shandong Province
Date of Most Recent Arrest: 2002
Most Recent Place of Detention: Wangcun Forced Labor Camp
(王村劳教所)
City: Zibo
Province: Shandong
Persecution Suffered: Forced labor
(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Jia Jitang was transferred to the Wangcun Forced Labor Camp in Zibo City in 2002 after being sentenced to a year of forced labor. However, six months after being released from the labor camp, he went missing and no one knew of his whereabouts, not even his parents. He recently submitted an article to the Clearwisdom website detailing what he experienced after being forced to leave home to avoid further persecution. He discussed how he was constantly followed by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents and the severe hardship he suffered. The following is Mr. Jia's personal account.
During my time in the forced labor camp in 2002, I was forced against my will to curse Falun Gong and the founder of the practice. I was also forced to write a guarantee statement and articles that slandered Falun Gong. A practitioner should never do such things. After I was released, I was full of remorse, and I thus wrote a solemn declaration that the statements I had made in the forced labor camp were null and void. I posted the declaration at government buildings. To avoid further arrest and persecution, I had to wander from place to place even though I was in poor health. I was in good health before I was detained, but my health began to deteriorate after being persecuted in the forced labor camp.
The CCP agents followed me wherever I went, even to an unfamiliar city. At the time, the SARS epidemic was rampant and the CCP used it as an excuse to further arrest Falun Gong practitioners. As a result, I didn't stay in one city for very long. I found odd jobs in order to survive. However, at the time, it was difficult for me to do things that other people could do easily because of my poor health. I also began to make truth-clarification materials after seeing how the CCP continued to defame Falun Gong to deceive the Chinese people.
I was reported to the police on July 22, 2003, after the hotel owner who believed the CCP's propaganda of Falun Gong found out that I was a practitioner. A large scale chase then ensued. The police mobilized almost their entire force to try to arrest me. They surrounded me in a large field overgrown with brambles. To avoid arrest, I ran around in the field until my shoes were worn out. I continued running in the field barefooted. The lights flashed around me and I somehow fell into a river and floated with the current. I saw the police chief and men standing on a bridge still searching for me. I eventually escaped. By the time I was able to reach land, I collapsed on the ground and could hardly move. With difficulty, I walked to a village. There, I borrowed a needle and thread from a woman to sew my pants and bought a pair of shoes from a store. Then I continued on my way and met someone who sited historical examples of brave people to encourage me not to give up.
I was able to avoid the roadblocks afterwards and headed towards Ningxia on a bus. At Pingliang, the police set up a roadblock to check the vehicles passing through. I sent forth righteous thoughts and the police let our bus go without checking everyone's ID card.
I found a job in a factory in Ningxia. I had a good relationship with most of my coworkers except for one supervisor. He reported me to the authorities after he guessed that I was a Falun Gong practitioner, so I was forced to leave the factory. However, I didn't go very far. During that period of time, the CCP agents were investigating near the area I stayed. One day when I went back to the place I rented, I saw two plainclothes officers—one of them was a female standing in the middle of the lane. I didn't greet her and she didn't recognize me. That evening, someone knocked at my door. At the time, it was really cold in December, so both the window and the walls were covered with ice, making it difficult to see inside. When I didn't open the door, the person went to knock at the door of the owner who rented me the room. The owner also ignored the knock. After the person left, I quickly put on extra clothes that were still wet with some ice on them and left the house.
Soon after, the police arrived and spotted me on the road. I began to run and fell into a deep ditch. When I got out of the ditch, I crossed the road, but the police on their motorcycles rushed over. I hurriedly turned around and began to run in the opposite direction. By the time they stopped their motorcycle to turn it around, I had already gone 100 meters. Although I felt as if the car lights were on my back, the police couldn't find me. In a village, I fell off a cliff and survived. I endured the pain and continued to walk. When I saw the officers on the other side of the valley looking in my direction, I dared not move and stood very still on the mountain ridge. Since the color of my clothes matched the snow on the mountain, they didn't see me. At the time, I was actually next to the cliff. After awhile, I moved upwards along the ridge that turned out to be very narrow and curvy, so it was easy to fall off the cliff. Quite unexpectedly when I climbed to the top, I found that it was only a terraced field. I knew that the police were not far away since I could hear their voices. I went from one terraced field to the next. I accidentally exposed my position by startling a flock of birds. The officers then chased closely after me. When I turned a corner, my legs became trapped in a rope. I couldn't untie it, so I pulled it with great force and separated it. When dawn broke, I lay in a small hollow that barely hid me. From the shrubs beside the hollow, I saw that they were looking in my direction. However, they didn't see me. This was the second time that I was chased for the whole night.
I continued to walk. It was getting dark again and I was thirsty. There was a river on the mountain, so I ate the ice from it. The mountain wind was very cold, but I couldn't find shelter. During the day, I realized the mountain was Liupan Mountain.
I went down the mountain the next day and took the bus to Haiyuan. There, I spent one night in a ditch. It was very cold and I woke up from the sheer coldness. It was 2 or 3 a.m. At dawn, I went to the bus station and saw plainclothes officers searching the passengers' bags. I took a bus to Wuzhong. On the way there, the bus made a brief stop. I saw a police car following the bus to the station, so I got off the bus before that. It would be three months before I shook off my pursuers.
I began to wander from place to place in Sichuan Province beginning July 22, 2003. I ran out of money and had to find food in the garbage. A kind person eventually helped me find a job with a monthly salary of 200 yuan. But that didn't last long because the police chased after me again. So I had to quit my job.
I arrived in Baotou in April 2004 and found a job. However, I was spotted by officers from the 610 Office when I made a transfer at Xi'an City, Shaanxi Province. I found a job at a construction site in Dabaodang Township in Shaanxi Province. The policemen photographed every worker at the construction site in order to find me. Therefore, I had to leave. Then they chased me all the way to Baotou. I found a different job there. An officer in his 20s pretended to be a farm worker and came to where I worked. Whenever I was out of his sight, he seemed to get worried and began to look for me. Once I got on the bus and the officer followed me. I heard him report to his boss over his cell phone, saying that I disappeared after he got done using the restroom. I got off the bus before it reached the bus station at the mountain range of Yinshan. I left the city for the mountainous area. Yinshan was barren and it was very cold at night. I was unable to fall asleep because of the cold. I covered myself with grass to try to keep warm, but that didn't help. I thus continued to walk in the middle of the night, but had difficulty knowing where I was going. It was also difficult to find food, even edible wild herbs.
I arrived at a coal mining town in May 2004 and went to look for a job there. The boss was from Shandong and gave me a job. He asked me to see the head of the local village to arrange my sleeping accommodation. Shortly after I settled down there, I was asked to leave by the village head. He was a kind man and knew that I practiced Falun Gong. When he learned that the local police were on their way to arrest me, he dared not tell me or let me stay, but asked me to leave instead. The police car arrived shortly after I had only walked for half a kilometer. No one dared to provide me with any accommodation. Later, I picked up a wet jacket that floated by in the river. Once the coat dried, it helped keep me warm.
After spending some time in Yinshan I wanted to leave. A truck driver saw me wearing the yellow jacket and thought I was an official road master, so he gave me a ride. When the truck approached the checkpoint, I saw someone there looking at me, but I didn't take notice of it. I went down the mountain and found a job in a brickyard. However, a few days later, the police and their collaborators arrived. The atmosphere became tense and the workers were at a loss and didn't know what to do. I immediately left the brickyard with the police closely behind.
Entering the mountain range in Northwestern Shanxi Province, I walked for a long time before arriving in Pianguan, which was situated between two mountains. I walked until I arrived at the bank of the Yellow River. It was close to Tuoketuo County. Some of the mountains were covered with loess. Upon a coming to a plain, I thought it may be Loess Plateau. The police chased me to the Yellow River, so I crossed it several times from one side to the other side in order to avoid them. One day before I reached the ferry, I sat down to rest. I saw four men who looked like soldiers. One of them asked his companions, “Is it him?” Another man said, “He is a farmer.” Then, they left. I looked toward the ferry and saw police officers searching the passengers in the boat across the river. I decided not to cross the river and just kept moving forward. When I came to a village, I saw police cars. I took off my top, put it into a bag, slung it over my shoulder and picked up a branch to make it look as though I was from the area. In a field outside the village, a plainclothes officer stared at me. I walked past him, only to find a cliff in front of me. I saw a pile of dirt below and decided to jump off the cliff. Fortunately, I was not injured.
Many times when I was chased by the CCP agents, I did not have anything to eat. Fortunately I had bought a bag of sausages near Tuoketuo County, so I still had some strength. It was very cold and I was shivering. However, I knew it was only my body that was shivering, since I didn't feel cold. My main consciousness was strong although I was in an adverse environment. I felt like my main consciousness was outside of my body. Thereafter, I went to the mountain range again. I guessed it was the mountain range north of Shanxi Province. The locals were poor but very kind. They invited me into their homes and shared their meals with me. I was grateful to them. However, there were only a few villages scattered around and this made it difficult to find food.
After temporarily freeing myself from pursuit, I looked for a job. When I was purchasing a ticket from Zhengzhou City in Henan Province to Heze, I was spotted by a CCP agent and he followed me. However, I lost him. I arrived at Heze City in Shandong Province in the spring of 2006. I found a job at a brickyard using a false name. The monthly pay was only 80 yuan. At that time, CCP agents were searching everywhere in Heze to try to find me. Plainclothes officers could be seen everywhere, but they still couldn't find me. One day, I overheard someone at the brickyard say, “The authorities are looking for Jia Jitang all over the city.”
I was unmoved and didn't want to leave right at that time. However, a plainclothes officer approached me and tried to identify me. From his eyes, I knew he recognized me. When he turned around to report to his boss, I left.
The officer pursued me all the way to Nanjing. At the Nanjing Railway Station, I bought a ticket to Fuzhou. They looked for me in the waiting room and in the compartments. Later, they spotted me inside the train through the window. A female plainclothes officer then sat beside me while other plainclothes officers pretended to be passengers in the same compartment I was in. The female officer sitting next to me kept sending short texts to her superior. I glanced at one of the messages that said, “Hurry up and arrest him! Delay might cause trouble.” I sat quietly and when the train arrived in Suzhou, I put the newspaper down on my seat and walked toward the door. One of them at the door told me, “This is Suzhou, not Fuzhou!” I turned a deaf ear to him and walked straight to the exit of the station. I walked out of the train station without any problem. It was in the evening, so I hurriedly left the station.
In the several months that followed, the police looked for me everywhere. They even mobilized people from different villages to help them try to intercept me. I often heard their conversations. They couldn't see me, but in some places, a dog would bark when I passed by. I couldn't go out during the day and only came out at night to try to escape their pursuit while looking for something edible in garbage bins. I was able to shake them off in Xuzhou, Xiaoxian County, Lianyungang City, Liuhe, and some other places in the days that followed. It took me several months to finally escape them.
I am not able to recount of my experiences because of limited time. What I have experienced is only the tip of the iceberg in the persecution of Falun Gong. I call on people both in China and abroad to help practitioners end the persecution of Falun Gong.
