(Minghui.org) Ms. Cheng Lan is a retired police supervisor in Nanjing City, Jiangsu Province. She started practicing Falun Gong, an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline also known as Falun Dafa, in 1997 due to health reasons.
The Chinese communist regime started persecuting Falun Gong in July 1999 due to its immense popularity. Since then, Ms. Cheng has been targeted multiple times. She was once detained and sent to a brainwashing center. Her home was searched four times. The following is Ms. Cheng's personal account of the persecution she has suffered.
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I am 67 years old and retired from the police force in 2007. I started practicing Falun Gong in July 1997. At the time, I suffered from many ailments, including atrophic gastritis, arthritis, cholecystitis, and rhinitis. I had tried all kinds of Western and Chinese medicines, but none had worked. I heard from others about Falun Gong and decided to give it a try. Through cultivating Falun Gong, all my illnesses went away without any medicine. It was a miracle. I felt rejuvenated and joyful.
However, former Chinese president Jiang Zemin launched the brutal persecution of Falun Gong in 1999. In December 2011, a fellow practitioner was arrested for distributing Falun Gong materials. I was implicated as a result. I was summoned to the Retiree Office of the Gulou District Police Department. When I got there, about eight officers interrogated me. In the afternoon, ten officers went to my home and searched it without showing any legal documentation. They confiscated a computer and two printers, as well as my Falun Gong books and a photo of Falun Gong’s founder.
Two days later, I was taken to a brainwashing center, where I was monitored by two people around the clock. I was not allowed to leave the room and was forced to watch videos that defamed Falun Gong. After twenty days, I was the only person in the brainwashing center. I was released two days before the Chinese New Year and was told not to leave Nanjing during the holiday. When I returned home, I found out that a camera had been installed outside my apartment. My home phone was wiretapped and I was always followed whenever I left home.
My son-in-law was a department manager at a foreign company in Beijing. In the winter of 2012, my daughter asked me to go to Beijing to help take care of her newborn child who was sick at the time. I went to our local police station to get permission, and left them the address and phone number of my daughter before I left for Beijing.
One day while I was in Beijing, a policeman from the Chaoyang District Police Department and a policeman from the local police station visited me at my daughter's home. When I was in Beijing, I often had to go to the hospital as early as 4 a.m. to register and stay in line for my grandchild to see a doctor. That apparently aroused the police's suspicion, and I noticed that I was being followed. They listed rules for me to follow. I refused to cooperate with them.
A few days later, my son-in-law was laid off by his company. I knew that it was because I practice Falun Gong. The police from Nanjing and Beijing conspired to get him dismissed from his job in order to force me to return to Nanjing.
In June 2015, I filed a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the Chinese communist regime, for launching the persecution of Falun Gong. My criminal complaint was sent to the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate.
One day in June 2016, several policemen entered my apartment without showing any legal documentation. They searched my home and confiscated the Falun Gong books I had. I was taken to the Hunanlu Police Station for interrogation. They asked if I had filed a lawsuit against Jiang Zemin. I told them that it was my legal right to sue him.
They also accused me of sending letters to top city officials of Nanjing City regarding Falun Gong. I denied the charges. They tried to get my fingerprints. I refused to cooperate. Three policemen tried to drag me to another room to get fingerprints. I desperately pulled back and cried out, “Master, help me please!” All three of them fell to the floor with me. One threatened, “You cannot go home without getting your fingerprints taken.”
I was kept at the police station very late that night before I was finally released.
In August 2018, I was asked to meet with the director of the Police Discipline Office and director of the Political Office of the Gulou District Police Department. They asked me if I was still practicing Falun Gong. I tried to explain the facts about Falun Gong to them, but they were not interested. Later, after I went home, I decided to write letters to them to explain the basic facts about Falun Gong and my personal experience of practicing it. I also sent a similar letter to the newly appointed police department head.
A few weeks later, I was told to go to the local police station. When I got there, I was met by the Captain and the Education Director of the Domestic Security Unit. They told me that the letters I'd written had been turned over to them. “If you stop practicing Falun Gong, then this matter is over. Otherwise, this becomes a very serious matter,” they said to me. “Of course I will keep practicing,” I told them firmly.
In the afternoon, two other policemen came in to talk to me. They ordered me to write the three statements and threatened me with a financial penalty. “What is mine is mine. It is not up to you,” I told them. They then ordered me to write the statements as dictated by them, and I refused that too. Several policemen took me back home and forced me to open the door for them. They searched my home again.
I was taken to the Hunanlu Police Station. One police officer told me that they were going to take a picture of me, draw my blood, and take my fingerprints. I cried out so loud that everyone in the police station came to see what had happened. Later that day, I was handed a 10-day administration detention notice and sent to the Nanjing City Detention Center.