Remembering My Father, a Man of Integrity Who Supported Falun Dafa and Stood Up to the Communist Regime

(Minghui.org) I started practicing Falun Gong (Falun Dafa) before the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution in 1999. Later, my mother also began to practice. Witnessing my mother’s quick recovery from heart disease after practicing Falun Gong, my father helped clarify the truth of Dafa to family and friends. He even persuaded people to withdraw from the CCP. Because I refused to denounce my faith in Dafa, I was incarcerated multiple times. My father strived to use legal means to rescue me every time. I would, therefore, like to share a few things my father did in his endeavor to protect and rescue me. 

Making and Distributing Dafa Informational Materials

After the onset of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, my parents gave me money to fund my trip to Beijing to appeal for Dafa. However, I was arrested instead, escorted back, and detained in our local detention center. When I was released, my parents picked me up. The head of the local Political Security Section advised my father to prohibit me from cultivating in Dafa, but he replied affirmatively, “No!”

To avoid being persecuted by the local official agencies, my mother and I had no choice but to move to a different town. In order to accompany us, my father took an early retirement. He helped us make truth-clarification materials. Once a fellow practitioner invited me to go with her to distribute the information, but I was not available, so my father decided to go in my place. He left our house on his bike after midnight and delivered materials to the households in the nearby villages. 

Persuading People to Withdraw from the CCP

I was arrested after we moved back to our hometown. My parents went to the Political Security Section and the detention center every day to ask for my release, but to no avail. Fellow practitioners also helped to rescue me, but the detention center threatened that they would send me to a forced labor camp instead. It was not until after the father of one of my classmates, a policeman, contacted the chief of the Domestic Security Bureau, that I was finally released. 

Policemen and agents of the 610 Office often came to harass us after my release, and they even froze my father’s retirement pension. Traumatized by the constant threat and pressure from the government, my mother was unable to focus on her cultivation in Dafa. She eventually succumbed to the CCP’s persecution and died from a heart attack.

When my mother was hospitalized, my father was devastated. He changed from supporting our cultivation to strongly opposing it and even forbade us from reading Dafa books. After my mother passed away, his condition deteriorated—he blamed Dafa for Mother’s death. 

After New Tang Dynasty TV (NTDTV) satellite receivers were available in China, I installed one for my father. Six months after he watched NTDTV, he no longer opposed Dafa and returned the Dafa books he had hidden back to me. A fellow practitioner in my neighborhood told me that once he was chatting with my father in the park, when a military veteran joined their conversation. My father talked about what he saw on NTDTV and told him the real history of the deceitful CCP that was kept secret from the general public. In the end, he and the fellow practitioner worked collaboratively to persuade the veteran to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations.

Refusing to Collude with the Corrupted CCP Officialdom

One day a few years ago, I was arrested and taken to the police station. Tying me to a metal chair, a gang of eight police officers from the National Security Team interrogated me, and planned to transfer me to the detention center. My father and fellow practitioners went on a mission to rescue me. A classmate’s father, retired for many years, had no current connections in the Domestic Security Bureau, yet he made dozens of phone calls to get help for me. 

The Domestic Security Bureau still insisted on persecuting me, however, so my father followed my case closely. When the prosecutor refused to meet with him, he went to the Political and Legal Affairs Committee, which then asked the prosecutor to receive my father. Although the procuratorate intended to dismiss my case, the Domestic Security Bureau still sent additional legal materials in an attempt to incriminate me and send me to jail.

During this legal process, fellow practitioners gave my father information about the laws of China in regard to my case. He found that the persecution of Falun Gong had no legal basis at all. When he shared this fact with the head of the Domestic Security Bureau, the latter chose to ignore it. Undiscouraged, my father persisted in his efforts to get me released. He wrote letters of complaint to all levels of government, national and local alike, accusing the authorities of persecuting me without due process of law.

After I was indicted and my case was submitted to the court, my father contacted all the local law firms, but nobody dared to defend me in court. He later applied to be my family defender but was denied permission.

On the day of my hearing, my father took notes to record the court session, but the vice president of the court ordered the bailiff to take away his pen and paper. The prosecutor asked me multiple times if I wanted to plead guilty, but I insisted that I was innocent. 

Some people suggested my father bribe the prosecutor for a light sentence for me. I tried to tell my father not to do so, but I wasn’t allowed to contact him. 

In the end, I was indeed given a light term and released shortly after. When I asked my father if he had bribed anyone to get me out, he assured me that he did not! In fact, I knew that he hated corruption and despised any collusion with the CCP’s corrupt officialdom.

A Man with Integrity and Conscience

During the process of cooperating with fellow practitioners to rescue me, my father found that Falun Gong practitioners are very good people. So when our neighborhood association secretary brought his people to our home, my father told them, “Those who learn Falun Gong are all good people.” Hearing that, they left. 

I was arrested again the following year, and my home was ransacked. My father confronted the police and demanded my release. After I returned home, he stayed at my place to accompany me. He watched NTDTV every day. He also told our relatives about NTDTV and urged them to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. 

The non-stop persecution that I suffered finally took a toll on my father’s mental and physical health. After living under years of intense pressure, and constant worry about my safety, he suffered two strokes and finally passed away. 

My father was a man with integrity and conscience, truly the best father one could ask for.