How the Police Protected Falun Dafa Practitioners

(Minghui.org) I lived in a small town with a population of around 30,000 people. After Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) was introduced to the public, many local people learned the practice. One of the villages had more than 300 people practicing. Falun Dafa healed many people’s illnesses, and many miracles also took place.

After the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution began in 1999, because the number of practitioners in the area was large, the county police department received instructions from their superiors to persecute them. But how were they going to carry out this job? The mothers of both the director and deputy director of the police department were practitioners, so they both knew what Dafa was about. They also could not bear the stigma of being disrespectful to their mothers, let alone turn on them, so the two directors were extremely pessimistic about the persecution of Falun Gong and usually turned a blind eye to the matter.

However, another key figure with real power in the police department was the Party secretary. He led a group of police to carry out the persecution. He thought that they should catch the leader first, the person who had the biggest influence. Once that was settled, the rest would be easy.

The Party secretary brought both directors and more than 10 police officers in two vehicles to the most influential coordinator’s house. They tried to “transform” her, insisting that she give up her belief. This coordinator was renowned locally because she had previously suffered from a strange illness. She had a hole in her abdomen that was oozing pus. No matter what treatment she tried, it just would not heal. Because her family used to be quite well-off, she visited hospitals in different regions of China and spent a lot of money, but to no avail. In the end, she was bedridden for three years.

After learning Dafa, she was able to sit up in three days and quickly recovered after that. The villagers all knew about her illness, so when they heard that she had recovered, they found it miraculous, and many of them also began to practice Falun Dafa. Since many people came to find her to learn the practice, she naturally became a coordinator. The police department therefore treated her as a leader.

Because the two directors already knew about the practice, they were not really there to persecute her, but just to go through the motions. The Party secretary wanted to "transform" her, but after hearing her story, he and the police stayed and listened to her tell them quite a lot of about the practice.

Whichever house the Party secretary visited to try to transform a practitioner, the practitioner would tell him that Falun Dafa was good. For example, a female Dafa practitioner who had gone to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa had just given birth but did not take the baby with her. She was detained in Beijing for two months. After she returned home, given the length of time she was away, she should not have been able to breastfeed again, but she was still able to.

The Party secretary gradually heard more and more true stories from practitioners.

The higher level authorities had mandated that the county police department carry out the persecution. They gave the Party secretary a complete set of Dafa books and asked that he read them so that he could understand the practitioners’ thoughts and be able to "transform" them.

The Party secretary started reading the Dafa books in his office. This was his job. He eventually finished reading them. Based on what he read and personally saw and heard from practitioners about their miraculous experiences, the Party secretary gradually changed.

From then on, he no longer tried to "transform" practitioners. He even instructed the police officers under him to finish reading all the Dafa books if they intended to go to anybody’s house and harass them. 

Under the Party secretary’s semi-coercive requirement, the police officers also started reading Dafa books. After reading the books, these police officers changed too. They also became very pessimistic about transforming, persecuting, and arresting Dafa practitioners. When they were forced to mobilize to a practitioner’s house, they were friendly, as though they were just dropping by for a visit instead of being there to complete a task. Sometimes when they saw practitioners, they voluntarily greeted them and initiated small talk. Although they did not explicitly voice their support, their actions showed that they understood the practice and did not want to persecute the practitioners.

A police officer once went to a practitioner’s house, and said, “If everyone learned Dafa, my job would be much easier.” 

The Party secretary once told a practitioner in private, “Do whatever you please, just don’t leave this county. As long as you stay within its borders, I guarantee you will be safe. But if you step outside the county, I can no longer vouch for your safety.”

Indeed, during the few years after the persecution started, when higher level authorities ordered them to transform and persecute practitioners, the police department leaders were in complete agreement, and they reported, “There are no practitioners locally.” During those few years, this town (the county seat) basically did not sentence any practitioners to prison. Although there may have been one or two they really could not protect because they were directly persecuted by the county police department’s superiors.

A few years later, the Party secretary retired. The directors of the police department were promoted and transferred away. One reason for their promotion was that they had done the right thing. Under the secret protection of these police officers who understood the practice, local practitioners were able to have a relatively relaxed environment in which to cultivate during the years after the persecution had just started.