By Lisa Liang, an Australian practitioner
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Photo of Tang Yiwen
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Yiwen severely beaten by police in May 2000 after appealing for Falun Gong in Beijing
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I don’t believe that we are about to bid farewell since we are still so young.
I slowly put down the phone after my long distance call to China. My heart was
crying but there were no more tears in my eyes. “I don’t know how long
she had been hung up in the labour camp. Both legs were rotten. Both her hands
and feet had turned blue” Father’s words are still ringing in my ears.
Don’t think I am telling a story during the period of the Chinese Great Cultural
Revolution. It is happening today, in the 21st century.
My sister, Tang Yiwen, was born in 1967 in Maoming City, Guangdong Province.
She was energetic, kind-natured and good at singing and dancing since she was
young. In 1984, she enrolled with outstanding grades into Beijing No. 2 Foreign
Language University to study the Japanese Language. In the university, her achievements
in her studies and her character were praised by both her teachers and classmates.
After graduation in 1988, she returned to Guangzhou to work. She has worked
as a tour guide, translator, personal assistant and teacher.
Yiwen began practising Falun Dafa in 1998. Although she had always been excellent
in her studies and led a comfortable life before she obtained Dafa, because
of a severe eye disease and many illnesses, she became stressed and worried.
At home, her relationship with our father had always been tense. At work, she
often fought with others and was unhappy with her supervisor. Once she had a
fierce quarrel with our father. She left home in anger and never returned home
to see our parents again. She even changed her name from “Pang Dongwen”
to “Tang Yiwen” to signify the termination of her relationship with
our father.
After cultivating in Dafa, Yiwen’s eye disease disappeared and she became very
healthy. Her work performance was highly praised by her superiors as she worked
diligently, following the guidance of the principles of Falun Dafa – “Truthfulness,
Compassion, Tolerance”. The next year, she married her long-time boyfriend
and afterwards paid a visit to our parents. Mother said in excitement, “‘Truthfulness,
Compassion, Tolerance’ is good. Falun Dafa saved our family.” Since then,
Yiwen vowed to cultivate to the end and would do all she could to return our
teacher’s favour.
In July 1999, Jiang’s regime started to persecute Falun Gong on a large scale.
Jiang utilised the national mechanism to establish the “610 office”
to persecute ordinary people, to spread rumours to defame Dafa practitioners,
to deceive people who do not know the truth and to evoke the hatred of people
against Falun Gong.
In March 2000, Yiwen stepped forward to voice her support for Dafa regardless
of any personal danger, as did thousands of other Falun Gong practitioners who
had benefited from cultivating in Dafa. Since Jiang adopted a policy of attacking
everyone who has a relationship with Falun Gong practitioners, Yiwen resigned
from her high-paid and comfortable job at Pei Zheng Business College. Two months
later, she went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to appeal. Unfortunately, she
was arrested and severely beaten by the Chinese police (as shown in the pictures
taken on 19 May 2000). When the police ordered her husband, who did not practice
Dafa, to take her back home, she was on the brink of dying. Before her release,
the police ransomed from her husband 2,000 yuan and also confiscated Yiwen’s
watch, cash and all personal belongings.
Three months later, at about 10:00 p.m. on 29 August 2000 while Yiwen’s husband
was on a business trip, the police, by lying that they were checking residency
cards, forced their way into her house on Hailian Road, Haizhu Disctrict, Guangzhou
City and kidnapped her. Yiwen was secretly sent to a labour camp. Her husband
tried many information sources before he ultimately found out that she had been
sent to Guangzhou Chatou Women’s Labour Camp for a two-year labour re-education
sentence without any court hearing or legal proceedings.
Now, two years have passed and Yiwen is still held there. My brother-in-law
has not been allowed to visit her for as long as half a year. At the end of
February 2003, my father, through various channels, was finally able to see
his daughter. It was the first time in three years that he was permitted to
see her. My father was shocked after seeing her. Her two legs were lame. He
asked her what had happened and learnt that, because Yiwen refused to renounce
her belief in Dafa, the labour camp tied her hands and feet with iron chain,
hung her up and only let her toes touch the ground without allowing her heels
to touch the ground. This made her legs necrotic and made her feel that being
alive was even worse than death. They employed such a method to force her to
give up her practice. Even now, her legs still haven’t recovered. My father
could not bear to continue listening about such indecent and shameful persecution,
and questioned the chief of the labour camp, Liang Huiping (female) about why
they were so brutal. However, Liang replied with the threat: “Don’t speak
out about it!” The vicious police further forced my brother-in-law not
to telephone Australia to disclose Yiwen’s persecution, and forced him to write
a guarantee not to tell anyone.
At present, my family in China are living under the terror of genocide. Their
telephones are being tapped and I cannot contact them directly. I rang Chief
Liang Huiping twice, but she hung up the phone without saying a word once she
learnt that the phone call was from Australia. Now, I only know that my sister
is isolated and being forced to give up her belief in “Truthfulness, Compassion,
Tolerance”. No other information is available. I don’t know whether she
is dead or alive.
Kind-hearted people! I humbly ask you to give me a hand. It will be of great
help no matter what you can do to help.
Lisa Liang
30 March 2003
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Responsible persons in China:
Liang Huiping, Chief of Gaungzhou City Chatou Women’s Labor Camp
Phone: 86-20- 8173 0790
Mobile: 86-139-25148561
Team Leader Feng, No. 1 Team in Gaungzhou City Chatou Women’s Labor Camp
86-20-81730790, ext. 8822 or 8854
Management Department, Gaungzhou City Chatou Women’s Labor Camp
86-20-81730813
Chief Xiong, Management Department of Guangzhou Lamp Education Bureau
86-20-81209378
Political and Legal Committee, Party Committee in Haizhu District, Guangzhou
City
86-20-84425053
Legal Department of Guangzhou City Police Department (they approve all the
labour education cases in the city)
Address: 200 Qiyi Road, Gaungzhou City
Post code: 510030
Phone: 86-20-83118090
Posting date: 9/Apr/2003
Original article date: 2/Apr/2003
Category: Australian News
