Written by Ms Yi Wen Tang, a practitioner in China
Written in English
by Yi Wen Tang in Guangdong Province, China.
24 June 2004
Since
1999, when the Chinese government started the crack down on Falun Dafa, millions
of Falun Dafa practitioners and their family in China have been through brutal
persecutions, and I am one of them.
GESTAPO
My house in the
Chinese city of Guangzhou has been barbarically raided and searched by the fierce
police for so many times. They confiscated my precious Falun Dafa books and as
far as I know they usually burn those books. I was forced to report to the police
station everyday. The police could lock me up anytime, for as long as they want.
My parents, my husband, my husband’s family and company, my relatives, my friends,
my students and the college I was teaching are all affected by the fact that I
practise Falun Dafa. These persecutions made me think of the Gestapo in the Second
World War
THE BRUTALITY IN TIANANMEN SQUARE
I went to Beijing’s
Tiananmen Square to protest against the persecution in May 2000. The Police locked
me up immediately. They handcuffed me, knocked me down, beat me and dragged me
along on the floor. The Police even pulled my hair and violently struck my head
against the wall… Not even pregnant women, mothers carrying babies in their
arms or older ladies with grey hair could escape from these types of torture and
brutality.
THE GREEDY POLICE
On 23 August 2000, I was forced
imprisoned in the Cha Tou Women’s Labour Camp of Guangzhou.
In there, along
with hundreds of Falun Dafa practitioners and drug addicts, we were forced to
work more than 10 hours a day in their dirty workshops. Under the stern watch
of the fierce policewomen, we have to work on public holidays too. We silently
worked, making large quantities of toys, cards, and accessories. We sew patterns
on mounds and mounds of jeans and sweaters. We made piles and piles of artificial
flowers. We packed the goods, carried them onto the delivery truck as if we were
strong men. These products are destined for the domestic and international markets.
We never got paid for our hard labour.
Doesn’t matter how hard we have worked,
the police never got satisfied. Everyday, the policewomen’s fierce and hysterical
scolding voices sounded around the workshops. “You lazybones! You are working
too slowly! Faster, faster! I am looking at the watch! I am calculating how many
you can make in one minute…”
Sometimes my hands trembled from
the heavy labour and the awful food of little nutrition.
Now, when I read
about how the cheap “made in China” products are popular in the foreign
countries, I thought of the dirty workshops in the labour camp and our trembling
hands.
CRAZY HELL
In the labour camps, brutal “brain-washing”
was conducted every day. The police often locked me up in a small room, then ordered
the drug addicts to read certain “books” close to my ears as loudly
as she could; or turned on the room’s loudspeaker to an unbearable sound volume,
sometimes even to the maximum volume, with all the windows of the room closed
up, to force me to listen to certain “programme”; or took me to the
TV room, forced me to watch certain “programs”, again at unbearable
sound volume… And those certain “books” and “programs”
were all horrible lies about Falun Dafa. The contents are full of deceptions,
describing Falun Dafa practitioners as bloody murderers, mad people… I was
forced to sit on a tiny low chair, through morning to night, day after day, month
after month, attacked by the horrible lies and unbearable sound volume. The brainwashing
rooms were a total crazy hell. If it hadn’t been for the holly belief in my heart,
I would have been driven mad for a thousand times.
DRUG ADDICTS
The
fiercest drug addicts, some of them carried the AIDS virus, many of them carried
sexually transmitted diseases, were picked out by the police to torture the Falun
Dafa practitioners. They slept on the same small bed with us, kept a close eye
on us 24 hours a day; They slapped us, insulted us, beat us… The more brutally
they tortured us, the faster they would be released from the labour camps as a
reward from the police. Many of them didn’t have to do any work; their only job
was to torture the Falun Dafa practitioners.
However, no matter how they
tortured us with cruelty, we never fought back. Instead, we always treated them
with respect; dignity and love, as a Falun Dafa practitioner suppose to do. We
hugged them, comforted them when they felt sad; We taught them to write, to learn
English; We shared our food with them; (drug addicts eat a lot while they are
quitting drugs) We shared our clothes with them; (many of them had been deserted
by their family) We encouraged them to be a nice person, to begin a new life.
We told them they were not “rubbish” as the police often scolded at
them, that they were not only “money-making machines” or “persecuting
tools” as the police had treated them, they were precious lives as well…
Under
the influence of Falun Dafa practitioners, so many drug addicts have changed to
better persons. Many of them said they would practice Falun Dafa once they got
out of the labour camps, some even started to learn secretly while they were still
in jail. This really frightened the police. They threatened the drug addicts not
to be friends with us, not to treat us will. Some drug addicts would say:”
I admire them. They are so well educated. I learned a lot from them.” Or
one would say:” They are human beings. We shouldn’t treat them so cruelly.”
The brave ones even said to the policewomen’s face that Falun Dafa is great. So
many touching stories have happened inside of the labour camps.
Today,
whenever I read about how fast the number of drug addicts have been increasing
in China, how AIDS have been increasingly threatening, how the Chinese government
have been trying to solve these problems, I would think of those drug addicts
in the labour camps, of the terrible ways they have been being treated, of what
so many drug addicts have told me:” I have been put in the labour camps many
times, and I became a worse person each time…” The Chinese government
should first solve its own problems before it could solve any problems of drugs
or AIDS.
MEN’S JAIL
In May 2002, myself and other 2 practitioners
were secretly taken to a men’s prison, locked up in separate rooms.
On the
way there, I insisted asking where we were heading. Only one policewoman sitting
beside me mumbled, “Shi Hui”. It is a small town in Guang Dong province.
Through
the window of the room, which I was locked in, I could see the gloomy big area
within the high walls. Male prisoners walked by.
The chief of the Cha Tou
labour Camp declared to me with a cold smile in her face, “You will have
to stay here until you make up your mind to give up your belief in Falun Dafa.”
I asked, “Where is here?” She answered with a cruel light in her eyes,
“I would tell you after you give up your belief.”
Then came a
group of policemen, threatened that they would sue “good methods” if
I didn’t give in.
I thought of those terrible rapes happened to female practitioners.
I decided to resist with all my courage. I declared that I am on hunger strike,
I refused to watch the brain-washing rubbish they forced me to watch, I refused
to do whatever they forced me to do… Finally they gave up on me. I was taken
back to Cha Tou. But the other two female practitioners were left there. I was
so worried, and I could imagine what terrible things might happen to them.
HANDICAPPED
LEGS
On 27 October 2002, I was suddenly locked up in a torture room.
The policewomen ordered six drug addicts to handcuff my hands tightly, wide separately
to the two rows of a bunk bed. It is an extremely painful posture and it lasted
19 hours, from 2pm right through to 9am the next day on 28 October. Meanwhile,
I was “brain-washed” by the drug addicts reading those rubbish loudly
close to my ears.
I had severe painful cramp in my arms. I told them my
arms might be destroyed. None of them gave a damn.
Soon after the handcuffing,
I was locked in another more horrible torture room. All the windows and door were
closed. Windows were covered with old newspapers. A pair of handcuffs hanged on
the bunk bed, four fierce-looking torture executioners, along with the fierce
policewomen leader was waiting for me.
They handcuffed me high again for
3 hours, then pressed me down to sit on the floor, tied up my legs crossed, to
the maximum tightness, and tied up my hands crossed on the back as well, to the
maximum tightness alike. They even wrapped thick tapes around my mouth to prevent
me from making groaning sound.
I began to sweat from the pain; my stomach
began to hurt all the time.
Meanwhile, they insulted me with the dirtiest
language, slapped me, punched me, and kept “brain-washing” me all the
time.
When they got tired, they would chat to each other cheerfully, laughing
loudly, as if they didn’t see a human being just beside them, being so miserably
tied up on the floor, so painfully shaking and sweating all over.
The first
time “tying up legs” torture started at around 10pm on 28 October, and
ended at around 8am on 29 October.
When they untied me, both my legs were
already totally stiff, not able to move at all. But they violently forced me to
stand up, kicked me in my injured legs, and fiercely forced me to walk in the
room. Meanwhile, they kept brainwashing me.
Later, around 2pm on 29 October,
when they once again tied up my legs and hands, I understood then why they had
so frantically forced me to move. Once untied and moved legs felt more extremely
painful when they got tied up again.
I sweated heavily from the intense
pain.
I was not allowed to close my eyes even for a second not to mention
sleeping or bathing. When I needed to go to the bathroom, they solved this problem
by rudely taking off my pants, putting a basin under my body. They refused to
give me even a drop of water; instead, they forced me to drink greasy spicy chilly
sauce… I had read about hell in literature, but I was actually experienced
it.
This time the “tying up legs” torture lasted over 20 hours.
After
40 hours torture, when I was carried out of the torture room on 30 October, both
my legs were terribly injured, swollen and my right leg became handicapped. Thereafter,
I got to limp painfully.
My fingers went numbed for several months. My body
and my heart was so badly hurt, I hardly had strength to speak, or to stand. I
was getting weaker, “A gust of wind can knock you down”, a drug addict
said. Nevertheless, the police never stopped brainwashing me, never stopped threatening
me that endless tortures were awaiting for me ahead. And that they had been given
“definite orders” to crush down all the persistent practitioners.
I
could hear cries of pain almost every day. The whole labour camp was like a hell.
LYING
The
police started another torture on 22 December 2002. From 7pm, I was forced to
stand still at a corner of a torture room, no moving, sitting or sleeping is allowed.
Several fierce drug addicts were put beside me on watch for 24 hours. The chief
of the labour camp declared, “Your legs would be completely destroyed if
you wouldn’t give up your belief right away.”
I got to have fever soon.
The injured legs got terribly swollen again. The doctor let out cries, “Her
leg is cureless now!” Intense pain gnawed my legs, every minute demanded
conviction and courage.
By 24 December 2002, I started to have high fevers.
My face was burning red. But I became able to smile at the pain, at the furious
drug addicts and the policewomen. They could tell I was getting more determined.
Finally,
the chief doctor said to the policewomen in a meaningful low tone, “Have
to allow her to sleep”. And the policewomen got to understand, from my smiling
face that there was on hope of crushing me.
At 10pm, very reluctantly, they
allowed me to sleep.
The “standing torture” had to stop.
Later,
when I was taken to the large hospitals in Guangzhou, all the doctors got puzzled
at how my legs could have been so terribly injured. Then the policewoman would
lie to them. SO every time I was taken to the hospitals, four policewomen would
closely surrounded me, nervously preventing me from telling the truth.
THE
BIGGEST LABOUR CAMP
The more hopeless the police felt, the more frantically
brutal they became.
I was locked up in a maximum-security room, being hysterically
brainwashed every day, through morning to night, often not allowed to sleep. Four
drug addicts were put in the same room. Their job was to watch and torture me.
By February 2003, when my 77-year-old father had tried so hard and finally forced
the police to give him permission to visit me, he was so shocked at how weak and
scrawny I became. He almost had a heart attack on the spot.
Then, in May
2003, I was suddenly transferred to the biggest labour camp in the Guang Dong
province, “The Women’s Educational Institute” in Shan Shui city. This
camp is known through out the world for its brutal persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners.
From
the frantic and hysterical ways they tortured me there, I could clearly tell that
they had been given the same “definite order” as the camp in Cha Tou
had. There was once a moment I felt so exhausted by the non-stop mental and physical
tortures, I secretly shed some tears.
My husband tried to file for divorce
then. He said he had enough trouble from the police throughout these years. And
he had been frightened. He had always though that reality was more important than
ideal. The policewomen cruelly sneered that I was a deserted woman.
My husband
and I had dated each other for 10 years. We had been through many hardships together.
“But this time,” he said to me, “I was not built so strongly enough
as to be able to overcome it.”
I told my husband, “I would never
forget how Falun Dafa has mentally and physically saved my life, how it changed
me from a selfish, gloomy and dying person into a kind-hearted, hopeful, loving
and healthy practitioner. The more persecution I went through, the more evils
I saw. The firmer I believe in Falun Dafa, the stronger I realized that the world
needs ‘truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance’. And the more I hop China would
have democracy and freedom, and it is not free.”
OUT OF LABOUR CAMPS
In
the “Women’s Educational Institute”, the police did not dare to execute
tortures like “tying up legs” on me any more. Because by that time,
my father had written a lot of letters to some high-ranking government officials
revealing the tortures. This is a greatly courageous action in China. In addition,
the increasing accusation from the international community also frightened the
police.
Eventually, the police failed to get what they wanted from me.
On
23 August 2003, after 3 years of being surrounded by high walls, I slowly limped
out of the labour camp.
My husband and his family wouldn’t allow me to come
home any more. I became homeless.
The police demanded that I had to report
to them every fortnight. They requested that I inform them what I have been doing,
where I lived and what my thoughts are. I refused. I told them I am already a
free person. But a police officer warned me, “As a persistent Falungong Practitioner,
as long as you are in China, you would never be a real free person”. He soon
proved what he said it was true.
KIDNAPPING
At 7pm on 23 February
2004, while I was walking on the street with my friend in Guangzhou, about six
persons, two of which are uniformed police and others are in plain clothes, one
of which was personally known to me, suddenly appeared and kidnapped me. They
shouted and want to kidnap my friend as well. (He is not a practitioner) But he
escaped.
Pushed into a car, I was taken to a nearby police station. The
police there immediately confiscated my mobile phone, all my keys and address
cards.
Afterwards, I knew that the police found my friend through the number
left in my mobile phone and went to his company and made trouble. And the police
had searched the flat I rented soon after they got my keys. But to their disappointment,
they didn’t find any stuff which could be used as an excuse for them to put me
in labour camps again or even in jail; and that my landlord, my uncle’s family
whom I often visited, the friends in my address cards… were all terrified
by the police.
That night I was finally taken to a brainwashing camp which
has been internationally known for its extreme brutality towards Falungong practitioners.
To the public, the camp called itself “Guangzhou Law School”.
I
immediately went on hunger strike. My previously injured body weakened fast, and
my handicapped leg got to hurt more.
The police told me,” We wouldn’t
release you even if you went on hunger strike. If you died here, it is none of
our business, because we do give you food.”
Meanwhile, my mother went
to the police department, pushing the police officers to give a reason for my
arrest. None of them could and no one gave me a reason either.
Before long,
I got almost unable to speak, barely conscious and lying in bed all day. The doctors
there warned me that destroying and dangerous symptoms had appeared in my body,
that if I didn’t give up hunger strike immediately, my health would be destroyed
for the rest of my life.
I wrote to the police in a scrap paper. I stated:
“I had vowed that I wouldn’t eat until I got freedom again. I would keep
my vow until the last breath of my life.”
At noon on 12 March 2004,
when my life had been clearly in an extremely dangerous state, the police informed
my mother to take me home. But even if I were dying, they wouldn’t set me free
until my anxious mother was forced to sign her name on a paper drafted by the
brainwashing camp. The paper stated that the brainwashing camp was not responsible
for whatever might happen on my health after I got out of the camp.
It was
already two o’clock at night when they let us go.
Thereafter I lived in
my parents’ house in a small city. I hardly contacted anybody because I don’t
want the police to trouble my relatives or friends anymore. I can’t have a job,
because people are afraid to be bothered if they employ men and I might be arrested
or kidnapped at any moment.
The day before I got out of the brain-washing
camp, when I insisted to know the reason of the kidnapping, a police officer answered
me by saying “We have been given authority from the government that Falungong
practitioners can be put in law schools at any moment. Although you refused to
report to us, we could get you as long as you are still in China, and you are
not allowed to go abroad”. His answer so clearly reflected how terribly I
had been completely deprived of civil rights and human rights. And all this is
only for one reason. That is because I believe in Falun Dafa, a holly belief that
teaches us to be a nice, innocent person who has the noble virtues of “truthfulness,
benevolence, and forbearance”. My heart aches, and I shed tears for China.
ETERNAL
GRATITUDE
If it hadn’t been for my courageous parents who declared
bravely to the police that they would definitely not let those responsible people
get away with it if I died in the brain-washing camp; if it hadn’t been for the
humanitarian support and help from the international society which have made the
police so frightened; (I heard protesting phone calls from Australia while I was
in the brain-washing camp.) I would probably have died in the brainwashing camp,
like so many Falun Dafa practitioners have. I shall be grateful to those courageous
people and nations forever.
To avoid further brutal persecution
by the Jiang Zemin regime, Yi Wen Tang has gone into hiding and became homeless.
 Yiwen Tang before the persecution. |  Lisa Liang, an Australian citizen, sister of Yiwen Tang |
Posting date:
6/Oct/2004
Original article date: 2/Oct/2004
Category: News from China
