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By WANG YUZHI
My family came from the city of Harbin. I was 15 when the Great Cultural
Revolution swept through China. My father was jailed for being an
"anti-revolutionist"-Maoist jargon for anyone with an education, owning lands
or holding traditional values.
My mother was left to take care of eight children, with no source of income.
Fortunately, two of my brothers were able to earn enough money washing cloth by
the banks of the Songhua River to keep the family fed. My mother was too
depressed and sick to cook, so I took over the cooking for the family.
I used to take meals to my father in prison, and can still remember seeing him
behind bars-dark and gaunt, but always passionate and positive. In spite of the
extreme difficulties in my life, I was always encouraged by my father's
attitude.
In 1976 the "Gang of Four" was removed from power and life began to change. My
father was released from prison, and my two older boys were admitted to
university, along with my younger sister. I was left to provide for the rest of
the family, including my sick parents. I got a job making towel tassels, and
was so efficient at my work that I could earn 200-300 Yuan a month. This was
enough money to provide food for the whole family, and tuition for my younger
brothers and sister.
My Life Improves
In 1979, life slowly started to change for me. I was working in an electronics
company, and the company decided to send me to university. After I graduated, I
went back to the factory to work as an engineer. In 1989 the company went
bankrupt and so my husband (whom I'd met at university) and I started up our
own business importing office supplies. The business went so well that the
company profits continually doubled. My hardships were finally over-I had a
house, a car, a great business and a happy marriage.
I also had a beautiful son.
By this time, my family was doing well financially. My father had started his
own factory and went on to become one of China's first millionaires. Two of my
brothers left China-one went to Philadelphia, and the other to the Middle East.
My mother moved to the United Arab Emirates with my two younger sisters. All my
brothers and sisters had prosperous businesses.
Financially, life was good.
My life underwent another incredible change in 1998 when one of my customers
handed me a copy of Falun Gong-the introductory text of Falun Gong. When
I first took the book, I had no idea how dramatically it would change my life.
I began practicing Falun Gong and started to notice huge changes in my life. For
years I had suffered from a debilitating illness that would occasionally cause
me to suddenly lose control in my legs, and make walking impossible. I had
visited countless doctors, both Chinese and western, but none of them could
pinpoint the cause of the illness. Three months after starting Falun Gong, my
illness totally disappeared.
I began diligently studying the Falun Gong books, and did the Falun Gong
exercises with friends at a local park. In the process of practicing Falun Gong
I felt cleansed of many negative thoughts and emotions that I had collected
throughout my life. I felt my body and soul gradually become healthy and
harmonious like never before. My tiring life became happier and I was finally
at peace. I felt so lucky to be able to learn a Chinese exercise and meditation
practice that originated in the ancient traditions of my country. In Chinese
history every dynasty was built on and governed by virtue and morality. The
main focus in life was to think of others first and always look inside to see
where you could do better. The main goal in life was to strengthen the spirit,
to enlighten to truth and return the body and mind to the original true
essence. The profound principles in Falun Gong empowered me to make purer
choices in my life and helped me to bring the principles of Truth Compassion
and Tolerance into my family. I feel I have truly found the meaning of my life
and the answers to life's mysteries by practicing Falun Gong. For me, it
brought together all of the pieces of the puzzle.
Crackdown on Falun Gong
Falun Gong spread rapidly in China, and by 1999 statistics from China's Physical
Education Bureau showed that there were over 70 million people practicing Falun
Gong. Jiang Zemin, the leader of the Communist Party at that time, was
threatened by both the sheer numbers of people and their allegiance to
something other than Communist Party ideology. On July 20, 1999 he ordered a
brutal crackdown on Falun Gong. Overnight, those 70 million people, including
myself, became the "enemy of the people" and "followers of an evil religion."
My life was about to take another dramatic turn-full of incredible hardships
that I could never have imagined.
As the crackdown on Falun Gong continued, the media was saturated with lies and
propaganda. In order to justify the persecution, all kinds of bloody crimes
(immolation, suicide, homicide) were used to frame up Falun Gong practitioners.
The sensational propaganda demonizing Falun Gong permeated the entire country.
It was like reliving the Great Cultural Revolution-only worse.
Arrested Three Times
The sudden persecution of Falun Gong stunned me and all my friends, and so I
went to the local Appeals Office-following the legal rights guaranteed by the
Chinese Constitution to register appeals with the government. But I quickly
found out that these rights no longer applied to Falun Gong practitioners.
Ironically, the Appeals Office became the detention center, where all
practitioners who went to appeal against the vicious persecution were arrested
instead. I was arrested three times. The first time was in January 2000 in
Beijing. I was ordered to sign a pledge promising not to return to Beijing to
organize support for Falun Gong. I refused to sign it, so the guards ordered
other inmates to beat me. The second arrest was in July 2000, for photocopying
Falun Gong flyers. The police officers beat me repeatedly, trying to find out
whom the flyers were for. In spite of the vicious slander against Falun Gong, I
stood firmly by my beliefs and decided to help reveal the facts of the
persecution to people who had been deceived by the government's propaganda.
In October 2000 I and a few other practitioners prepared over 100,000 leaflets
explaining the truth about Falun Gong. With the help of other practitioners, we
distributed the leaf lets throughout the entire Province. People who had
previously believed the propaganda suddenly understood the facts of the
persecution. Revealing the facts was what the authorities feared most,
particularly Luo Gan (the highest leader in the central government in charge of
the 6-10 Office-a Gestapo-like entity of the government in charge of
persecuting Falun Gong). I was placed on the "most wanted list," and my name
and photo were posted everywhere with a reward of 50,000 Yuan offered for
information leading to my arrest.
On July 16, 2001 I went to the bank to withdraw my money and was arrested for
the third time. The police confiscated US $50,000 from my savings and froze my
bank accounts. Memories of my father's time in prison came back to me like a
bad dream. Here I was, 46 years old, being jailed for my beliefs, just as he
had been.
Wanjia Forced Labor Camp
In November 2001, I was transferred from the Second Detention Center to the
Wanjia Forced Labor Camp of Harbin-infamous for its brutality towards Falun
Gong practitioners. All practitioners detained in the detention center or the
forced Labor camp had to endure brainwashing. Every day, we had to sit in one
position and watch anti-Falun Gong propaganda on TV or listen to the guards for
over 8 hours. No one was allowed to move. Sometimes, a brainwashing session
would last for days and we weren't allowed to sleep the entire time. Often, we
were not even allowed to use the toilet. In addition to the intense
brainwashing and sleep deprivation, Falun Gong practitioners were routinely
beaten or whipped, tied with ropes and hanged from the ceiling, given electric
shocks, forced to sit naked on iron chairs, or raped by male criminals.
Most Falun Gong practitioners refused to give up their beliefs. Some of them,
including me, went on hunger strikes to protest our unlawful arrests and the
inhumane torture and persecution.
Brutal Force-Feedings
I vividly remember my first hunger strike at the Harbin City Detention Center.
In order to force feed me, the doctors at the Harbin City Detention Center used
a metal clamp to pry open my teeth and then pushed a thick rubber tube down to
my stomach. My mouth was filled with blood and my body was covered in bruises
after every force-feeding. Several people were there to beat and subdue me for
these force-feedings. They would pour two big bowls of cold water mixed with
corn flour into me, saying that it was for "stretching the stomach." When I
screamed, the police were afraid of others hearing me. They
ordered inmates to gag and beat me even more.
The force-feeding at the Wanjia Forced Labor Camp was even more violent and
cruel. The doctors there used force-feeding as a torture method and didn't care
whether practitioners survived it or not.
Before force-feeding me for the first time, I saw them grab a female Falun Gong
practitioner named Shang by the hair and knock her head against the wall and
floor. When she was finally unconscious, they forced the tube into her nose to
force-feed her. There was no sterilization-they simply brushed the tube around
in a basin then forced it through her nose and down into her stomach. Then they
injected ground corn grain mixed with cold water.
After they'd finished with her, the two prison doctors turned around and looked
at me. They stood there with their forceps and tools in their hands and said,
"You see that? You're next." After that, I was subjected to this kind of
force-feeding every day in jail.
They would beat us to the point where we were almost unconscious before tying
our arms and legs down and forcing the tubes through our noses and down into
our stomachs. We were tied up to prevent us from pulling the tubes out because
of the excruciating pain.
On one occasion I witnessed a female practitioner named Minxia Guo being
force-fed. The nurses grabbed Minxia's hair and pinched her face and body. She
was black and blue everywhere. Her whole body began to twitch. When I condemned
the guards and doctors for what they were doing, they turned on me and beat me
up as well.
One day I heard the desperate cry of a man in the woman's ward. It was the
husband of a
Falun Gong practitioner named Yanhong Ding. He had begged to be able to visit
her, and when he finally was allowed to come in, they force-fed her right in
front of him. This man cried terribly while his wife struggled in pain.
I always knew that if I would simply write a letter denouncing Falun Gong,
denouncing its teachings and promise to never practice again, I would be
released immediately. But if it is wrong to believe in
"Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance," what hope does humanity have? This
persecution was forcing people to choose between their lives and their
conscience. I knew that I was being forced to make that choice, and I chose my
conscience because I knew that when good men and women renounce good, wholesome
beliefs under pressure from a dictatorship, something much greater than us
dies.
Torture at the Labor Camp Hospital
Due to the filthy conditions in the Labor camp, many practitioners developed
purulent scabies. They had pus cysts and blood all over their skin. The worst
ones were as big as a peach. During the day the sores were continually
discharging pus and mucus. During the night they became so itchy that it was
impossible to fall asleep.
Every practitioner that developed scabies would be sent to the hospital run by
the forced Labor camp-but it wasn't for medical treatment. When practitioners
arrived at the hospital, they were dragged into a small closed room, and forced
onto the ground. The doctors would violently remove their clothes, and use
sharp steel knives or metal spoons to scratch the pus cysts. They would scrape
the spoons back and forth through the flesh and blood, while the practitioner
on the ground would be screaming in pain. When they finished with the digging,
they would force the practitioner to stand against the wall so that they could
clean the blood from their bodies. The water from the faucets was not normal
tap water; it was filthy, freezing cold and full of rust.
I remember a new prison doctor who came-a university graduate. Whenever he
treated a practitioner, he would follow the correct medical procedure to prick
open and wash each of the vesicles. When the chief of the Wanjia Hospital saw
what he was doing, he pushed the doctor aside, picked up a steel spoon and
started using the spoon to dig into the
pus cysts.
This kind of murderous "medical treatment" would be repeated every few days
along with daily beatings and force-feeding through the nose.
Any Practitioner Tortured to Death will be Counted as a Suicide
After enduring such torture, many practitioners ended up on the verge of death.
I know of at least 8 Falun Gong practitioners who have been tortured to death
in Wanjia Forced Labor Camp since the persecution began. The guards told all
the practitioners that if they were beaten to death, it would be counted as a
suicide and their bodies would be cremated immediately-before informing the
families, so there would be no evidence of any torture.
Although I lived in this extreme horror every day, I was determined to survive
without compromising my beliefs.
A Struggle to Let the Outside World Know About the Persecution
My husband and children cried and begged the guards to be allowed to visit me on
many occasions, but to no avail. Family members of Falun Gong practitioners
were not allowed any visitation rights.
On one occasion during my hunger strike, I was lying in bed in the Labor Camp
Hospital. Through the window by the side of the street, I could see my
relatives standing at the door, begging the guards to be allowed in.
On another occasion, my two younger sisters came from overseas to visit me. They
stood at the door, crying and begging to be let in, and they refused to leave.
Suddenly it started raining. They covered their faces with their raincoats and
went straight past the security guard, and quickly ran inside the hospital. By
then I had been on hunger strike for over 50 days.
When I saw them I somehow found the strength to get out of bed. I got outside
the door and grabbed the guardrail in the corridor with all my strength. I
stared at my two younger sisters. When my sisters saw how emaciated I was, they
began crying loudly in the corridor. I was crying too. I told them, "You need
to contact international organizations and let the world know what is happening
to me!"
In March, 2002, I started writing letters on tissue paper within the Labor Camp
to the Harbin Justice Bureau, the Harbin Public Security Department and to the
Province's Public Security Ministry. The letters I wrote were each five feet
long. On several occasions they were almost taken away by the warden.
The day after I finished the letters some people from the Justice Bureau came to
inspect the Labor camp. When they came to my ward I personally handed the
letters to them.
Finally Released
After nine months in prison, my health had deteriorated so much that I couldn't
even stand up. My eyes and nose were festering with blood and pus from the
force feedings and my eyesight was almost gone. My hunger strike lasted more
than 100 days. Towards the end of it, my nose was so swollen that the doctors
could no longer force a tube into it. I was on the verge of death, and the
doctors knew it. They called my relatives and gave them the responsibility of
nursing me back to health.
When I was finally released in May 2002, I had been in jail for nine months.
Nine months that seemed like an eternity...I felt as though I had just emerged
from hell.
After my release, I immediately began practicing the Falun Gong exercises again.
My body and eyes quickly recovered. When the police realized I was healthy once
again, they wanted to send me back to the Labor camp.
In June 2002, to avoid further persecution, I went to visit my family in the
United Arab Emirates. On the way, I used every opportunity to tell the Chinese
people at the airports the truth about the persecution. Eventually, someone
from the Chinese Embassy saw me and persuaded the local police to arrest me,
telling them that I was a dangerous criminal. The Chinese Embassy asked the
United Arab Emirates to deport me back to China. Miraculously, through
around-the-clock efforts by Canadian Falun Gong practitioners and the Canadian
Government, I was given special permission to move to Vancouver, Canada in
November 2002, to be with my son.
The rescue efforts of the Canadians probably saved my life.
What I have been through in the past three years is a nightmare. Although the
nightmare is over for me, there are still hundreds of thousands of bloody
nightmares like mine on-going in China. I hope that by publishing my story, I
can help end these nightmares as well.
I attribute my ability to survive the horrific torture to the principles of
Falun Gong: "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" exist deep in my heart, far
beyond the reach of any electric baton, far beyond the reach of a prison
guard's fist. Lies and slanderous propaganda dissolve when faced with the
truth. Brutality and torture is no match for compassion. Violence and hatred
cannot penetrate tolerance.
For nine months, they tried to make me believe these principles are not true.
They failed.
I feel real freedom is not obtained externally, but internally within the realm
of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." Even when faced with extreme torture
and persecution, true Falun Gong practitioners can withstand the
unimaginable-even to the end of their life-in order to defend a common good
greater than ourselves: the universal principles of
"Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance."
Yuzhi Wang is currently living with her son in Vancouver with a Minister's Permit
for Canada. She spends her time letting people know about the persecution of
Falun Gong in China.
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