Cruel Persecution

October 10, 2000 was a day that was most memorable to all the Falun Dafa practitioners jailed in Hebei Province's No. 1 Labor Camp. On this day, the female section's yard was filled with male guards and medical workers. All female practitioners were put in the dining room and were asked to go back to their cells in groups of 10. The guards illegally performed a body search on every practitioner. The clothes of every practitioner were taken off and searched, and all the Jingwen [Master Li's articles], papers, and pens were taken away. This method of body search was repeated as many as ten times from October to December 2000. Things were scattered and left in a mess as if the cells had been looted. At night, the electricity suddenly went out. Outside the cells, the wind was blowing, the leaves were rustling, and birds were crowing strangely. The common prisoners on duty that night were terrified. To prevent the practitioners who had lost their Jinwen from committing suicide, many male and female guards on duty came to check on the practitioners repeatedly. They repeatedly directed the flashlights into the face of every practitioner. This lasted the whole night.

Because the practitioners in No. 1 sub-team [the female team] practiced Falun Gong exercises every day, they were tied up with the so-called "comfort belts" and then hung on persimmon trees in the vegetable garden in a "flying" position. They were suspended from the trees from noon until 1:00 am. The arms of some practitioners like Li Qing turned black and some practitioners lost consciousness. Li Fengying, who was in her 50s, was released after losing consciousness, but she was again hung up when she regained consciousness. The team leader Lu Yulan brought Jia Xueyan to a warehouse because she led the group of Falun Dafa practitioners in reciting Jingwen. She allowed, a common prisoner to remove Jia's clothes, and then whipped her buttocks with a leather belt with metal studs inserted into the end. Zhang Fengde and Zhang Zhibin were also beaten this way for being "not well behaved."

They tortured Liu Zhenling, who had hidden Jinwen hidden in her clothes, in order to force her to tell where she got the articles. She did not give in despite the bitter sufferings. The most admirable was Falun Dafa practitioner Gong Yuzhi, who persisted in practicing Dafa exercises, although she was on hunger strike for a long time. She was beaten so badly by the sub-team leader Liu Xiaohua [female] and another male team leader with a stun baton and a rod with sharp thorns that her buttocks were bruised and lacerated. Her pants could not be taken off since it was slashed into pieces and had buried into the flesh. When they forced her to write a letter of repentance, she wrote, "Falun Dafa is good". In the end, she wrote "I want to practice, I want to see the camp leader." Next day, she was hung up again for practicing the exercises.

Because of practicing the Falun Gong exercises, most practitioners in No. 2 sub-team were tied up in the cells in the so-called posture of "Su Qin [a Chinese historical figure] carrying a sword on his back"[a particularly cruel torture]. They were either forced to stand facing the wall or hung in the air from the trees in the front of the cells. They were beaten and humiliated almost every day. Once Li Junqing, a common prisoner who was on duty as a guard, took off her shoes and used them to rub the face and mouth of practitioner Zhu Yourong. Fifty-eight-year-old Zhou Guiying was kicked and punched for a long time by Li Junqing. Li beat her with a wooden bench until Zhou had dilated pupils and lost consciousness. Zhou was revived after emergency treatment in a hospital; however she had to pay all the medical fees herself, to pay for the treatment that was necessary because of the brutal injuries inflicted by Jiang Zemin's orders. The person who beat Zhou, a common law-breaker, was rewarded for the inhumane abuse by having her criminal prison term shortened by 8 months.

Common criminal prisoner Pi Suxia was notorious for torturing Falun Dafa practitioners. Although she was very weak and threw up blood many times, she used many different ways to fiercely beat the Dafa practitioners, who did not hit back after being hit or swear back after being sworn at and who had treated her like their child. Once she used shoes with rubber heels to slap Zhu Yourong, Shi Yurong, Zhang Haizhen, Yang Fengqin and others on their faces so badly that their faces became swollen and their eyes remained purple for a long time. She often intentionally kicked practitioners in their vital areas. She kicked Wang Yuhua on her chest and Wang almost lost consciousness. She kicked Qiu Liying on her chest so many times that Qiu could not stand up. After she kicked Duan Jingjing in her pubic area, the area became swollen and Duan had difficulty in passing urine for a long time. One time she kicked Zhang Haizhen, who was tied up in the posture of "Su Qin carrying a sword on his back" out of the cell. Zhang fell on the ground and a big piece of her facial skin was torn off. One time Pi Suxia beat one practitioner so fiercely that the practitioner could not endure it any longer and wrote a letter of repentance. Pi Suxia thought that her way of torturing was effective and she wanted to torture every practitioner this way. Next day, she tied Yang Fengqin up, kicked her several times on her pubic area, took her pants off, pushed her to the ground, and let another common prisoner Li Junqing to beat buttocks with a leather belt that had iron heads attached. Yang Fengqin did not even make any sound, despite several dozens of such vicious lashes. When the bestial beatings were going on, one sub-team leader who came to check the cells saw the situation, she let out a scared scream, covered her mouth, and ran away. The detestable Pi Suxia was surprisingly rewarded with a 3-month reduction in her prison term.

Nine practitioners who were on hunger strike for a long time were put in one sub-team. They were Zhu Yourong, Shi Yurong, He Jing, Zhang Fengde, Gong Yuzhi, Zhang Haizhen, Zhang Jiling, Wang Yuhua, and Song Xihuang. Although they did not eat any food for at least two months (for He Jing, it was at least four months), they were still ordered to walk in formation. If they could not walk well in the yard, the guards would take them to some unknown places for "training", during which their coats were taken off. If they could not follow instructions well, the guards would have the practitioners' shoes taken off, and then, with the guards' boots, stomped on their feet. If this still did not work, the guards would stomp the practitioners' feet even more fiercely. Zhang Fengde and He Jing were injured this way.

The common criminals, poor excuses for human beings, Li Junqing and Pi Suxia, acted in collusion with each other in trying to force-feed the Dafa practitioners who were on hunger strike. Take practitioner Zhou Guiying as an example. Those two evil persons tied her hands and feet, sat on her belly, stuffed her nose and mouth with towels, and tried to make her lose consciousness so they could pry open her month with a spoon for force-feeding. In the end, Zhou Guiying was suffocated and she passed stool and urine in her pants. Her teeth were broken off and her throat was torn from the cruel manipulation of spoon. She was force-fed with food that had been mixed with previously spit-out phlegm. The food used in force-feeding was sometimes mixed with a lot of salt. Sometimes the practitioners were force-fed until their bellies became obviously bulged. Once Yan Fengxia was force-fed with two full tubs of porridge and she could not sit or lie down after the feeding. Out of sympathy, one goodhearted team leader stayed with her until 2:00am and because of this she was beaten again the next day. Her chin was purplish for several days. Some practitioners told Li Junqing and Pi Suxia: "We ourselves are responsible for the consequences of the hunger strike. If someone dies from such cruel force-feeding, you need to accept the legal and moral responsibility." These two replied, "Would we dare to do this if we did not have the support from the camp leaders?"

The Death of Zhu Yourong

At 6:00 am on December 16, 2000, Zhang Jiling, who was walking out of the door with the help of someone, shouted at practitioner Jia Xueyan: "They tortured Zhu Yourong to death!"

The practitioners in No. 4 sub-team, who were all on hunger strike, came out of the cells and demanded to see Zhu Yourong and other practitioners detained in the tiny solitary cells. In fact, the practitioners illegally imprisoned in the solitary cells, Zhang Jiling, He Jing, Shi Yurong, and Song Xihuang, had been transferred away, and only Zhang Fengde, Wang Yuhua, Zhang Haizhen, Gong Yuzhi, and Zhao Yuhuan were left. Practitioners from the No. 5 sub-team also started to knock on windows and doors and strongly demanded that the guards let them out. They kept insisting for a long time. They were let out only after practitioners from the No. 4 sub-team agreed not to talk with them. Practitioners in No. 4 and No. 5 sub-teams stood together and demanded to see Zhu Yourong and said that they saw Zhu Yourong being taken away like a dead person at about 11:00 pm last night. They demanded to know what really happened to Zhu Yourong.

After a while, a labor camp chief Zhao came and asked the practitioners to go inside the cells to talk. The practitioners did not want to go inside because they were worried that they would be locked inside and could not come out again. When Zhao saw that nobody would move, he left. The practitioners started to recite Lun Yu and the poems in Hong Yin in the yard, and then together practiced Falun Gong exercises following the loud instructions from a practitioner. The practitioners in other teams who were still locked in the cells, also started to do the exercises, and finally some practitioners who were still locked inside the cells moved their beds away and jumped out of the windows that had no bars.

The practitioners started to speak loudly in the direction of the solitary cells and demanded that the practitioners in the solitary cells be allowed to come out. The guards in charge of the solitary cells took wood boards off the beds and used those to cover the windows and doors. In the stalemate, Chief Zhao came again and asked the practitioners to go inside, sit down and then talk. The Dafa practitioners insisted that they would talk with Zhao only after he released the practitioners in solitary cells. Zhao agreed and released those practitioners. When seeing the several practitioners, who had became so weak and pale, the practitioners embraced each other and cried.

The practitioners told chief Zhao that they demanded to see the five practitioners including Zhu Yourong and Zhang Jiling, and demanded to see the leaders in the procuratorate. The practitioners wanted to ask the procuratorate leaders to find out the truth, find out who committed the crimes and release all the innocent practitioners. The practitioners further explained to Zhao about the truth of the persecution of Falun Dafa.

At noon, the 80 some practitioners in No. 4 sub-team finally knew what had happened in the solitary cells: The practitioners in the solitary cells were tortured repeatedly. They could not see the sunlight. Because of the long-time hunger strike, they could not endure the cold, yet the guards forced them to sit on the ground and did not allow them to cover themselves. They were tortured this way for one whole day and were also not allowed to go to bed. One day, Zhu Yourong practiced and was pulled outside and put in the cold weather for a long time. This led to hypothermia from the exposure to the cold. On December 15, the practitioners were tied up because they practiced Falun Gong exercises, and then put on the ground. In the end, they could not endure any longer. Zhang Fengde attempted to cut her wrists, Gong Yuzhi smashed her head against the wall, and Zhu Yourong hit her head with a lock. The gurads found out what was happening and stopped them. In the evening, Zhu Yourong hanged herself. When Zhang Jiling noticed her death, she yelled and the guards and other prisoners came. A common prisoner Jiao Taili tried to revive her using CPR for about 15 minutes, but failed.

This is her story: Zhu Yourong, a high school graduate, came from Xuanhua of Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province. She died when she was in her 40s. As a practitioner, she always held a righteous mind and behaved herself well, even after suffering tremendously from the evil's persecution. She died in the end by hanging herself. She denounced the evils with her blood and tears. She also left an eternal regret: how to complete her cultivation in this life?

We hope that all practitioners who are enduring the hardships in the adverse environments keep sober-minded and remember that our lives as Dafa practitioners are used to validate Dafa. The hardship each individual has endured is so insignificant, compared to the fruit status we will reach in future. The day that the Dafa rectifies the human world will come for sure. Those who cannot hold any longer will be Jiang Zemin and his evil accomplices. History will definitely bear this out.

Dafa Practitioners in China

December 28, 2000