I am a practitioner from the city of Dalian. In July of 2000, I went to Tiananmen Square again to validate Dafa. When I was there the last time, I held up a Dafa banner. After that, I was pulled into a room and beaten by several plainclothes policemen. I was beaten so severely that my face and left eye became severely swollen . After this, I was taken back to Dalian and sent to Dalian "Abstain" Center (the name was temporarily changed to "Falun Gong Education and Transformation Center"), together with another practitioner. As I didn't want to watch the defamatory and insulting propaganda, I did the exercises. I was removed and put into another room. I was attached to an iron bed with handcuffs and beaten. I cried out "What did I do for you to treat me like this?" They said "How dare you do the exercises here. Don't you know what this place is?" They kept beating and kicking me. I recited Lunyu and Genuine Cultivation loudly, with tears streaming down my face. They continued to torture me with electric batons. I recited Master Li's words even more loudly. My voice reverberated throughout the whole building. They were very scared and started to play music through a loudspeaker and gagged me with a towel. The torture lasted a long time. Over 10 policemen took turns to beat me.
Afterwards, they threw me into a small room and handcuffed me to the ground. I refused to eat and drink, until a policeman from the "Development Zone" took me and another practitioner away the next morning. Before I stepped out of the detention center gate, they asked us to hand in 250 Yuan [about $30] each. The only 50 Yuan I brought with me was confiscated when I came in. I had not a penny left. When I was taken to the "Development Zone" Detention Center, I continued an already begun hunger strike and requested to be acquitted. During my 15-day hunger strike, I was twice force-fed through a pipe. One time, when I refused to recite prison regulations, a common prisoner beat me. On August 14, 2000, I was sent to Dalian Labor Camp for two and half years of labor re-education.
I persisted to do the exercises in No.5 Team of the labor camp. One time, when I practiced the exercises in front of 150 prisoners in the yard, an evil guard with the name of Qiao Wei beat me viciously with an electric baton until my head started to bleed. Following that beating, they pulled me into a small room, where I still persisted to do the exercises. They pulled me out again and ordered many criminal prisoners to hold me on the ground, while Qiao Wei and another team leader shocked me from head to toe with three electric batons until the electricity batteries were ran out of power.
The space in the small room only allowed a person to be in a sitting position. It was impossible to stretch out. I had to sit there from 5am to 9pm and could only go to the bathroom twice and get the meals through the hole in the door. An assigned person was ordered to watch me 24 hours a day. I refused to eat and drink. The skin on the outside of my ankles was worn raw. Four days later, I was assigned to No.1 Team (brick factory of the labor camp) with some prisoners, to be re-educated through labor. As I had been on a hunger strike for several days by that time, I felt very weak. Brick factory work is very hard, heavy labor. I had to bend down over 1,000 times a day, squat down to pick up the bricks and hand them over to another person. They abused me when I slowed down even a little. Sometimes, common prisoners even dropped bricks onto my feet. Both nails of my big toes were gone; my hands were worn out, too. I felt pain all over my body. At this time, the team leader had a conversation with me and said if I gave up practicing, I didn't have to work. When I recall this memory, I feel I probably would have given up if the Fa that Master had taught me did not appear in my mind frequently. After three months, I and some 20 other Dafa practitioners, who had suffered a lot from the hard work at laboring in this factory, were transferred to No.3 Team to pick peas, carry bags, load and unload trucks. By this time, there were over 40 Dafa practitioners laboring in the same building. Some of them had been held for more than a year. They were not released after the due date for the end of their term and their terms were extended with no reason given. After we joined the group, the atmosphere in the whole building became very peaceful and serene. We staged a group strike on December 13, to call for the practitioners' release. The strike lasted one day. The leader in the labor camp transferred eight of us back to No.1 Team and they did not dare to assign the newly arrived practitioner to do the heavy, manual work. On the same day, we got the news from the female team that they started to strike, too. They also went on a hunger strike to call for there acquittal. Eight of us practitioners still continued our strike and the request for our release after being transferred to No.1 Team.
Several days ago, other practitioners and I did the exercises again, in front of many prisoners and team leaders. We were beaten and pulled into the room and watched by a designated person and our freedom was restricted. We are innocent, yet they have held us here for a long time. This illegal imprisonment itself is a brutal violation of human rights. In order to expose the evilness here, I risked being severely punished. But, calmly, at 8:00 AM on December 28, 2000, I stepped through five gates, in front of many prisoners and team leaders, and miraculously left behind that evil place I was held in for more than four and a half months. Today, there are still at least two hundred Dafa practitioners being held in Dalian Labor Camp who are unable to reunite with their families and who are enduring tremendous suffering.
A Practitioner in Dalian China
December 28, 2000
