(Clearwisdom.net)
10. Beyond the Limits of Forbearance
In January 2001, we were moved to the second floor from the "Intensified Monitoring Team" on the first floor. It's said that there was an official document indicating that anyone who gave up Falun Gong would be released before his or her sentence expired, and that if one coerced someone else to give up, his or her term could be reduced even further. Some of those giving up the practice were released, but the labor camp didn't follow the procedures that well. They continued to detain many who had given up, forcing them to work prolonged periods of hard labor, doing things like moving bricks to make money for the camp. One of them told me when she came to brainwash me, "This work is too hard. It would have been better if I had not given up, so that I could avoid the hard work like you who hasn't given up."
Many of these so-called "reformed" practitioners asked to go home, but the police would not allow it. They are held in the "Intensified Monitoring Team" and not allowed to take even one step out of their rooms. When they broke down the doors and glass they were badly beaten by policemen. Some were left with broken legs, cramps and many became ill. Several were sent to mental hospitals and injected with mind-altering drugs. Healthy people were tortured to a state of mental disorder with grotesque looks. In the middle of the night, the noise of breaking glass could be heard throughout the whole building. They cried, "I want to go home." They are victims. They surrendered to the evil, but it didn't stop hurting them. Since they betrayed Dafa, they lost the soul of a Dafa practitioner and became hysterical. I really hoped they could come back to Dafa and smooth over their faults, and so be worthy of Teacher's painstaking efforts in saving them, as well as being worthy of all the pains they themselves had suffered.
At the same time, two male practitioners who had escaped were arrested again and put into a mini-cell. A mini-cell is a small dark room with four concrete walls and a small iron door with a toilet right underneath the wooden floor. The room is not as long as a person is tall. Their only meal of the day consisted of a single steamed bun. When being interrogated, they were struck by electric batons and tortured. Their cries could be heard at night.
Moved to the 2nd floor, the guard Liu Yadong is ruthless. To confine us to our rooms, she asked us to put the urine pots in front of the doors every morning. With about 20 of them in the corridor and the windows closed, the offensive odor was unbearable. She asked each of us to clean them for a week.
I was locked in the worst room. The whole wall was covered by dirty mold. We are not allowed out of our rooms. Days later, a criminal inmate with syphilis was sent to stay with me. Actually, the camp has a rule that prohibits a person who carries venereal disease to stay with others in the same room. They kept asking people to brainwash me. Sometimes the room was full of "give-ups"[former practitioners who gave up Falun Gong under intense pressure and brainwashing]. I rebuked them as they talked by twisting Falun Gong teachings. Once a male "give-up" talked to me saying I should look inward. I said, "You are not looking inward. You are complaining about Dafa and the Teacher. Looking inward does not mean to surrender to the evil! You should uphold the truth." Unable to answer, the "give-ups" fled.
Once a "give-up" took the chance of going to the toilet to listen to me. I told her that she was wrong to give up. Later she talked with another practitioner, realized her fault, and wrote a solemn statement to rescind her renunciation. Then she was jailed again in the "Intensified Monitoring Team."
One day, the Labor Camp tried to force me to have my picture taken. Three guards were enlisted in the attempt. One held my head, the other two held my arms. I struggled and shouted, "I didn't commit any crimes. I will not allow you to take my photo." They finally didn't take it.
One day early in the new year of 2001, the new article "Beyond the Limits of Forbearance" was sent to the jail. We realized that it was time to eliminate the evil. We shouldn't just resign ourselves to adversity.
So we shared our experiences through the door cracks. The patrolling criminals and police had no control over us. Finally we agreed that we should create our environment, so we asked to see the camp Chief. The second day the vice camp Chief supervised the cells. Many practitioners talked to him to expose the savage persecution, asking to improve the environment and stop beating Dafa practitioners.
One day the "give-ups" and criminals were going to a celebration and that left no one looking after us. One of the room's doors was left unlocked, so those inside came out and opened the doors for the rest of the practitioners. More than ten of us in the "Intensified Monitoring Team" were able to meet together. We embraced each other in tears. Newly arrived practitioners discussed the situation outside the camp, saying more than twenty loudspeakers had broadcast Dafa truth-clarifying material in Beijing for a long period of time. We were all encouraged. One practitioner recited part of Master Li's lecture in Western US Cultivation Experience Sharing Conference. The part I clearly remembered is, " There's something I told you before. I said, What is a Buddha? "Tathagata" is what humans call someone who's come with the truth and the power to do what he wants, whereas real Buddhas are guardians of the cosmos and are responsible for all righteous elements in the cosmos." I became clearer as to what we should do.
A vicious police officer came in and was very angry to find us all in one room. She beat us and pushed us back into our rooms.
That day at midnight, a fellow practitioner asked to go out to the toilet, since one practitioner in her room cannot bear the smell of the containers used to hold waste in the cell. Officer Liu Yadong would not allow the door to be opened, however. We all criticized her, asking, "Why not allow her to go to a toilet? Don't you have sisters and brothers? Open the door! Let her out to the toilet." "Why you are so cruel?" She said, "The superiors made such a rule." "The superior said so?" we asked. "Do you follow them if they ask you to kill people or set fires?" I found that my attachment fearing her had gone, and for the first time I didn't see her as rampant and aggressive.
The second day, a guard loudly reprimanded a fellow practitioner and said there was a policy permitting them to treat us badly. I shouted at the door, "Which law said that? Show me!" She rushed to me and wanted to beat me but was stopped by my words. I said I'll make complaints to the camp heads. She gave me pen and paper, and I wrote down 9 questions:
1. Why separately lock us up for a long time? Not allow us to talk to others or go for a walk? Why do you say "Forced Labor" is an internal issue but our situations are worse than for a condemned prisoners?"
2. We are detained for longer than our original terms? Where is the law?
3. Why suppress the truth of the failure of forced transformation, deceiving both upper level and lower level authorities as well as the public?
4. Why use criminals to monitor us? They are criminals. Instead of being educated in the labor camp, they are instigated to curse and beat people, so they'll be more harmful to the society. What law legislated this?
5. It's inhumane that we are not allowed to take a bath or change clothes for long times. Why do we continue to have to eat and excrete in the same dirty room?
6. Some guards are used to cursing or beating practitioners. They force practitioners to sit on a small stool for a long time, not allowing them go to a bed; Chen Chunmei, is a leader, but she instigated criminals to curse and beat practitioners. Who is supervising her or them?
7. Why arrange criminals with venereal diseases to stay with Falun Gong practitioners?
8. The dining room section keeps false accounts when deducting our board fee. The monthly food fee is just about 30-40 Yuan, but they deduct 90 plus Yuan from the account. They are cheating all of us and breaking the rules. Shouldn't the labor camp be ruled by laws?
9. Criminals are allowed to call or be visited by their family members, but we are not allowed to do so. Our letters are detained. The items sent by practitioners' family are not given to practitioners. Why?
Two days later, we heard some furious banging on a door and a practitioner shouted, "Please open the door quickly. Jin Hongli cannot breathe anymore. Her face is turning blue." Instead of opening the door, the police only reprimanded the practitioner. Yang Yubo than shouted loudly, "You are killing people! Open the door quickly!" Seeing her banging on the door continuously, Police handcuffed her and hung her up.
Other practitioners all joined in and started banging on their doors in unison. The police were startled and ran into the corridor, shouting: "You are pigs. You are to be locked up. We will not open the door." Practitioners became angry. Some kept knocking on the door. Others started practicing. Police ruthlessly chained Liu Guihua and Ma Xiaohua onto steel beds.
Next morning, Chen Chunmei the head of the camp brought several police with her, and pushed me to the "Intensified Monitoring Team" on the first floor.
Every room in the "Intensified Monitoring Team" has a monitor installed. Iron rings are welded to both sides of the bed for handcuffing people. Moments later, a few other practitioners the camp thought to be "leaders" were pushed to the first floor. The "elder sister" Wang Shujun was one of them. Before she had practiced Falun Gong, she had uremia, and after spending several hundred thousand Yuan uselessly, doctors diagnosed her as hopeless. Later she practiced Falun Gong and hasn't had to take any medicine for a few years. Everybody said it was a miracle, and her family members have believed in Falun Gong ever since. But the long-term torture in the labor camp has caused her to almost go blind, and police still won't let her go. Some practitioners tried to persuade her to ask the help of her brother, who had worked in the public security bureau, to get her out so as to expose the evils of the labor camp. But she did not like to go out in that way. She didn't want to let evil make use of her apparent illness to attack Dafa.
Chen Chunmei then brought people to my room and said I broke the rules of the camp and she wanted to handcuff me. I warned them, "Complaining to you broke which camp rules? If I didn't make the right points, you can ignore them. If I said right things, you should correct them!" They didn't say anything or handcuff me.
In the afternoon, Wang Shujun came back after a physical examination, she shouted to us through the door cracks, "Sisters, be persistent. The day the Fa will be rectified is not far away!"
The third day again there was a fellow practitioner being sent to the "Intensified Monitoring Team" just because she said "good point" to encourage fellow practitioners when they argued with the police. Seeing we were sent to the "Intensified Monitoring Team," all practitioners on the second floor started a hunger strike, but were all sent to the "Intensified Monitoring Team." The policemen's plan to punish "leaders" failed.
Police asked two "give-ups" to persuade me. In front of the police, I asked them: "You said one thing facing the police, said opposite things behind their backs. Now in front of the police, would you dare to say that you do not believe Dafa anymore?" They didn't say one word. Police then said, "They just came to see you, not to persuade you." Then they let the two go.
I asked the police for pen and paper and wrote down a "will." I wrote down what I suffered in the jail. The evil persecution has caused two deaths. I have been on hunger strike for three days. I do not want to die. I miss all my relatives. It's the police who are forcing us to die. I told my family that if I died, you should sue them, asking them for justice for me! Then I handed the "will" to the guard on duty. I know they will detain the letter. Then I sat on the bed and started crying.
I was thinking of how to stop the evil police over here from ruthlessly persecuting us. Wang Junhua of my neighboring room knocked on the radiator to call me. I climbed underneath the bed. She said, "Ms. Zhang, I am sorry, I started eating after two days hunger striking. I dreamed of three pots of flowers, two of them were burned to death by boiling water." I told her that we'll persist to create a better environment.
In the evening, I wanted to practice, but was stopped. In the "Intensified Monitoring Team," the criminals, police and machine monitors were looking at us.
Winter in Jiamusi is awfully cold, and the heat from the radiator is weak. The rooms on the north side are like ice caves. I've stayed there for three months with cotton padded shoes and a big down coat. It was still very cold. I stay on the sunny side of at present. Other practitioners are now on the north side. The rooms on the sunny side are empty, but they do not let them in. I said to a practitioner in my room that we should help the other practitioners move to the sunny side.
That morning the sky was deep blue, and the eastern sky radiated with colorful sunshine, a beautiful scene. I shouted to the other side, "Fellow practitioners in the north side, the rosy sunrise is so wonderful. You cannot see it. There are many empty rooms on the sunny side. How could you stay on the north side?" One fellow practitioner said, "We asked them, but we were not allowed to move." So we urged one another: "We want to practice! We want to study Fa! Return my Dafa books!" A practitioner on the north side started knocking on the door. One room was opened, and the others helped to open all the doors. All practitioners came into the corridor. Yang Yubo shouted. "They are persecuting us. This is evil! Evil is killing people!" Then one practitioner started to tear off the white cloth curtain on the door, others followed. A practitioner stood there without taking any action and she asked, "is it right to do so?" They said, "It's alright." I said, "Right! All the evils should be eliminated by various methods in different levels." So more than ten practitioners all moved their items to the sunny side. Several police stood beside us and didn't dare to stop us. Just like Master has told us:" If a cultivator can let go of the thought of life and death under any circumstance, evil is sure to be afraid of him. If every student is able to do this, evil will of itself no longer exist." "Eliminate Your Last Attachment(s)"
After we moved together, we agreed that we could not allow them to shut us off again or let criminals manage us. We came out and cleaned the corridor, toilet and the bathroom. We told the guards, "We do not need criminals to monitor us in the future. We will take care for ourselves." The police walked around and said nothing. We all came together in one room for experience sharing. Some one suggested that we study the Fa together, so we recited "Lunyu." The police mumbled a few words, but no more.
Several fellow practitioners do not agree with what we did today. They think we are persecuted because we have karma. I told them, "The evil is not coming for us personally. It aims at Dafa and our Teacher. We should stand at Teacher's side to safeguard Dafa. We should eliminate evil instead of resigning ourselves to adversity." But they didn't accept my view (months later, they realized this, and one of them said she went a round-about way for some time.)
Later police asked me and two other fellow practitioners to collect personal items to move to the 7th team. They said the 7th team is a good place. You can use outside toilet, go out for dinner or take walks.
I felt that the evil was playing games. I said to everyone, "No matter what happens we should stand together. Do not allow them to shut our doors. Remember what teacher said, "It's up you yourselves to create the environment." I embraced the sisters for a farewell, not knowing when would meet again.
(to be continued)
