By Li Cuiling from Jilin City

(Clearwisdom.net) My name is Li Cuiling and I started practicing Falun Gong in 2000. Before I started to practice Falun Gong I had met many practitioners. After the Jiang Zemin instituted the crackdown on Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, the practitioner I knew best was sentenced to forced labor. I was aware of the changes in him that came after he began practicing Falun Gong. At the time I really could not understand why a person whose health and conduct had changed for the better from this practice would be sentenced to a forced labor term. Therefore, I also started practicing Falun Gong. My body and mind have benefited and I no longer fight with my husband like I used to.

In September 2001, my husband feared that he would be persecuted for associating with me, a known practitioner, so he divorced me. At the time my child was only eighteen months old, and my husband was granted sole custody. I was so overcome by grief that I hardly wished to live. Why was I forced to lose my family and my child simply because I practiced Falun Gong? I had no choice but to return to my parents' home. The police from the Gangyao police station in the Longtang District of Jilin City arrested me when they discovered Falun Gong flyers at my home.

At the police station I was punched and kicked. The policemen pulled a fistful of hair from my head and even today the hair is still missing from that spot. Afterwards, I clarified the truth about Falun Gong to Officer Wang Liansheng, but he gave me two hard slaps on my cheek.

In October 2001, somebody reported me to the authorities because I went to Nianzigou to distribute Falun Gong flyers. As a result, I was again arrested. When I simply refused to get in their car, the police violently kicked my lower back. I explained the truth to them and told them that the "Tiananmen Square self-immolation" was faked. They were speechless. They said that they were only doing what their higher-up's had ordered them to do. In the end I did not get in the car.

From the bottom of my heart I cried out that I must go to Beijing and publicly declare that "Falun Dafa is good. Let this persecution stop!"

Not long after that I went to Beijing. The minute I arrived at the Tiananmen Square gate, even before I was able to see the flag being hoisted, someone approached me and questioned me. I cried out my heartfelt message and was dragged away. They snatched my banner from my hands and beat me with a rubber club. When I yelled, "Falun Dafa is good," they grabbed me by the hair and knocked me to the ground. I was taken to a police station in the Changping District. On my way there the police hit me because I yelled, "Falun Dafa is good."

While I was in Changping Police Station, a policeman hit me very hard because I refused to give them my name and address. I said, "Instead of going after bad people, you are arresting good people. You turn a blind eye to murder and arson. Why are you just after good people?" The policeman said, "We'll just have to take care of you first 'and leave murder and arson alone."

I was held in the police station for forty-eight hours. They did not allow me to practice the Falun Gong exercises and beat me with a wooden stick. They opened all the windows to let in the bone-chilling winds of winter and ordered us to stay on the icy ground. Later, when I was being held in a detention center, a section chief said to me, "We also know that you guys are good people, but we can't help it. The country makes us do this and we do it to keep our jobs."

The day I was taken to a detention center, a policewoman told the other inmates to give me a hard time because I refused to hold my head with my hands. After depriving me of food for three days, they gave me a so-called "cold shower." With icy cold bone-chilling water poured over me from head to toe, the pain was beyond description. I went on a hunger strike in protest. On the fourth day of my hunger strike I was subjected to force-feeding. Over and over again I was held to the ground and a tube was inserted through my nose down to my stomach. It was truly unbearable.

On July 20, 2002, I was again arrested at home. Gangyao Police Station police put me in handcuffs and shackles for twenty-four hours. By the time they sent me to the detention center, I was not able to put on my shoes. On September 1, 2002, I was sent to a forced labor camp where I was repeatedly tortured.

In the forced labor camp I was punched and kicked by four or five guards because I remained steadfast in Falun Gong. I started to hold a hunger strike. I was held to the ground while lawless personnel pried open my mouth with a special device, inserted a tube down to my stomach and then pulled it up and down, forcing out the contents of my stomach. One day a doctor said, "Don't be so resistant. Wasn't Liu Mingke also from your hometown of Jilin City? He died from force-feeding. So what?!"

While I was in physical pain from the torture, I was also verbally abused and insulted. I was deeply heartbroken. At each and every moment I lived under the threat of death. One time a person who had enlightened along an evil path reported to the disciplinary guards that I had sat in mediation. Disciplinary guards Jin and Sun sent me to another empty room and beat me up. I yelled so loudly they gagged me with a rag. Sun Hui also clenched my neck with her hands and claimed that she was going to choke me to death. I almost passed out.

The forced labor camp completely deprived detainees of their human rights and freedom. We were not even free to speak or use the restroom. They made us eat our meals very fast. We had only five minutes to finish eating a meal. Some old ladies whose teeth were not good almost had to pour the food down their throats, and sometimes they were so choked up that tears came to their eyes. On New Year's Eve 2003, Falun Dafa practitioner Liang Yujie was tortured with force-feeding. At the time we heard someone in the discipline monitoring room yell loudly, "Help!" We also heard a lot of noise. I was not able to get in. The window in the door of the discipline room was covered with paper, so we could not see anything at all. After that she remained in the discipline room. After a few days she was transferred to another division.

Later, I was beaten up for possessing Teacher's articles. I was criticized for sitting with my legs crossed. One time I yelled, "The guards are hitting people." So policewoman Sun Hui gagged me with a rag, then clutched my neck and almost suffocated me.

In March 2003, because I refused to wear the forced labor camp's uniform, I was put in an empty room to be tortured. I said that practicing Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance is not a crime, that I was not serving a forced labor term and that I was being illegally detained. The division head asked disciplinary guards to take out an electric baton. Several people punched and kicked me and pressed me to the ground with great force. They sewed my clothes together. Then, four people took turns monitoring me, so I held a hunger strike to protest. They started force-feeding me the very first day. They sent me to the infirmary where they pinched my nose shut and pressed my head with their hands. Four or five people grabbed me. That was how I was forced-fed over and over again. Over and over again I almost suffocated and over and over again I almost died. They also tied my four limbs to a bed and did not cover me with a blanket or let me sleep. I was tortured like that for more than a dozen days. I was verbally abused by guards and collaborators and drugged each day. They did not allow me to use the restroom and made someone else give me a bedpan to collect my urine instead. Consequently, I was deprived of human dignity as well as my human rights. I experienced a living hell in the Changchun Haizuizi Forced Labor Camp.

Being beaten up was normal in my daily life in the camp. A guard could randomly hit you whenever he or she was mad. That's how I lived my life for over a year. I was so lucky to be able to get out of that place alive. When I walked out of the big gate, I looked at the sky and sighed, "I'm out and I'm alive."

Although I started practicing Falun Dafa late, my determination to cultivate in Falun Dafa will never change. Now that I have been able to return alive, I'll continue to clarify the truth and validate Dafa.

Posting date: 8/18/2004
Original article date: 8/17/2004
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Translated on 8/9/2004
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/8/6/81120.html

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