By Chen Ying, a Falun Gong practitioner in Paris, formerly from Beijing

(Clearwisdom.net) When I first read about the atrocities of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)'s Sujiatun Concentration Camp where living Falun Gong practitioners' organs were removed, I could not hold back tears. This reminded me of my own experiences at the Chaoyang Detention Center, the Tuanhe Labor Camp Dispatch Division and at the Xinan Forced Labor Camp in Beijing where Falun Gong practitioners were subjected to forced physical examinations in 2000.

I was illegally detained three times and was forced to submit to a physical exam each time. I didn't understand why we had to have physicals done. The guard's answer was, "It's a routine process." The way they conducted the exam made me feel that they were not doing it out of consideration for my health but instead they wanted to get something specific from the results.

In late September 2000, plainclothes police and security officers arrested me when I was leaving a fellow practitioner's home. They sent me to Chaoyang Detention Center. I protested their illegal detention and refused to tell my name. I was given a number, which I cannot remember. I tried to stop the detention center guards from encouraging the inmates to torture Falun Gong practitioners. About six of them beat me. I was dizzy and my body was black and blue from the beating. The bruises didn't fade until about one week later. I went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention.

One day about a week later, the guards called me out and put heavy handcuffs and shackles on me. One practitioner who had also refused to tell her name was likewise handcuffed and shackled. They guards put us into a car. Arriving at the destination, we saw a hospital. It was strange to me that the hospital was very quiet. The guards took us through a thorough examination, including heart, EKG, blood tests and eye exam.

Afterwards one guard said to me, "You haven't eaten or drunk fluid for so long, but you are still in good health." I seized the opportunity to clarify the truth to him saying, "That's true! Of course I'm in good health, because I practice Falun Gong and I am a good person. We don't have health problems and we don't need physical exams." The guard asked, "Have you ever been sick?" I answered, "I don't have any illnesses. I didn't start practicing Falun Gong because of health problems. I just thought Truth- Compassion-Tolerance teaches people to be good, and that is great." He asked, "How about your heart?" I said, "My heart's doing great. I think I had a little arrhythmia before I practiced Falun Gong."

The guard left. I had to wait there and didn't know what they wanted to do. Later, he came back with a few bottles of IV fluids. He said they were for me and the other practitioner, and that it's for our own good. We were taken back to the detention center and handcuffed to a window frame. The guards forcibly gave us IV infusions. When the drug entered my body I felt as if my heart was beating out of my chest. My veins almost burst from piercing pain, and I felt suffocated.

When a guard walked past me he asked why I was being antagonistic and refused to tell my name. I said, "I'm not being antagonistic." He said, "You can't stay here if you don't tell your name! We must send you somewhere else." He didn't look very wicked to me. I told him that I live in Beijing and also told my name. He immediately phoned the local police station in the area where I lived and asked them to come pick me up.

Between February 2000 and March 2001 I was held at Chaoyang Detention Center in Beijing three times. I met many Falun Gong practitioners from all parts of the country there. They came to Beijing only to tell the government, "Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa has brought countless benefits and has not done an ounce of harm to society. We hope the government can learn the truth and restore Falun Gong's good name!" These practitioners refused to tell their names after being arrested. They had numbers put on their backs after being sent to the detention center. In the evening the guards called them out and interrogated them. It was obvious that they had been beaten. Those who told their names were kept in labor camps in Beijing, and many of those who didn't tell their names disappeared!

During that time, the guards frequently called the numbers of the practitioners late at night to ask them to pack up their things. We thought the practitioners being called were being released, but it didn't seem like that. The inmates said, "It is better to bring all your things. It seems that people are being sent to a place far, far away." The practitioners were called again in the early morning at about 4:00 a.m. There was an emergency gathering in the yard. The guards were quite nervous and were fully armed. They returned after a quiet few days. I heard that those practitioners were sent to a concentration camp that holds only Falun Gong practitioners.

The guards did roll calls every morning. A woman prison doctor named Wang called only on Falun Gong practitioners. She faked her concern for us and asked each one of us to do a quick squat-stand in front of the cell. She observed the condition of our physical reactions. Sometimes they called us out one by one and checked the condition of our hearts and measured blood pressure. At that time, the guards exhausted all available tactics to come up with charges against Falun Gong. They told us to write a document that says, "We don't want to receive any injections, medication or medical attention during incarceration. The detention center is not responsible for any health problems we experience." Now that I think about it, they wanted to be exonerated of whatever condition the practitioners were in when they savagely tortured, disabled and beat the practitioners to death.

At that time, we could not imagine the atrocities the CCP was capable of. I had not thought that the practitioners who didn't tell their names would face the fate of having their organs removed and being cremated while still alive. When I think back, however, I remember the guards having said to us, "If you continue to practice, if you still don't tell your names, we will send you to an uninhabited desert that's isolated from the world. You will never be able to get out, and you can practice all you want over there!"

The guards and the inmates all talked about the CCP building bases (concentration camps), in Xinjiang, Hebei and Northeast China that were especially used to detain Falun Gong practitioners. They said, "Don't be stubborn by clinging to your practice! Otherwise you'll face a terrible situation if you are sent over there..."

Posting date: 5/4/2006
Original article date: 5/4/2006
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/4/29/126381.html

 Yearly Archive  Printer Version