About 30 Falun Dafa practitioners have been imprisoned in Hongxia village, in the Chingling district in Wuchang for the past six months. They have endured physical tortures, emotional abuses and mental persecution. They were changing the surrounding environment and validating the splendor of Dafa using their own words and actions based on "Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance"'
Many of the people were either arrested or lured by deception to this so-called "Restricted Class for Major Falun Gong Targets." Some did not even go through the "resident under surveillance" process. Among them were factory workers, students, teachers, engineers and university professors There were people around 50-60 years old as well as young people from 17-18 years old.
At the start, the superintendent of the class announced the "regulations". These "regulations" totally restricted personal freedom. Even the way a person could sit in the room was regulated and fixed. One must sit in the middle of the bed, feet together, with hands placed beside the body. Conversation was forbidden. Exiting the room had to be announced. Reciting Dafa articles and practicing exercise was banned. Practitioners were also told that they could be "supervised" by anyone working there. Bills slandering Dafa and Master Li were posted everywhere. Each day they would go through military training, followed by classes forcefully instilling anti-Dafa indoctrination. No individual introspection was allowed and no speaking was permitted. One could only listen and obey. Any practitioners who wanted to speak out or wanted to practice would be handcuffed together in a row. Handcuffing styles included "hanging from the doorjamb" (one would be handcuffed over the doorjamb with tip of toe barely touching the ground or completely off the ground), "hanging from the windowsill" (one would be handcuffed over the window iron bar with the back against the windowsill. The body would be bent and one could not stretch out), and "backpacking the sword" (one would be handcuffed from behind with one hand over the shoulder to the back, the other hand coiled up from the waist).
Gui Hong is a 33 year old female practitioner. She was beaten and handcuffed numerous times. She was hung from the doorjamb with both feet off the ground. It hurt her so badly that from then on, she has suffered chronic numbness of both hands.
Cai Mingtao is a 27 year old male practitioner. He was an English lecturer in a university. He was beaten and handcuffed repeatedly. He was once handcuffed standing still on a steel bar for two days and one night.
Chen Yanwen is a 38 year old traffic policeman. He was jailed in the local detention house in one of the darkest cells. There he was beaten savagely for 20 days by other prisoners who were authorized and prodded to do so by the security guards. They tried to coerce him to write the guarantee, but he flatly refused. His left rib cage suffered three broken bones after being beaten. After he was put into the class he requested an X-ray examination. After hearing his request one of the workers threatened him; "One more word from you and I'll beat you to death," and then ignored him. Yet even with broken ribs he was cuffed on the doorjamb for close to an hour after he spoke to other practitioners.
Liu Cuihua is a 48 year old female practitioner. Once she went into coma after being cuffed.
The workers there put footcuffs weighing nearly 30 pounds on practitioners. Liu Guijie, a 50 year old woman, had to walk with footcuffs for several days, yet she did not utter a single word of pain. Wu Keyan, a 54 year old woman and Kao Bijen, a 52 year old woman, were footcuffed together with a single set of footcuffs. They were forced to go to the bathroom and take baths together. It was extremely troublesome and their feet were bleeding from the heavy cuffs. Did this class ever care about people's well being by treating them so brutally?
Towards the end of April, practitioners started demanding to practice. In the morning, everyone announced that they wanted to practice. So the guards would cuff them up, beat them up, force them to run and do push-ups. Wu Zhihong was a student in the Chinese Traditional Medicine School. He once did "backpacking the sword" for two hours and the pain was unbearable. Together bearing "backpacking the sword" were Ding Hongfang and Hu Xiaoling. Gui Hong once did "backpacking the sword" for close to 3 hours. It hurt so badly that she bashed her head against the wall. She would rather go into coma instead of enduring the pain.
Practitioners, including even older women, were forced to run around the field 20, 50 or 100 times. Sometimes it would take more than two hours to complete. Afterwards, some had to do "rabbit jumping".
Pushups: 50 times for women, 100 times for men. If one could not continue, he or she has to lie on the ground with face down. Then they must continue until they finish.
Beating: Cai Mingtao was once beaten until he had blood all over his face. He was then asked if he would still practice. He calmly replied, "Yes, I want to practice". He was beaten again and then asked what he wanted to practice. He answered, "Falun Gong". He was beaten again and then questioned again, "Exactly what do you want to practice?" He replied calmly as before, "Falun Gong". Xu Xiaodong is a 55 year old woman practitioner. She was kicked hard by the police after having expressed her desire to practice. The police got tired after kicking so he took the boots off and slapped her face with a boot. Her face was swollen and her body was badly bruised. Her fellow practitioners cried after she got back to the cell.
One day in May, several practitioners who often demanded to practice were ordered to the classroom by the superintendent. They were forced to listen to taped propaganda. The recording was loaded with slander against Dafa and Master. It was all fabricated lies. Cai Mingtao told them: "You can not force us to listen to it." Right away he was punched from behind. Yet he calmly pointed out: "You're trying mind control." Another punch landed on his face. He said again: "Just who is really villainous?" By then his face was punched from both sides. His whole face became bloody, with the front of his shirt also covered with blood. While other practitioners condemned this atrocity, Cai Mingtao was locked up in the detention room cuffed to a metal bed. His face remained swollen for close to half a month.
The next day, the whole group of practitioners was again forced to listen to the infamous tape. One female practitioner started reciting Master's poem "Benevolence Discerned from Wicked." She was immediately pulled away. No sooner did this happen than the whole group started reciting "Lunyu". Their voice was solemn and reverberating, completely overwhelming the sound of the tape recording; thus they had no choice but to stop playing it. The practitioner who started reciting was cuffed and locked into the detention room, and remained locked up for seven days.
After a few times like this the guards never had a chance to play the tape all the way through. Later the tape was jammed and broken, and the whole tape recording-based indoctrination was put to an end.
Another practitioner took an opportunity to wipe all the Dafa slanderous writings off the black board while doing cleaning. Said practitioner was also cuffed and locked away for seven days.
In the morning of May 20, about a dozen female practitioners went through military exercise training. They also took the opportunity to rip away big chunks of propaganda on the wall while taking a break. Right away all of them were cuffed to the iron window. (Several pairs of handcuffs were broken during that incident). On the 22nd, four of them were sent to the detention center and were detained as felons there for a month. Not long after that, a truck accidentally pulled and ripped off a large propaganda banner hanging across the courtyard. Later on, during a stormy day, the wind tore the banner in half. The whole courtyard has brightened up since then.
As Dafa practitioners, they calmly endured all merciless treatment. They gallantly accommodated all the workers there. Whether they were beaten or defamed, practitioners never reciprocated in kind. Practitioners often denounced the shameless senselessness of the slogans and the endless torment of the human spirit, yet they were totally ignored by the class management. It was immoral for them to employ workers' labor and sweat to produce such malicious slogans, and to employ police, media, instruments of torture, and brutality to deal with this group of generous people.
Let us hope that mankind will never again have oppression of the spirit, coercion of beliefs, and persecution of the mind. Let us hope that all mankind will enlighten itself in compassion!
There were decent ones among people working there. Often they shed tears secretly. Some of them would try various ways to reduce the mistreatment of the practitioners.
Each time when a new group of workers arrived here, often some of them would dare not sleep with practitioners in the same room. Each time the management would reassure them: "They would never harm you, you can all be sure. They were all good people, it's just their ideology that's the problem." Only then would the new workers be less apprehensive. Later on when they observed that practitioners were very polite in greeting people, never told a lie nor uttered a dirty word, treated people with compassion, never fought back nor argued back, they finally believed. Some of them secretly sighed: "I have been wanting to tell you, I observed that you practitioners never waste food. You even pick up rice from the floor. Yet some of the workers here always dump food." Some also found that practitioners never raise any conflict, they help each other and got along well with everyone. They treat people with Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance. Yet workers quite often had conflicts among themselves.
On June 21st, five practitioners returned to the class after a month of detention. They were all in good spirits, just like returning from a trip. Obviously they had a good practice for that month, and were not under torment. Wu Keyan passed out twice while being cuffed up again. Once a doctor was even required to perform an emergency rescue. Some times the police would cuff her and another practitioner (53 years old) together. They would often cry out in the room: "610, open the cuffs!" "610, need to go to the bathroom!" "610, we need to take a bath!" Every worker there wore a badge showing "610 Organization". "610" is a nationwide organization that was established last year specifically for the suppression and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Now it is synonymous with footcuffs, handcuffs, beating, slandering, deceiving, smearing, imprisonment, breakup of families, and devastating lives. It has become the alter ego of the instrument of evil.
The Transformation Study class had a medical staff on board. Their main duty, however, was to take care of workers. All the practitioners were quite healthy, even though they were often subjected to cruel punishments, beatings and cuffing. Several 50 plus year old practitioners went on a hunger strike for 6 days without food or water. They even went through the same training exercises with the rest of them. The medical staff was astonished when they found out that all measurements were normal after checking practitioners' pulse rate and blood pressure. The drinking water there was from the lake nearby. There were often little red worms swimming in the water, which was used for both drinking and bathing. Many workers suffered diarrhea yet no practitioners were affected.
The living expense here averaged about RMB$30 a day. Some individual practitioners were charged RMB$3000 a month. Meals cost another RMB$4-5 a day. Most often the food was boiled melon vegetarian food. Many practitioners were no longer paid a salary by their companies starting from the time they were found to be practicing Falun Gong. Some were retired, and none of them knew how to get money. They all practice Dafa voluntarily. The book "Zhuan Falun" cost only RMB$12. All practice sites offered free exercise teaching. Compared to this Transformation Study Class, isn't it crystal clear who's the one doing the exploiting?
During a class held in July, some practitioners denounced on the spot a lecturer who wrongfully falsified the story and was shamelessly hurling unwarranted accusations and slander. They received immediate slapping and punching, prohibiting them from further speaking out. After returning to their rooms to rest, a practitioner named Zhang Jian was pulled out and was savagely beaten in the courtyard. The entire group of practitioners was enraged at this atrocity. They all stood against the doors and windows shouting out: "Stop beating people! Stop beating people! Stop beating people! ...." The righteous outcry resonated in the whole building.
Prolonged atrocity gradually alienated many generous workers. From then on, school management relaxed their governing style.
In the last half a year, every practitioner fully achieved "never fight back", "never yell back," and continue cultivating Dafa under the most trying circumstances. They established an unforgettable impression for the workers. Many of them indicated privately that they would take a good look at "Zhuan Falun" when there was an opportunity.
Apart from demanding practicing exercises, practitioners did their best in seizing precious time to recite articles, study Fa, and once the whole group even recited "Hongyin" in its entirety. Some practitioner said it well: "You can cuff our hands and feet, but you cannot cuff our mouths. Even if you can cuff our mouths, you can never cuff our hearts."
We had nowhere to go to appeal, no one to listen to our petition. We could only tell people from this place: "Falun Dafa is Pure and Clean." We hope concerned government agencies can come to know our true heart.
Practitioners in Wuhan
October, 2000