I am a Falun Gong practitioner from Weifang City, Shandong Province. I was abused by the police because I posted articles containing the details of Chen Zixiu's death on the Internet.

I was an eyewitness to Chen Zixiu's death and it happened exactly as described. Three other eyewitnesses, plus me, saw what happened. I passed my husband all the evidence I had, of the illegal acts, I had witnessed in order for him to appeal. However, the normal channels of appeal are not open to practitioners or their families. Therefore, my family posted it on the Internet.

At the beginning, I trusted that the murderers would be punished by the law. After all, they had killed one of their own citizens! I almost could not believe that they trampled on the law at will, and blatantly broke and disregarded the law!

After the materials were posted on the Internet, those who were involved in the beating were scared. Later, some police officers came to talk to me, and I thought that I might have a chance to help resolve Chen Zixiu's case. What actually happened was beyond my imagination. They said that I was anti-government, connected with foreign forces, spoke nothing but nonsense, trashed China's image to the rest of the world, etc. What? I was just telling the truth. What a serious accusation! I was just a citizen and I just wanted to be a good person, a better person. Who was the one damaging the image of the country Shouldn't the killer pay for the killing with his own life? Consequently, Xiaofang (name changed for protection), my husband, and I were all arrested and put in jail. Later, my husband was sentenced to 3-years of labor "reeducation". They pretended to be nice and said to me that: because the government takes care of its citizens and you have a child, otherwise, you would have been sentenced to a labor camp too. What was that? We could be sentenced to forced labor just because we had told the truth? Just because they are in power, and I saw them killing someone? The heavenly net of justice is so vast that it may be loose but it never leaks, and there will be a time when the truth is revealed to the world.

I was detained for a month. Because my parents kept asking for my return, they tried to force my father to pay a fine of 10 thousand Yuan, but failed. They then asked him to sign a guarantee that he would pay 10 thousand Yuan if I went to appeal in Beijing.

After I was released, I wanted to bring my child to the park on May 13. However, once we stepped out of our house we were arrested and taken to the police station. They took away our books, by force, and told us that: "Carrying the book is illegal." Our Constitution was simply trampled upon by these people. The legal system no longer exists here. What we have left here is a dictatorship and an autocracy. How terrible the people nowadays are!

Later, they deceived the other child's mother who was at work at that time. They detained her illegally just because she was also a Falun Dafa practitioner.

I and another practitioner were released after being detained for 2 days. A couple of days later, after my body recovered, we decided we had to appeal in Beijing. We thought that our sincerity to tell the true situation in our city would touch the hearts of the leaders of the government.

When we arrived in Beijing, I went to the Highest Judicial Office and the State Appeal Bureau. Xiaofang and I decided to visit the home of Premier, Zhu Rongji. One person who stood in front of the door suddenly grabbed me. Xiaofang was shocked and knocked on the door. One guard showed his face while Xiaofang said: "Help us! We are looking for Premier Zhu to tell the true stories of our situation!" Immediately, some plainclothes policemen came forward and grabbed us. They shoved us into a small building opposite the house. They asked for our names but we did not want to tell them because we didn't want to be sent back. Therefore, they sent us to Beijing Dongcheng District Detention Center.

We felt what they did was wrong. We were on a hunger strike for 10 days to show our disagreement and asked them to release us. We then were tricked into revealing our names. They promised to let us go back by ourselves but we were picked up by our local policemen. After arriving at Nanguan local police station, I had already been on a hunger strike for 13 days. Because I only had a string of breath left, they were afraid I might die there, so they released me.

Practitioner in Weifang City, Shandong Province

July 20, 2000