(Clearwisdom.net)

March 2004

Prof. Zhang Kunlun

Since July 20th, 1999, Jiang has controlled the entire state machinery to extensively suppress Falun Gong practitioners. He has committed genocide and crimes against humanity. Now I want to testify against Jiang and his followers, with my own experience of being arrested, beaten, electrically shocked, subjected to brainwashing and sent to a forced labor camp, and what I saw and heard during that period of time.

Let me start with why I practice Falun Gong. In 1995, my wife Zhang Shumei went to China to visit some relatives and stumbled across the practice of Falun Gong. Through her own practice and experience, she came to understand how immensely exquisite and profound the practice is and how wonderful it is for people's health.

She returned to Canada with informational materials filling her two big leather suitcases. And she wrote an article named "Obtaining a Treasure in China" about what she saw and heard when she practiced in China, with many examples how people, after practicing Falun Gong, miraculously recovered from even extremely serious illnesses, gave up bad things, and upgraded their morality.

My two daughters and I really liked the principles discussed in Zhuan Falun on how to cultivate into a good person by following "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance". So our entire family of four began the practice and things became wonderful and harmonious at home.

I am a sculptor. My artistic thought then was no longer the visual enjoyment of aestheticism, but a conscientious and serious exploration on the true meaning of life and universe. I was very concerned and worried when I saw people's morality degrading and their thoughts warped. My extreme anxiety about mankind was well expressed in one of my 1995 artistic installations, "The End of the 20th Century." Echoing an artist's conscience, I was fighting and exploring amidst the irresistible social environment where materialistic desires and lusts pervade. In such a background, I found Zhuan Falun, which is omnipotent and expounds on everything from heaven to earth. My excitement was beyond description.

In April 1996, I went to Jinan City in Shandong Province to take care of my ailing mother-in-law, who is in her 80s.

Mr. Li Hongzhi was invited many times to give lectures in Jinan City and other places in Shandong province. As a result, the momentum of people joining in the practice in Shandong was as strong as anywhere else in China. Every morning, almost everywhere on the lawns, in the large courtyards, and on the city squares there were people practicing the Falun Gong exercises. At night numerous small groups scattered all over the cities and the country to study the teachings of Falun Gong, Purified and morally uplifted from cultivation, practitioners met to share their experience on improving health and morality. To this day, I still remember vividly several true stories:

Mr. Ma Guilin, a retired official from the Provincial CCP Committee, suddenly was sick with lymphatic cancer. Neither Chinese or western medicine could cure him. He had to receive electrotherapy and chemotherapy. Gradually, his skin was covered with dark purple bruises, his body emaciated, and his hair fell out. On the edge of death, he started to practice Falun Gong. Within 3 months, he completely recovered to the state of any healthy person. Knowing the preciousness of Falun Gong, he continued the practice even after the imposed vicious persecution. He had been very firm on his belief. We used to chat with each other and shared our cultivation experience. Today, he has died as a result of the persecution he received for his belief. His death saddens my heart.

A deputy presiding judge at the People's Court in Dezhou city was very honest and kind. One day when she passed by a park and found a banner with three characters: "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance." At the sight of the words, she was inspired and went closer with curiosity. When she learnt that these people were practicing the exercises of Falun Gong, she was excited. How good it is to see so many people cultivating truthfulness, compassion and forbearance in an extremely corrupt society. Afterwards, she became a Falun Gong practitioner and held herself a high standard by following the Falun Dafa principles. She refused to accept gifts and bribes to ensure a fair judgment. She was widely praised by people. Later she became one of three "Model Judges" in Shandong Province. Her story was aired on the radio and her work place issued a document to calling on others to follow her example.

Doctor Wu from Shandong General Hospital For Coal Miners was affected by corrupt social influences. In 1995 he went to Guangzhou to attend the lectures taught by Mr. Li Hongzhi. After he understood the principle of how to be a good person, he repented his bad conduct from before. On the way home, he could not help crying. From then on, he changed from a selfish, dispirited young man into a person thinking about others first. Not only did he decline gifts given by patients, but he also spent his own money to help poor patients. He worked diligently and concentrated on his job. At first, people couldn't understand his huge, rapid changes. But very soon people started to admire him. The hospital leader issued an official document to summon other employees to learn from him. In early 1999, he was one of the model employees commended by the provincial labor union. A leader spoke highly of him after reading his story, saying: "Your story is very touching, but why do you always connect it with Falun Gong?" He asked him to report the story only but not to mention Falun Gong. Doctor Wu said: "The leadership knew what kind of person I was before. Without Falun Gong's profound principles, no one could have turned me into a good person because the whole society is in such a corrupt situation. If I don't mention Falun Gong, which is the true source of inspiration that purifies me, won't people suspect this case was made up? Shouldn't I report it truthfully?" The leader became silent.

The brother of one of my students was sick with an extremely contagious disease: a green bacteria disease. He traveled to numerous hospitals across the country, spent a lot of money, but no one could cure him. He lost hope and prepared to go home and wait for his death. He was lying in bed in a hotel room in Beijing, when by coincidence he saw a book Zhuan Falun. He opened it, feeling good about it and went on reading. Slowly he forgot about his illness and finished the book in one sitting. At this moment he found himself getting off the bed himself and feeling no disease in him at all. He was shocked and made up his mind to practice Falun Gong's principles. Not long after he started, he regained his health completely. Because of this his whole family joined him in the cultivation. However, when the crackdown started, his work place detained him, not allowing him to have access to the public, fearing that he would tell the people truth, and forcing him to say that his recovery was not because of practicing Falun Gong. They administered tremendous pressure on him, so much pressure that he almost lost his sanity.

Such stories are countless. Every practitioner has his or her miraculous and vivid experience to tell. Yet they have all been undergoing pain and suffering in this ongoing persecution.

Shortly after my family began practicing, we experienced the purification of body and mind. For the past eight years, I have never been sick, never taken any medication. I work hard, do not cheat the nation or others, and consider others when anything happens. I do not fight for personal interests and handle things with ease and calm. For instance, once in China I made a sculpture for a place. They wanted to pay me a large amount in cash for me to avoid paying tax. I said I practice Falun Gong and will not cheat the nation. Whether you give me cash or cheque, I will submit the amount of tax I should pay. They later wrote me a cheque.

Owing to Falun Gong's profound teachings, its effectiveness on health improvement and its ability to convince people to be good, it spread fast and wide in China, not through promotions via newspapers or by radio or TV stations, but it simply went by word of mouth and from heart to heart. Within 7 short years the number of practitioners reached 100 million.

The rapidly increasing number of Falun Gong practitioners caught the attention of the authorities. Accordingly the National Athletic Committee sent investigation teams among practitioners. After a careful and thorough investigation, they concluded that Falun Gong benefits the nation and people greatly without causing any harm.

Despite all this, Jiang Zemin, being extremely narrow minded and jealous, determined to eliminate Falun Gong. He said, "I don't believe that the Party cannot defeat Falun Gong." Thereupon he exerted his power to initiate and direct the inhuman crackdown on Falun Gong. He himself wrote to the whole party a letter that ordered the persecution of Falun Gong, and the letter was verbally passed among officials above the county level (my wife Zhang Shumei was at a meeting where she personally heard that letter read to attendants). Later he issued a series of orders to eliminate Falun Gong. These orders, in the form of letter or document signed personally by Jiang, were only verbally conveyed and printed versions were at once returned to the person transmitting them. It is obvious that Jiang knew his guilt. Thus, at his command, the crackdown on Falun Gong surged violently overwhelmingly across the country. Books, videos, and tapes of Falun Gong were confiscated, burned or crushed. Practitioners in the number of tens of thousands were arrested and held in captivity. Our respected teacher Mr. Li Hongzhi was defamed and put on a wanted list. Jiang Zemin ordered, "Wipe out Falun Gong in three months!"

Early on the morning of July 20, 1999, the Public Security Bureau simultaneously started to arrest Falun Gong volunteer contact people all across the country. Millions of Falun Gong practitioners were stunned, wondering how this could happen? They all thought that the government simply did not understand Falun Gong. Therefore, thousands and thousands of Falun Gong practitioners traveled to Beijing. They visited all levels of government to explain the facts about Falun Gong, that Falun Gong was being treated unfairly and the actions taken by the Public Security Bureau were wrong.

In the night of July 21, my wife Zhang Shumei and I decided to walk to the Party Committee of Shandong Province, fearing that the road would be blocked during the daytime. We were preparing to go to the provincial CCP committee on the second day and explain the facts about Falun Gong to those in charge. To our surprise, as soon as we left home and began walking down the road, we saw a police vehicle rushing through the streets and policemen patrolling the intersections. We also heard sirens going off intermittently. The streets and surrounding areas were drenched in an atmosphere of terror. We were walking cautiously, but all of a sudden, a bus stopped near us, and a group of police leapt out from the bus. We were not allowed to speak before we were pushed into the bus. Once we were on the bus, we saw that the whole bus was already crammed with people, all of them Falun Gong practitioners. We were then taken to a school in a suburb, where there were already more than 3,000 people being detained before we arrived. There, I witnessed the police rudely pulling and beating female practitioners.

Since the crackdown started, my wife and I were never left in peace and were harassed constantly. The police came frequently to question us. Feng Jian-jun, the deputy chief of the political protection division of the Jinan Public Security, often just barged in and stayed in my house for hours, attempting to coerce my wife and I to renounce our practice of Falun Gong.

The Central Committee of the Party passed documents to lower levels that forbade party members from practicing Falun Gong. My wife was given several talks by the local party organization and was pressured to give up her practice of Falun Gong. Shumei refused their requests and as a result was expelled from the party.

On the evening of June 30, 2000, I was taken from my home by police from the Keyuanlu Police Station. They also ransacked my home just because I told some people that a Falun Gong radio station would be formally in operation on July 1, 2000.

As soon as I was taken to the local police station, several policemen knocked me down to the ground. Both the head of the police station Zhang Huisheng and another policeman, Liang Jian, held a high-voltage electric baton to shock me. Zhang arrogantly said, "The highest authority, Party Secretary General Jiang Zemin, has said that Falun Gong is an evil cult. You are then cult members. We can do anything to you without being held responsible. Even if we beat you to death, we can simply bury you and tell people that you committed suicide!" They interrogated me and wanted to know whom I gave Falun Gong flyers to. The authorities shocked my entire body with their electric batons for more than 20 minutes. My skin was burned, my left leg injured to the point that I couldn't move it, and my clothes were torn in several places. I could smell my flesh burning. The pain was excruciating, but I dared not shout, because they put the electric baton next to my mouth and threatened that if I opened my mouth, the baton would be shoved into it. At the same location, there was another practitioner I knew. He was being shocked, too, for even longer.

Encouraged and supported by Jiang Zemin, the police at this station acted very viciously. Many Falun Gong practitioners were shocked by them multiple times. No matter how these perpetrators try to evade responsibility for their crimes using the excuse of following orders from the higher authority, they will eventually be subject to the law for their vicious criminal conduct.

Ms. Wang, a practitioner in her 60s, was also taken away by the police. The police held her to the ground and said: "You look beautiful, don't you? We are going to change you." Then they shocked her face and mouth with electric batons. Her face and mouth were seriously burned. Another female practitioner around 60 years old was also electrically shocked on her breasts. Still another female practitioner in her 40s, named Tang, had her genital area electrically shocked by the police. I heard head of the police station say, "Let's enjoy this fun till fully satisfied."

Six to seven practitioners and I were put in a small cell of only 7-8 square meters for two days and nights. On the evening of July 2, I was taken to the Liuchangshan Detention Center. There I was locked up with murderers, thieves and other criminals for one month, living in stressful circumstances. Eighteen people were forced to sleep on a cement floor of less than 20 square meters. All the eating, drinking, washing and using the toilet were conducted in this same cell. The food, moldy bread and boiled vegetables, was not given to us in sufficient quantity to stop our hunger.

During this detention and all subsequent detentions, we were not allowed any visits or phone calls from family members. I was not allowed to make telephone calls to anyone. Nobody was allowed to read a Falun Gong book, to practice the Falun Gong exercises, or to discuss Falun Gong. Practitioners were body searched once a week. Often, we were made to write a report about our thought/mind changes.

When I was held in captivity, I often told those prisoners about becoming a good person by following the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance".

Some prisoners told me: On TV they keep saying Falun Gong is bad, but being with you we feel it is very good and Falun Gong people are very kind. We should be held here, but not people like you. Some said: Had we known of the Falun Gong principles, why would we have committed crimes? We would not have been held here. They were very willing to listen to me telling them about Falun Gong. Many said that once released they will start to practice Falun Gong to learn to be a good person.

Late on the night of August 2, I was released from the detention center, and the deputy chief of the Qianfoshan police station took me home. On my way home, he said: "You know, we are very respectful to your family." I wondered, why do they persecute us while claiming they respect us? It is obvious that it is only due to Jiang Zemin's persecution policies against Falun Gong.

After I was released, three Falun Gong practitioners wanted to visit me at home. Because my telephone was tapped, the police had listend to our phone conversations. As soon as the Falun Gong practitioners arrived, the deputy chief of Political Protection Division of Jinan Public Security Feng Jianjun arrived with another policeman. The three Falun Gong practitioners left my home through the back door. Feng tried to force me to reveal the names of those three practitioners. Both my wife and I refused to divulge their names. The police interrogated us for several hours in my home. Then I was taken, against my will, to the police station and held without charge for 36 hours.

All this happened without any legal papers or documents being presented. The police just arbitrarily took me away from my home and kept me in custody for as long as they wished.

Because I refused to renounce the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance taught by Falun Gong, I was forced into the Guodian brainwashing center of the Lixia District in October 2000. I was also fined 10,000 RMB [Note: a year's salary in China].

The brainwashing center staff brought together some vicious policemen from various local police stations to administer a program of isolation and control, depriving Falun Gong practitioners of their freedom. It was ghastly and frightening at the brainwashing center. For the practitioners taken there, there were only two choices. They could be released if they gave up practicing Falun Gong and denounced Falun Gong. Or, if they refused to give up Falun Gong, they would be sentenced to three years in a forced labor camp. The instructors were also from the military, procurator offices, local government agencies, etc. They took turns interrogating us and trying to pressure us into giving up our practice of Falun Gong.

One day, a few responsible persons from the Lixia district government inspected the facility and came to my room. I told them that it was wrong to illegally detain us there and force us to give up our beliefs. The chief of the inspection delegation became so angry that he threatened that I would pay a price for not giving up Falun Gong.

Falun Gong practitioners live as good people by according to the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and we definitely won't give up our belief. So the five persons in our room went on a hunger strike to protest our mistreatment. The political instructor from the Silijie police station said to me viciously, ""We do not care if you eat or not. Later on, we can send you to a psychiatric hospital where they will force-feed you through your nose with liquid food and inject you with medication. Don't you know the means available to the Party?" After 6 days of not eating or drinking, I was sent to a hospital and injected with some unknown fluid. I continued my hunger strike. On the 9th day of my hunger strike, they feared that we would die in there, so they temporarily released us. They said to me, you go home now and recuperate. We'll get you later.

China is just like one big jail. Policemen and the spies are everywhere. Nobody can ever escape Jiang's crackdown, which extends is claw-like grip all over the nation.

After just a few days, before I could physically recover, police took me from my home again. A policeman tried to force me to sign a pre-typed document, but I refused. He told me that it would not affect their task whether I signed it or not. Without any reason, and without any legal procedures being followed, I was sentenced to three years in a forced labor camp. (Together with me at the time were also a graduate student Wei from Shandong Industrial University and Li from the Shipping Bureau.)

During the physical check-up given to me before I was sent to the forced labor camp, an older doctor asked me if I would keep practicing Falun Gong. I told him that I certainly would because it is such a wonderful cultivation practice. He said to me with sympathy, "If you keep doing it, your body will be left here (because of the persecution)."

After getting into the Liuchangshan labor camp, I found out that another 28 Falun Gong practitioners had already been detained here. The day before I arrived, a young practitioner named Zhang was tortured because he practiced the Falun Gong exercises. The policemen dragged him out and beat him. Many areas on his body had ruptured skin because of the beating. His lips were swollen to a large size from the shock of the electric baton. The other practitioners went on a group hunger strike to protest the brutality and the police know such violence is wrong, but the policemen didn't restrain their wrongdoings. On the contrary, they increased the electric batons from one to 12. A few additional bad people were called in to assist. The 27 practitioners were dragged out one by one after being beaten severely. Eight electric batons were used by the police simultaneously to shock one practitioner. Many practitioners were beaten until they lost consciousness.

I witnessed the black scars all over their bodies when we took our cold-water showers. Professor Ye from the Shandong Educational Institute was 62 years old. He was once handcuffed to the metal window frames. The policemen often directed the criminals in the prison to beat, insult and humiliate him. During a phone conversation with him in March 2003, he told me that after I was rescued from China, he had been locked in a Small Cage. [a Small Cage is a torture in the prison, the victim is handcuffed in a cage that is 4 ft long, 3 ft wide and 5 ft high.] He was very healthy before but he was beaten until he almost lost his vision and his legs almost became paralyzed. He couldn't even sit, and could only lie on the ground. His blood sugar was so high that the labor camp feared that he would die there. So he was temporarily released. But he was forced to write a report to the labor camp daily. Professor Ye refused. The government officials used all kinds of means to transform and coerce his daughter into maltreating him at home. This reminded me of the nightmares I experienced during the chaotic and terrifying years of the Cultural Revolution, when students were forced to draw a line from the teachers they respected and to fabricate grounds for their personal humiliation and condemnation. It was also a time when sons denounced their parents to demonstrate that they cut off their relations with their parents and wanted to take the "revolutionary path."

Mr. Liu Jian, who went on the hunger strike with me in the brainwashing center, was released together with me. But before long, he was arrested again and was sent to the Liuchangshan Forced Labor Camp. He was locked in the Small Cage and was beaten frequently. He was shocked with the electric batons, insulted and smeared with human excrement. He went on hunger strike for 180 days and was firm not to give up his belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance". According to the Minghui net, Liu Jian was pushed out from a third floor window by the forced labor camp's guards; he was thus violently murdered. He was a very innocent and compassionate young man, enjoying helping others and liked by everyone. Whenever I think about him, tears always fill my eyes.

The Jiang Zemin regime took away precious lives of many Falun Gong practitioners' with their brutal policies.

Practitioners experience great improvements in their minds and bodies once they start to practice Falun Gong. Even a depraved person can improve and become a man of morality if he truly cultivates the principles of Falun Gong. In early October 2000, at Tiananmen Square in Beijing, I met a Falun Gong practitioner from Dalian City, Liaoning Province. I found him resembling another practitioner who was a policeman by profession, that I had seen before on videotape. So I asked him, "Were you a policeman?" He said, "No, I was not. I was a thief." I was very surprised at his reply and asked him to explain. He said, "To be more specific, I used to be a thief before practicing Falun Gong. I was repeatedly arrested and put into jail, but nothing could change me until I started to practice the Falun Gong principles. It completely changed me into a person of morality."

There was another young man who used to be a professional boxer. At a boxing competition, someone used his influence and illegally moved this young man from the championship to second place. When the young man discovered what had happened, he became frustrated with the corruption and quit boxing altogether. He then started his own business, but later on the business failed because he began to take drugs. He was belligerent and short-tempered, and always got into fights, even with the police. Nobody knew how to deal with him. After he started to practice Falun Gong, he realized that what he had done in the past was wrong. He began to improve and conduct himself according to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. Eventually, he became a good person.

While I was detained against my will in a brainwashing center, a policeman confiscated a fellow practitioner's manuscript of Hongyin, a collection of Teacher Li Hongzhi's poems. Three supervisory staff members ferociously marched into our cell and demanded to know who had transcribed Hongyin. Every Falun Gong practitioner in the cell said they did, and every practitioner explained the facts about Falun Gong from different perspectives. Our righteous spirits shook up the three supervisory staff members, who eventually left looking defeated. Before they left, they said, "We are just following Jiang Zemin's orders. It was not our true wish to do this to you." On the next day while we were taking a break in the courtyard, I took the opportunity to follow up with one of the three and further explained the facts about Falun Gong. I also explained to him that even prisoners could become men of morality when they started to live their lives according to the principle of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.

Later we held a group hunger strike to protest our illegal detention at the brainwashing center. On the third day of our hunger strike, the supervisor that I had talked to at the courtyard approached my bed and said, "I look up to you as my teacher in all aspects. It grieves me to see you on hunger strike." I said, "We cultivate ourselves according the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and we just want to keep improving ourselves. Why does Jiang Zemin's regime try to make us give up our belief and try to stop us from improving ourselves?" He said," They want to brainwash you, but you can try to change their thoughts." I said," I can tell that you are a kind and righteous person, but you are a supervisor of a brainwashing center now and doing immoral work. You don't know the severe consequences of your deeds because you are not a cultivator yet, but we cultivators understand a heavenly principle that good deeds will be rewarded with good and the bad deeds will be met with karmic retribution. I really feel sorry for your job." In the end, he was moved by my sincerity and kindness. We hugged each other and cried.

In the forced labor camp, some policemen eagerly participated in the persecution against us Falun Gong practitioners in order to win a better chance of promotion. On the other hand, there were also some policemen who were willing to learn the principles of Falun Gong during one-on-one interrogations even though they pretended to be fierce towards Falun Gong practitioners in public. A policeman in the Liuchangshan Forced Labor Camp even came to our cell to tell us that Falun Gong practitioners were all good persons and, if he had the authority, he would release all Falun Gong practitioners immediately. He has been a policeman for several decades. After he made these remarks, he asked us to keep them a secret, or he would also end up being locked up like us. Jiang Zemin is the primary person that has been goading the Chinese policemen to torture and kill Falun Gong practitioners.

A prison should be used to detain criminals; however, Jiang Zemin's regime has released many criminals from prison in order to detain law-abiding Falun Gong practitioners who were only interested in keep improving their morality by following Falun Gong's principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. They ordered some prisoners to monitor Falun Gong practitioners, and goaded them into abusing Falun Gong practitioners with the temptation of potential term reductions. The worst sides of some prison inmates who could not resist the temptation of term reductions were thus brought out and amplified.

At the beginning of my detention at the Liuchangshan Forced Labor Camp, the prisoners took turns watching us around the clock. We had to sleep on the floor at night and sit absolutely still on small benches during the day and during the brainwashing session to hear remarks from officers and to watch anti-Falun Dafa propaganda on TV turned up to a high volume. The propaganda was full of fabricated stories and lies meant to demonize Falun Gong. No conversation was allowed, not even any physical movement. They forced criminals to monitor us and keep us from closing our eyes or lowering our heads. The criminals who were especially harsh to Falun Gong practitioners had their prison terms shortened as a reward, while inmates who were kind to us had their time extended. Once, a prisoner was electrically shocked very severely for being lenient toward practitioners. We asked a prisoner, whose surname was Wang, a question, and he replied fiercely without raising his head, "Do not talk to me. We are absolutely irreconcilable enemies." Other prisoners also showed lot of hostility towards us. However, Falun Gong practitioners' spirit of compassion and tolerance really melted the hostility around us. As the time progressed, even the most cold-hearted prisoner, who had originally succumbed to the temptation of obtaining a potential term reduction, began to improve his attitude towards us. However, after the prison police learned of the inmates' improvement, they used electric batons to shock a prisoner named Zhang in the corridor for treating us with kindness and let everyone hear his agonizing cries.

Disciplinary staff members would openly praise those prisoners who cursed, insulted, and beat Falun Gong practitioners. A political instructor, by the name of Du Zhaojun, was ferocious each time he entered our cell and looked for ways to punish us.

In order to exterminate Falun Gong, Jiang Zemin ordered his followers to use all necessary means to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. They even wrote a book on the Psychological Analysis of Falun Gong Practitioners and circulated it within the Public Security Bureau. When they found Falun Gong practitioners have the utmost respect towards our Teacher, they recruited psychologists and so-called religious experts to author fake Falun Dafa scriptures full of expressions imitating Teacher's tone in an attempt to cause confusion and chaos among practitioners. Not long after, this plot was exposed and failed. Then, they changed to another means. They dispatched spies amongst practitioners to promote distrust and alienation between practitioners.

Jiang Zemin's regime designed this systematic and complete persecution plan of persuading practitioners into giving up their belief and then promoted it at prisons and forced labor camps all over China, where practitioners had no access to the true information, after they had tested the waters at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang, Liaoning Province and at Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp in Beijing. Many kind people's beliefs in Falun Gong were thus deprived. Jiang Zemin's regime keeps forcing Falun Gong practitioners to give up their belief and their will to be a good person. There is no government in the world that would do such an inconceivable thing as discouraging morality and spiritual belief, except Jiang Zemin's regime.

When the Canadian people and government found out about my ordeal, many kind-hearted people launched a national campaign to rescue me from China. Many people in other countries also extended their help. The Chinese government was pressured by the strong righteous appeals in Canada to release me.

However, they had planned in advance to seal off my mouth -- to prevent me from telling the truth about my detention after me being released.

They knew that I had been very familiar with the situation at the Liuchangshan Forced Labor Camp and it would be very difficult to portray me in a way to get what they needed for their deceptive news programs. So I was transferred to the Wangcun Forced Labor Camp. It has one of the most notorious reputations among all the forced labor camps in China, and had been referred to as "a hell on earth." On the way to the Wangcun Forced Labor Camp, I told myself that I would rather die than succumb to their torture and give up my belief in Falun Gong. However, little did I expect what awaited me there was a completely different strategy of patronizing kindness.

I was an art professor and have devoted my life to art. I only knew about art and cultivation, and had little experience with conspiracy and plotting.

After I arrived at the Wangcun Forced Labor Camp, they hid all of their cruelty against Falun Gong practitioners from me. At that time, about 400 practitioners were detained in the third division of the forced labor camp and the fourth division. Policemen watched me 24 hours a day and did not allow me to talk with any Falun Gong practitioners, except those special agents disguised as Falun Gong practitioners. Those people compiled many twisted theories and doctrines, and bombarded me with them constantly.

They would use deceitful and misleading rumors to shake my belief, as well as psychological attacks and various coercive means to force me to denounce Falun Gong by writing a their statement of "repentance." At first I was able to keep a clear mind and be true to myself. But under complete isolation from the outside world, and after days and nights of brainwashing, deception, coercion, and psychological attacks, I could hardly control my own mind any longer; I was broken down. I finally became fully vulnerable to their manipulation. I was forced to say things and copy from writings by the labor camp staff against my true will. I was in extreme pain in my heart. I cried during the nights.

They used deceit to get me to start painting. They deceived me into playing Chinese chess and watch others play cards. They secretly videotaped all these scenes. They also used deceit to make me say some nice words. These words were videotaped and then edited together to be used to deceive the public into thinking that I had been treated well in the labor camp. Their means can only be described as sinister. Whenever I think about this horrific experience, I feel I am still being mentally tortured.

After I was released, China's state-run news CCTV aired all those videos made by deceit and manipulation. I felt physically ill after seeing those tapes. The state-controlled propaganda machine repeated the lies across the whole country. Later the Xinhua News Agency, Internet, and Chinese embassies and consulates around the world were used to spread the propaganda. The tapes were even sent to some Canadian officials and media.

I would not give in to the painful shock with electric batons. I could keep my belief in Falun Gong even after a nine-day hunger strike. Although I did not surrender to the torture, these continuous forced brainwashing, lies and mental torment had caused severe damage to my mind that could never completely heal, and I would have to carry these wounds for the rest of my life. During these prolonged mental tortures, I felt my dignity as a human being was slowly worn out. I was manipulated and used by them to create more lies to mislead the public and persecute more fellow practitioners, which caused extremely painful mental injuries to me, which are much worse than my physical injuries.

Every time I recalled this nightmarish experience, I was overwhelmed with horror for a very long time, accompanied with agony in my heart.

Right after I came to Canada, my wife was harassed, interrogated and threatened by the police and officers from the public security bureau for many days. They even intended to abduct her from home. She managed to escape and went into hiding until she got help from the Canadian Embassy in China and came to Canada. She had to leave her 86 year old, ailing mother behind, who passed away soon after without my wife at her side.

That is why I must make my efforts to bring Jiang Zemin to justice--to stop what happened to me from happening to others. I call on all kind people around the world to help rescue the millions of Falun Gong practitioners from Jiang Zemin's prisons and jails in China.

Those Falun Gong practitioners who refused to give up their cultivation in Falun Gong are subjected to many kinds of persecution such as having their telephone conversations monitored and recorded through tapped telephone lines; being watched and followed; being put under house arrest; being expelled from their workplace, school, party and army, extorted of large sums under the guise of illegal fines and being cut off from their pensions, being forced into detention centers, being cursed at and beaten, being thrown into forced labor camps; being thrown into forced brainwashing centers, etc. Their families, relatives and colleagues also became targets of the persecution. For example, determined Falun Gong practitioners' supervisors at work are subjected to criticism and demotion, or the other employees at the same employer are deprived of their bonuses. Sometimes Falun Gong practitioners' family members face punishment too at their work place and may even lose their jobs. The practitioners' children are deprived of their right to a school education, including kindergarten. They have exerted tremendous social, economical and psychological pressure on Falun Gong practitioners from all aspects of their lives.

What is more vicious is that Jiang's regime controls all of the media in China, including newspapers, television and radio stations, which keep spreading slanderous lies about Falun Gong and deceiving people. For example, they, directed and broadcast footage of their staged Self-Immolation at Tiananmen Square to incite hatred toward Falun Gong practitioners and to deceive the public into supporting and participating in their persecution of Falun Gong.

Jiang Zemin has committed too many crimes to document them all here. If a person who has committed such huge crimes and pushed so many people into joining his crimes can escape justice, how can we face our conscience and claim that there is still justice in this world?