(Clearwisdom.net) After she left the Sichuan Province Women's Labor Camp, practitioner Ms. Gao Yan wrote a letter to the Minghui Website (the Chinese version of Clearwisdom) on June 15, exposing the savage tortures against Falun Dafa practitioners. She was sent to labor camps and mental hospitals numerous times and was cruelly tortured, but she remained determined in her belief. We publish her letter here to help further the efforts of practitioners around the world to end the persecution.
To the Minghui Website:
Dafa practitioners detained at the Sichuan Province Women's Labor Camp send greetings to Master! We thank Dafa practitioners around the world for their concern and for their help in eliminating the evil with righteous thoughts. We thank international organizations and people of conscience for paying attention to the persecution of Falun Gong currently taking place here. Please rest assured that we will break out of the evil den with righteous thoughts and righteous actions.
My name is Gao Yan, and I am a Dafa practitioner from Longchang County, Sichuan Province. I obtained Dafa on November 16, 1998. After April 25, 1999, the local police and personnel from the 610 Office often harassed me, ransacked my home and extorted money from me. I was sent to a mental hospital three times and held for 130 days. I was held at a detention center twice for 170 days. I was held at a Transport Center twice and was sent to a labor camp twice and held for one year and three years, respectively. The 610 Office members extorted 25,000 yuan from me and charged me more than 5,000 yuan for expenses incurred at the mental hospital, a total of over 30,000 yuan. My husband and I divorced during the persecution. During the past six years I was physically and mentally devastated. I want to present my firsthand experience for the world to see. I ask the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong to investigate my persecution at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party and bring the perpetrators to justice. I also hope that international organizations will learn the truth about the persecution of Falun Gong happening in China.
After April 25, 1999, a fellow practitioner and I planned to appeal to the county Party Committee and clarify the truth about Dafa. Officials from the county Anti-Pornography Committee arrested us and held us in isolation for a few hours. They threatened to execute me and tried to force me to hand over my Dafa books.
Between September 10, 1999, and January 5, 2000, Song Dewen, the head of the Police Section at my work unit, approached me at work, along with my superior, and threatened me. They also threatened to deny my son, Tong Yuanjie, the right to attend a top-tier middle school. They withheld my salary and fired me. They also threatened my husband, and as a result he often beat me.
On January 5, 2000, several officers from No. 1 Police Station in Changlong County threatened me at work and told me to write a "guarantee statement" to promise that I would never appeal. I firmly refused. One male police officer waved a pair of handcuffs before my eyes, and female police officer Qian Lanying kept intimidating me. I clarified the truth to them. They brought the head of my husband's work unit and told me to relinquish my home and office keys. I thought, "My life belongs to Dafa. I trust Teacher with everything I have." I had no fear. They took me to a detention center and ordered me to sign an arrest warrant and submit my fingerprints. I said, "Why are you detaining me? Why is the column 'reason for arrest' empty on the arrest warrant?" One official said, "I haven't figured out what to charge you with." I was held at the detention center. My husband was then out of town on an errand, and my son was only 14 years old.
Between January 5 and March 27, 2000, officials from the county's 610 Office and my husband came to me many times. My husband pressured me to give up Dafa, and he also beat me. My son and other family members tried to persuade me to give up Dafa. Ruan Changan, the former assistant at the Longchang County Dafa practice site, betrayed Dafa. He wrote me a letter and tried to deceive me. I firmly believed in Teacher and persisted in my faith. Before the Chinese New Year, they brought in my husband and told him to promise for me in my presence that I would no longer practice Falun Gong. They told me to not say anything. I knew it was a ploy, and I firmly refused to cooperate with them.
At the detention center I clarified the truth to the inmates on a daily basis, and soon they learned about and believed in Dafa. A girl told me her mother also practiced Falun Gong. Someone said, "If I had known I would receive karmic retribution for doing bad things, I would never have done them." Some inmates studied the Fa and did the exercises with me. One day the head of the detention center patrolled the cells. He ordered for me to be shackled for a week for doing the Dafa exercises.
On March 27, 2000, the police, my work place superiors, and personnel from the county 610 Office went to my husband and then came to me. They told me, "Your work unit paid 4,800 yuan to bail you out. We are here to take you to a hospital for a routine examination." I refused to go, and my husband also didn't like the idea. They put me in a car and drove me from the detention center directly to a mental hospital, where I was force-fed drugs and injected with large doses of steroids. Three days later my husband came to the hospital. The doctor told him that the 610 Office dictated that no one was allowed to see me and that the doctor and nurses had to monitor my every move. They stopped my husband outside the ward. Other patients heard that he was looking for me and told me about it. My body was so severely swollen that I was shaky and dizzy and could not stand still. I held onto the window frame and called out for my husband. He came in and looked past me because he couldn't recognize me. When I told him, "I'm Gao Yan," he was shocked. He couldn't believe his eyes because just a few days before I was young and slim. He cried.
When Liang Cheng from the 610 Office came to see me, someone asked, "Why did you send Gao Yan to a mental hospital?" Liang Cheng answered, "We simply have to destroy her will." I said, "I'm rock-solid. You can't destroy me."
In late May my husband was injured in a motor accident, and the 610 Office agreed to let me go home to take care of him. My husband was still on crutches when he and my superior from work filled out the paperwork for me to be released from the hospital. I had been tortured at the hospital for more than 60 days and was charged over 1,000 yuan in "hospital fees."
On July 15, 2000, several fellow practitioners and I went to Beijing to appeal. The police, my superior from work, and county 610 Office personnel arrested us at a Beijing train station. We were forced to take a train back the same day. Police officer Qian Lanying extorted about 2,000 yuan from us on the train. We held a group hunger strike to protest the persecution on the train. When we arrived in Longchang County, I was sent back to the same mental hospital. Practitioners Lan Zhujiang, Yu Bin and Wang Youbi were detained along with me. We continued the hunger strike that lasted 13 days. The 610 Office extorted a 5,000-yuan "escorting fee" from each of our families. They interrogated us many times. On July 31, persons from the 610 Office lied and told us we would be released on August 1, which did not happen.
On September 8, the 610 Office people put me in a special car and drove me to Sichuan Province Women's Labor Camp in Zizhong. They hoped the collaborators would convince me to give up Dafa. I said, "They [the collaborators] betrayed Teacher and Dafa." The perpetrators from the 610 Office were disappointed. They sent me to a detention center for the second time without even issuing an arrest warrant. I was charged over 1,000 yuan in "hospital fees" once again.
In mid-December my work unit gave me some money and then fired me. When the 610 Office people learned that I had some money, they set a 20,000-yuan bail, which had to be paid before they would let me go through the employment procedures. My mother and husband borrowed money from many people. In the end I had permission to go to my work unit to take care of the paperwork.
After I clarified the truth to him, my husband realized that the people from the 610 Office were violating the law and persecuting me. He went to a lawyer friend and asked him to file a lawsuit for me, but the friend refused. He said, "I wouldn't dare to fight for your wife, no matter how much you paid me. Whoever defends Falun Gong loses his practice. It's stated in a 'red-tag' document from the central government."
On January 19, 2001, my husband went to work for a while and then came home. He told me he wanted a divorce. He cried. He was a Party member, our son was about to take the college entrance exam, and the 610 Office personnel were forcing him to pressure me into giving up Dafa, saying that otherwise, our son would not be allowed to take the test. He beat me, and his parents and sister said, "Break her legs if she tries to practice Falun Gong." I calmly clarified the truth to him and was understanding and accepting toward him. I thought I would be OK with it if he chose to divorce me. Officials at the county Civil Administration Bureau said to me, "The Chinese New Year is almost here. Why are you getting a divorce? You would need to get a certificate from the Street Party Committee for us to process it." Because we couldn't get a divorce at the Civil Administration Bureau, my husband suggested that we write a divorce agreement. I said, "OK. I know the '610 Office' has ransacked our home so many times and they harass you everyday; you've had enough. Maybe you'll have some peace after I leave, but you should know right from wrong!"
In the afternoon on January 20, Ye Lin, Liang Cheng and others from the 610 Office came to my home to arrest me. My husband was very angry and said to them, "I always believed it when the news and TV programs said the police shed their blood and made sacrifices to protect the people and the country, but now my eyes are opened. You are the worst!" Ye Lin immediately explained, "It's an order from our superiors; we are just following orders, and we can't do anything about it." They took me away. I saw the document that illegally sentenced me to one year of forced labor was dated December 4, 2000, which means it was written before my family paid the 20,000-yuan bail.
On January 20, 2001, I was assigned to a team at the labor camp. Right after we got up in the morning, the guards forced us to raise our arms above our heads and stand against the wall for the whole day. We stood this way for three days. Many practitioners fainted; their faces were pallid; their hands and feet were swollen; and some even cried. Han Guangrong was really thirsty but was not given any water, so she drank a little water dripping from the inmates' underwear hanging on a line. Guard Zhou beat practitioner Luo Meng and forced her to stand beside a courtyard wall. The guards often shocked us with electric batons and arbitrarily extended our sentences. After the false self-immolation incident took place in Tiananmen Square, the guards and inmates constantly tortured us. Once, when guards Zhang Xiaofang and Liao Xiaolin shocked practitioners Peng Shiqiong and Han Guangrong, I saw the bolts of blue light flashing across Peng Shiqiong's face, accompanied by cracking sounds. Peng Shiqiong said, "We have Teacher and Dafa. There is nothing to be afraid of."
In early April 2001, my husband brought his lawyer friend Liu, a court judge, and a woman secretary. They held a trial in the labor camp and announced our divorce. The judge said to me, "Gao Yan, your husband Tong Kaihua paid a 600-yuan litigation fee. You have to agree to divorce, whether you want to or not." My husband cried so hard his eyes were red and swollen. He didn't want a divorce but had no choice. He said, "What can I do? Our son has to go to college, and my parents are old and can't go through all this with us. They often phone me and blame me for making them suffer, so divorce is the only option for me." I said, "Don't cry. I respect your decision." The judge immediately said, "Now divide your property." I said, "Just give it all to him. It's not easy for him to take care of our son." The legal documents and certificate soon arrived in the mail.
On January 9, 2002, I was released from the labor camp and lived with my mother in Neijiang.
On May 13, I returned to Longchang County and rented a room in a fellow practitioner's home. On June 20 the police ransacked my mother's home in Neijiang, arrested me, and sent me directly to a transport center without any due process of law. I went on a second hunger strike at the transport center. The guards at the center handcuffed me to a metal gate. Four days later I was sent to a mental hospital for the third time. I was hogtied on a metal bed from early morning until 8 p.m. or 10 p.m. I received injections and IV infusions while I was tied up. I have a receipt from the No. 2 Mental Hospital in Neijiang. One 400-yuan charge was labeled "protective medication fee." The discharge date is July 17. Another receipt has the official stamp of the Political and Administration Section at Sichuan Province Women's Labor Camp, also dated July 17. The Longchang County 610 Office sent me directly to the labor camp from the mental hospital.
The labor camp hospital gave me a physical exam and refused to take me. The personnel from the 610 Office put pressure on the labor camp authorities, who eventually took me after charging the 610 Office 500 yuan. I had been on a hunger strike for over 20 days by then. I had lost control of my legs because of the large amount of drugs I had been given and also because I had been tied up for days. An inmate carried me on his back to Division 8. Luo Wei, the head of Division 8 said to me, "The police paid us 500 yuan, but the labor camp administration only charged you 200 yuan, so you have a 300-yuan credit." Later, when I asked a guard about the 300 yuan, he told me, "It's gone." Three years later my mother told me that the 610 Office had somehow robbed her of the money.
My landlord was arrested for renting to me. He was held at the transport center and was released after being fined 5,000 yuan. Another fellow practitioner was sentenced to three years of forced labor for introducing me to my landlord.
On August 21, 2002, I was transferred to Team 8, which specialized in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Right after I entered the gate, I saw several practitioners handcuffed to trees with their hands behind them. They had tape covering their mouths. All of the practitioners at Team 8 were forced to watch Dafa-slandering VCDs, and several practitioners were handcuffed to the trees for shouting things like, "Falun Dafa is great!"
During the 16th Party Congress, the guards took turns sitting outside our cell and escalated the persecution. They beat us, force-fed us water, tied and hung us up, stripped off our pants and underwear, and a group of guards savagely beat us. They didn't allow us to go to the restroom and forced us to drink urine. They didn't allow us to sleep or take a shower for a very long time and forced us to stand for long periods of time. They handcuffed us and shocked us with electric batons.
Once we heard that people from Australia had come to the labor camp to find out if a reputed water dungeon really existed. It was noontime, and we were being forced to stand as usual. We heard group head Li saying, "They voluntarily stand like this." Peng Shiqiong and Luo Meng immediately said, "No, we don't want to stand like this." The inmates jumped up and brutally beat Peng Shiqiong, Luo Meng and me. I accidentally crashed into the railing when they were beating Luo Meng and was immediately taken to the hospital. I later saw charges for the emergency treatment in my account. When I was in the ER, Peng Shiqiong and Luo Meng were hung from trees in the courtyard until I returned to the labor camp. Before dawn we were sent to a small room. Peng Shiqiong had one hand cuffed to a back window; Luo Meng had both hands cuffed to a front window, and I stood by the wall. We were not allowed to sleep for 15 days and nights. I lost count of the number of times I fainted. I came to only when the inmates kicked my face with their hard boots or stepped on my ears. My head was covered with bumps, and I felt as if my skull was shrouded in a sheet of blood.
Once the group heads ordered us to read a Dafa-slandering book. When we refused to read the book, the inmates beat us until we were on the brink of death. Inmate Chen Qi hung and tied practitioner Tao Yuqin to the bed. Tao Yuqin soon started sweating profusely and her face was pallid. Team head Li looked at her eyes with a flashlight to see if her pupils were dilated. They let her down when she had but a breath left. Cell heads Deng Ailing, Li Hong and Chen Qi are very cruel and they had no scruples when torturing people. When they force-fed us water, we almost choked to death. Team head Li screamed, "I'll cause you so much pain that you'll drown in your own blood." Guards Yang and Jiang often threatened us with electric batons.
Luo Meng, Peng Shiqiong, Wang Huiying and I were held in a small room. Wang Huiying also refused to read the Dafa-slandering book. They crossed her legs and tied them up for many days. She had to relieve herself in her clothing. It was winter and she had to sit on the floor, and the flesh on her buttocks started to rot. The labor camp doctor, Chen, came daily to change the dressing for Peng Shiqiong and Wang Huiying.
Before the 2003 Chinese New Year, Hai, the Longchang County Party Committee secretary, and Ye Lin, from the 610 Office, came to the forced labor camp to give me "New Year's greetings" on behalf of the Longchang County Party Committee and the county police department. Ye Lin asked right after we met, "Gao Yan, what's that big bump on your face?" I told him that Team head Li had hit me. Ye Lin introduced me to secretary Hai. I clarified the truth to Hai and told him, "It's because of your predestined relationship with Falun Gong that we are having this conversation. Make sure you read the book Zhuan Falun. It's a good book, and you'll regret it for the rest of your life if you don't read it. I'm taking a big risk by telling you this, because I cherish your life." The guards and the inmates from my cell were watching me the whole time. They made me go back to Team 8 when they heard me clarifying the truth to Hai. After I returned to the team, the inmates took turns beating me. They beat me three times and didn't stop each time until I collapsed. They also refused to let me go to the restroom or sleep.
The labor camp authorities issued a two-week deadline for Team 8 to "reform" Falun Gong practitioners who remained determined. Painful screams could be heard from all the cells day and night. Collaborators Yao Jianhua, Qiao Jianqun and Huang Xuefen encouraged the inmates to beat us and wrote "repentance statements" for us without our consent. Collaborator Wang Dong choked practitioner Jiang Xianfeng's neck with his hands and he grabbed her hair. Several other perpetrators joined in and pressed Jiang Xianfeng's finger on the repentance statement. Huang Xuefang wrote a statement for me and read it to me. I said, "You are shameless!" She said, "If you don't give us your fingerprint, we'll make you." I said, "Why don't you cut my finger off so you can get as many fingerprints as you want?" Once, Wang Dabi, Li Ruiying and several others tried to reform me by force. Li Ruiying grabbed my hair and banged my head against a wall, and Wang Dabi kicked me with his boots. When they sent me back to the small room, the inmates were shocked and said, "Even the collaborators beat people!" Li Ruiying ordered the inmates to force me to stand. The team heads extended my sentence by 45 days because I refused to be reformed.
In 2004, the team heads assigned us work quotas. Detainees in Team 8 mostly did knitting. Determined Dafa practitioners had to knit more than 0.9 kg of yarn per month. We got up at 5:00 a.m. If we finished our assigned work, we could go to sleep at midnight after the guards finish checking the cells. Elderly practitioners who couldn't finish the assigned work quota could sleep for only three to four hours a day. My eyesight deteriorated drastically from the nearly 20 hours of work a day. Practitioner Liu Fengxia and I suffered from severe neck pain. The doctor said the muscles and tendons in our necks were stressed from our heads being lowered too long.
Determined practitioners had the worst food in the labor camp. We were not allowed to buy food such as instant noodles from the canteen. My whole body was swollen from malnutrition by the time I left the labor camp.
My sentence expired on June 13, 2005, but officials from Longchang County picked me up on June 15, and I was held for two extra days.
Aside from the perpetrators mentioned in the letter, some others also took part in the persecution against me. I expose their names below:
Chen Jiamin, Longchang County 610 Office
Cai, officer from the Gaosishan Police Station in Neijiang City
Wang Youfen, doctor at the No. 2 Mental Hospital in Neijiang City
Huang, doctor at No. 2 Mental Hospital in Neijiang City
Li Xia, Sichuan Province Women's Labor Camp
Kang Feng, Sichuan Province Women's Labor Camp
Liu Ping, Sichuan Province Women's Labor Camp
Yin Dan, Sichuan Province Women's Labor Camp
Zeng Guirong, inmate
Tong Zife, inmate
Chen Jia, inmate
Mai Zonglian, inmate
Liang Quan, inmate
Zeng Qimei, inmate
Lu Juan, inmate
Zhang Shangyi, inmate
Song Li, inmate
Cai Huarong, collaborator
Wan Qing, collaborator
Lin, collaborator