(Minghui.org) Jiang Zemin led the Chinese Communist Party in a brutal crackdown on Falun Gong in China. More than 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced to prison or forced labor for following the principles of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. I was one of the victims.
I was persecuted for several years in prisons in the Yinnan and Yinchuan areas in the Ningxia Autonomous Region. Because I continued to practice Falun Gong in the prisons, after a period of time, officials found that they could not change me by torture, so they secretly took me to a small prison in the Yinbei area.
This was a notorious prison in the Ningxia Autonomous Region. There you could hear the noise of beating, cursing and screaming everywhere. Just a few days before I was taken there, the guards in the prison held a big meeting, where in front of everyone, they beat a prisoner to death on stage. Before I was taken there, the guards also had a special meeting about me and announced that a Falun Gong practitioner would come to the prison. They claimed that I was very dangerous, as if I was the worst enemy. They also said lots of things to incite hatred, asking everyone to monitor me and be on guard. They said that no one should talk to me, nor should they communicate with me in private. The police carefully selected several prisoners to monitor my every action and word 24 hours a day. At the same time, these prisoners had to monitor whether anyone else communicated with me and report everything to the guards.
As soon as I got to this prison, I felt the terror they had deliberately laid out, which was several times greater than in other the prisons I had been in. All day long, I was monitored, cursed, and even violently beaten. Every look emitted hatred towards me. All of this together formed a kind of evil force trying to destroy my mind and break my determination. Some people treated me as a dangerous figure and watched me carefully, perhaps since there were already many dangerous figures in the prison. People in the prison seemed very nervous.
The first issue in the prison was to fill out some forms. There was a lot to fill out. At the beginning, I refused. Then I realized that I should write the truth on the forms. Didn't they want to change me? Instead, I would change them. One of the questions was, “What is your opinion on the 'evil cult' Falun Gong?” I wrote: “First, Falun Gong is an orthodox teaching; it is not an evil cult. Second, Falun Dafa is good!” After I filled out the form like this, the prisoners passed it around and read it. Some of them were touched by what I wrote down, and some said that they admired me. Some worried that I would be the next person to be beaten to death on stage.
There were three prisoners who were assigned to monitor me. They were quite harsh and constantly cursed me. I found that they were all simple-minded and had not had much education. They were the same age as my son, but were all sentenced to more than ten years in prison. I was quite sympathetic towards them, and sometimes offered them a little help. Even after they cursed me one hundred times, I treated them well one hundred times. If they would have mistreated me one thousand times, I would have treated them well one thousand times. Gradually they became too embarrassed to curse me anymore. Later, they became quite polite towards me. Frequently someone came to ask me questions after seeing Falun Gong slandered on TV. I always answered their questions and explained the truth to them. Those prisoners who monitored me would usually interfere, but I never gave in. Sometimes I was able to explain the facts well; other times I would look for another opportunity to clarify the truth in depth.
Since I cultivate in Falun Dafa and follow the principles of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance, I understand that the power of compassion is supernormal. It can dissolve all evil. I treated everyone in the prison well. After a long period of time, most people became friendly towards me. After several months, the guard assigned to persecute me had conflicts with the prison director, so he was transferred to another place. The guard who took over his job did not pay much attention to me. Among the three prisoners who monitored me, two of them became my friends, and the third one did not report me to the guards anymore. The terror that surrounded me when I first came to the prison had all but disappeared. What was left was just the routine of the prison. There was a captain with last name Ma in the prison. After he heard that I did Falun Gong exercises in the prison, he ordered a prisoner to beat me, but the prisoner did not follow his orders.
Many prisoners treated me as a friend and they liked to tell me their secrets. Someone sighed that he could not quit smoking after he had tried several times. I told him that he should recite “Falun Dafa is good!” After two months, he told me happily that he had completely quit smoking by reciting “Falun Dafa is good!” An elderly prisoner had multiple diseases. He often recited “Falun Dafa is good!” For the next 2-3 years, he was not sick at all. A middle aged prisoner told me painfully that he could not fall asleep at night. I told him that I had a special treatment. I told him to recite “Falun Dafa is good!” when he could not fall asleep. On the second morning, he came to me and told me happily that he recited “Falun Dafa is Good!” when he could not fall asleep. While he was reciting it, he fell asleep. It was so miraculous. He told me that it was the first night in the past twelve years that he had no problem sleeping at night. After one month, he came to me again. He said that in the past month, he recited “Falun Dafa is Good!” every day, and he had no problem sleeping any more. He felt comfortable and gained twelve pounds. He took risks and brought Dafa books to me from other prisons.
Once I heard several prisoners arguing. One prisoner said that nowadays there were no good people in prison. Another prisoner said: “I can find one. That Falun Gong practitioner is a good person.” The other one nodded and said, “That is true.”
The food standard offered by the prison was poor. If the guards really followed the standard, we should have gotten 2-3 meals with meat each week. However, because of corruption, we only received one meal per week that contained meat. Because the prisoners working in the kitchen secretly sold some of the food for their own benefit, this one meal only contained very little meat. Sometimes we could smell meat but could not see any. It was like this for years, so the malnourished prisoners dreamed about having some meat.
One day the captain with last name Ma gathered the prisoners together and had a special meeting with a surprising announcement: “Today we are going to elect someone as your representative. This person will check the accounts of the kitchen and make sure that you get all the food that was allocated to you. You have to figure out who to vote for, since this person will directly affect your benefits.” After hearing this, everyone was excited. They immediately gathered together to discuss. They talked for a while, and then someone said that he would like to vote for me. Then everyone else said: “I agree!” “I agree!”
Captain Ma was shocked. He did not realize that people would unanimously vote for me. He changed his attitude immediately and said: “I have to make it clear that you cannot vote for Falun Gong. You have to vote again.” Someone immediately responded: “Why can't we vote for Falun Gong? Didn't you say that we should vote for someone we trust? We only trust Falun Gong.” Another prisoner said: “We cannot vote for anyone else. They would only care for themselves, but not for the rest of us. We only feel secure if the Falun Gong practitioner is selected as our representative.” Captain Ma could not find an excuse, but felt that the situation was about to go out of control. He always gave orders. Whoever disobeyed him would be punished by other prisoners specified by him. However, that day all the prisoners had the same opinion, which he could not deal with. For the past several decades, he could order prisoners to punish anyone (including killing someone), but this time the crackdown on Falun Gong totally failed. The prisoners were also full of anger. They knew that no matter who they voted for, it was just a show. They could only find hope in someone practicing Truth-Compassion-Forbearance.
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Category: Cultivation
