(Minghui.org) My name is Rao Xi, and I'm 55 years old. I teach Chinese in the School of Finance and Economics of Qujing City. In 1998, a friend of mine lent me a copy of Zhuan Falun. I read the book and believed that it was what I had been searching for all my life.
After I started to practice Falun Gong, I held myself to the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. My students respected me for the way I conducted myself, and they saw that Falun Gong practitioners are good people.
I was devastated when I saw the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) slanderous TV programs about Falun Gong after the persecution started in 1999. I had gained so many benefits from practicing, in having good health and happiness, so I knew that I must go out to let people know the facts about the practice and the persecution.
I've been subjected to forced labor three times and detained for a total of seven years and three months. I still have serious pain in my back and lungs today from the abuse that I suffered.
My most recent arrest and detention took place between March 2010 and May 2012.
More than twenty practitioners had gathered at a practitioner's house to share our cultivation experiences, but the police found out about it. Two days later, on March 23, 2010, a group of officers from the Qilin District Domestic Security Division broke into my house just after 11:00 p.m. They pushed me down in a chair and started to search my home. They confiscated all of my Dafa books, a computer and 800 yuan in cash.
I was then carried downstairs, pushed into a car and taken to the Qilin District Police Department. I was still in my pajamas at the time. The next morning I was taken to the Wangjiashan Detention Center, where I was detained for a month before being transferred to Yunnan Women's Forced Labor Camp.
I was forced to sit on a small stool from morning till night when I was detained in the No. 3 Division of the camp. I was not allowed to move without permission and had to face the inmates monitoring me. Sometimes they grabbed my head and bashed it against the wall.
A month later, the labor camp doctor came and forced me to take some drugs. Immediately, I felt my blood rushing towards my head. My heart beat very fast and my feet were trembling. I felt dizzy and couldn't see anything. I grabbed hold of the bars on the window tightly with both hands and I couldn't lie down until much later. It was a terrible feeling.
When summer came, it got hotter and hotter in the small room, and I could hardly breathe. It actually hurt to breathe. It was so hot that I felt like I was in an oven and my blood vessels were exploding. I tried to open the door to get some fresh air, but the inmate assigned to monitor me stopped me, saying that if she allowed me to open the door the guards would extend her sentence.
I was locked in solitary confinement for over one and a half years before being taken out at the end of 2011 to do forced labor. My nose suddenly started bleeding on January 8, 2012, while I was forced to make woolen balls. The camp doctor tried to stop the bleeding by plugging my nostrils with cotton. That didn't work, so the doctor had to use a gauze instead.
My nose bled for over 40 days, and there was also blood in the phlegm that I coughed up. Even so, I still had to work in the crafts workshop, selecting stones and hand painting them.
When the camp doctor had me taken to the hospital for a check-up, my face was already badly swollen and I couldn't walk properly. The hospital doctor thought I wouldn't live for much longer. Nevertheless, I was taken back to the labor camp and forced to continue working.
My nose stopped bleeding towards the end of February, and I was again put in solitary confinement and forced to sit on a small stool for long periods of time.
In March 2012, I was taken to the No. 1 Division to work in the crafts workshop, this time doing bead embroidery. I remained there until I was released from the labor camp on May 31, 2012.
On the afternoon of July 25, 2005, I was going downstairs in the residency building to go to work, when a number of plainclothes police rushed up the stairs towards me. They pushed me to the ground and took my house keys from me. They went inside my house and confiscated all my Dafa books, computer, printer and truth clarification materials.
Afterward, they carried me to a police car and took me to the Wangjiashan Detention Center in Qujing, where I was interrogated and tortured. One guard pushed a wooden board against my chest with a lot of force, while another officer pushed me forward from behind with his foot. I was in a great deal of pain.
One month later, I was sentenced to three years of forced labor and was transferred to Yunnan Women's Forced Labor Camp.
I was subjected to intensive brainwashing sessions every day at the camp. Six months later, they made me do intense labor – packing polypropylene (PP) knitted bags. I had to pack 1000 PP bags tightly in each bundle and pile them up. It was very difficult and heavy work, and I had to do this for 13 hours a day. I was so tired that sometimes my legs gave way while I was walking and I fell to my knees. I even lost consciousness once in the workshop due to exhaustion.
The guards instigated inmates to shout and swear at me. They pushed me around, trying to force me to renounce my belief. I worked in the PP bag workshop for nearly six months. My back was seriously damaged as a result.
At the end of 2006, I was taken to a cracker factory. I had to operate a machine that added cream to two crackers, and I had to add the cream into the machine by hand. When my hands were scratched and bleeding, the cream became stained with my blood, but the guards still forced me to continue.
I worked there for six months and my hair started to fall out by the handful. I also lost three teeth and my facial features became deformed. I coughed violently and became very weak. Later I found out that the cream that I handled every day was some kind of chemical compound that had unknown effects on the human body in large doses.
In the summer of 2007, I was taken to the gemstone processing workshop, where we had to affix gemstones to various surfaces using adhesives. I couldn't do it properly due to my poor eyesight and was often scolded and threatened by the guards.
I was forced to share a room with seven inmates who either had AIDS, tuberculosis or hepatitis. Due to the intensive labor in the gemstone processing workshop, many inmates became seriously ill. Some of them died just a few days after their release from the camp.
I returned home on September 24, 2008, having served an additional month that was added to my original term.
It was cold and snowing in the early hours of January 31, 2000. Seven practitioners and I began doing the exercises in an open space near the gates of the Qujing Arts Theater.
Suddenly, over 20 police turned up wearing helmets and carrying rifles. They surrounded us and pushed us into police cars. We were taken to Qujing No. 4 Detention Center and were held there for four months.
While we were detained, our family members were not allowed to send us anything. I was wearing a padded jacket and a pair of leather shoes when I was arrested. Four months later when I was transferred to Yunnan Women's Forced Labor Camp, I was still wearing the same clothes.
The guards locked me up with inmates from minority backgrounds who could not speak Mandarin, presumably because they did not want me talking to anyone about Falun Gong.
During the day, I was forced to do heavy work, such as digging holes for tree planting and removing soil. I was sore all over due to the intensive work. In the evening, we were subjected to brainwashing sessions, where they tried to force me to renounce my belief.
When I returned to work at the school in April 2004, I was not allowed to teach because the school authorities were worried that I might talk to my students about Falun Gong. Instead of teaching, I was demoted to working in the library, and they cut my pay as well. I was also frequently harassed by the authorities.