(Minghui.org) My name is Zhang Xiuli. I started practicing Falun Gong in 1998 and my illnesses, including conjunctivitis, keratitis, gynecological disease, and neurasthenia disappeared soon afterwards. I regained good health and my whole family was living a happy life.
After Jiang Zemin launched the frenzied persecution of Falun Gong under the policy of “ruining their reputation, cutting off their financial resources, and destroying them physically,” I, my husband, and our young daughter have suffered much persecution and mental torment.
Five Arrests Result in Irreparable Harm
Simply for refusing to give up my belief in Falun Gong, I was arrested four times from 2000 to 2002. I was beaten so badly during my first arrest in January 2000 that I suffered a temporary loss of memory. When the police arrested me again several months later, an officer sexually assaulted me.
Though I was quickly released after my third arrest in February 2002, the police constantly visited my home and tried to pressure me to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. My husband and daughter were traumatized by the frequent police harassment.
My fourth arrest in August 2002 led to a broken arm, thanks to police brutality. My husband was sentenced to four years while I was in detention, and our daughter had to drop out of school. My father passed away, unable to see his daughter one last time.
I was arrested a fifth time in November 2014 and wasn't released until I went on a hunger strike for five days.
Below I share details of my suffering at the hands of the police.
Memory Loss from a Severe Beating at Tiananmen Square
I went to Tiananmen Square to appeal for justice for Falun Gong in January 2000. Before I could even hold up a banner, a police officer hit my head violently from behind. I passed out on the spot.
I have no idea how long I remained unconscious. When I came to, I knew I was being helped by fellow practitioners. They put a jacket on me, bought me a train ticket and helped me onto the train. Somehow, I managed to get back home.
My lips were badly swollen and I could not remember anything. My mind was blank. I couldn’t do anything and was scared to go out.
Later, my husband encouraged me to read Zhuan Falun, and gradually I regained my memory.
Illegal Arrests, Huge Fines and Force-feeding
One morning in the summer of 2001, policeman Wang Haishun and others from Zhengyang Police Station of Yushu City broke into our house. They ransacked my home and seized my Falun Gong books and truth-clarification materials. Two police officers twisted my arms behind my back and forced me to sit on the bed. Another officer grabbed my hand and pressed it to his genitals.
Security Section head Zhang Deqing took from me a photo of the founder of Falun Gong, and they tried to videotape me. When I refused, they pulled my hair and slapped my face. My daughter was not even ten at that time. She was so frightened that she kept crying. I was taken to Yushu City Detention Center barefoot and in pajamas.
That evening, the local TV station broadcast the video taken by police to defame Falun Gong. I went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. A few days later, I was transferred to another local custody house, where I was brutally force-fed. I had become very weak by then and was taken to a Chinese medicine hospital.
Wang Haishun forced my husband to pay 5,000 yuan. Policeman Hu Manshan forced my family to pay 1,000 yuan in a fine and 2,000 yuan as a “heating fee” before I was released.
In the evening of February 8, 2002 while I was visiting relatives (also Falun Gong practitioners), Wang and five or six others broke into the house and confiscated a copy of Zhuan Falun and a meditation cushion. As I was walking out, they arrested me and took me to the local police station. My family had to ask people for help before I was released.
Wang and others kept coming to my house to harass us. They tried to force me to write a statement to give up Falun Gong. They took photos of me and searched my bedroom. I often had to stay away from home to avoid the constant harassment. This caused enormous mental torment for my husband and our daughter.
Broken Arm
I was staying in a rented house with another practitioner in August 2002. In the early morning of August 30, police from Yushu Domestic Security Division and the local police station broke into the house and started ransacking it. They took us downstairs. The police tied a plastic bag around my mouth to silence me. They then took me to a small room, tied my arms behind my back, and later locked me up in a detention center.
I was forced to sit in an iron chair and I could not move at all. They stomped on my toes until my toes swelled and turned dark purple, and poured water over my head and face.
They tried to arrest my daughter, but failed as they called the wrong school. Failing to get anything out of me, the police started with the torture. They cuffed my hands to my back, tied a rope to the handcuffs and hung me up from the door frame, which was two meters high. I could not touch the ground and my whole body was up in the air, breaking my right arm. They also whipped my back with a piece of rope.
Three or four days later, my whole arm turned dark purple and swelled up to twice its normal size. I was put in shackles and taken to the Yushu City Chinese Medicine Hospital. I was not allowed to talk to anyone. Doctors at the hospital asked the police to sign a form so that they could operate on my broken arm, but the police refused. Eventually I signed it with my left hand. As soon as the operation was over, I was taken back to the detention center.
I went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. It was very cold in October in Northeast China. I had become very weak and was left lying on a wooden board in very thin clothes. Gong, head of the detention center, grabbed my hair and pulled me up. Then four or five strong inmates held down my legs and my head, and started to force-feed me savagely with milk powder mixed with highly concentrated salt water.
For fear that I might die in the detention center, the police transferred me to a custody house. I had no bedding or pillow, and nothing to eat. Practitioners who were also detained there helped me. They told the police that I was in critical condition, but nobody cared. It was not until evening that the police called an ambulance to take me to the hospital.
I was put on oxygen straight away. I was so weak that the doctors could not find any veins for an injection. The police said they regretted taking me to the hospital, that it was better to have just let me die.
They were worried that I might die in the hospital, so a couple of days later they called my mother-in-law to take me home. Police officer Qi Li pretended to be nice and asked if I had any requests. As I knew that they had also arrested my husband, I asked that they release my husband. He said it was not up to him and left.
Husband Unlawfully Sentenced to Jail and Father Passed Away
The police also illegally arrested my husband, took away all my Falun Gong books, and confiscated a motorized tricycle worth over 1,000 yuan. My mother-in-law went to the Domestic Security Division to try to get it back, but was turned away. Later my husband was unlawfully sentenced to four and a half years in jail.
As my father was suffering from late stage cancer, my family didn't tell him what had happened to me. He thought we might have been arrested as we had not visited him for some time and became very worried. He passed away without being able to see us for one last time.
My mother-in-law missed her son so badly that her eyesight was affected and she could not see things clearly. Each time she heard Falun Gong practitioners were arrested, she could not sleep and would rush to my place to see if I was safe at home.
My daughter was attending middle school at the time. She was discriminated against for our arrests by teachers and schoolmates, who had been deceived by lies and false propaganda on TV. Her school work was badly affected and she had to drop out in the end.
Persecution at a Brainwashing Center
While I was working in a cosmetics shop in Yushu City, a group of police headed by Shi Hailin broke into the shop at around 8:30 am on November 14, 2014. They forced us to put on our jackets and searched our pockets, dragged all four shop assistants into a police van and took us to a brainwashing center.
Police officer Qi Li from the Domestic Security Division was there too. They detained us in separate rooms and hired people to monitor us day and night. Zhen Shengli from the 610 Office forced us to watch slanderous videos against Falun Gong and its founder.
We were forced to stand without moving until 11 p.m. before we were allowed to sleep. Yao Haibo from the 610 Office and Liu Shuanghui and Liu Shurong, former practitioners who had turned against Falun Gong, also participated in the persecution. I went on a hunger strike and became rather weak physically. I was released ten days later.
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