(Minghui.org) On June 18, Ms. Yang Suhua, an 80-year-old retired government official from Jinzhou, Liaoning Province, filed a criminal complaint against former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin for the persecution she suffered between 2000 and 2010.
For practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the communist regime in China, Ms. Yang has been arrested four times and her home ransacked twice. After her first arrest, she was taken to a brainwashing center, where she was tortured for one and a half months. Upon her third arrest, she was sent to one year in a forced labor camp.
Below is her personal account, as written in her legal complaint.
I am a retired official from the Administration Department of the Jinzhou Municipal Committee. I had problems with my gall bladder, stomach and joints as well as gynecological problems. I tried all possible medical treatments I could find, but nothing worked. I was depressed and lost hope.
Everything turned around on April 5, 1994, when I attended Mr. Li Hongzhi's (founder of Falun Gong) lectures in Jinzhou City. On the second day of the lectures, all the health problems that plagued me for several decades disappeared. I experienced the miracle of Falun Gong. My entire body felt light.
I followed the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. I looked within myself for shortcomings when running into conflicts with others. I treated people sincerely and kindly.
However, the former dictator Jiang Zemin launched a brutal persecution against Falun Gong in July 1999. Below is what I suffered in the years that followed.
On the night of June 20, 2000, I went with a fellow practitioner to Beijing to petition the government for the right to practice Falun Gong. We were arrested at the Jinzhou railway station. More than 20 local practitioners were arrested there at the same time.
Each of us was taken to a local district police station. I was taken to the Jintie Police Station. A policeman handcuffed my arm to a heating pipe. Later I was taken to the Jinzhou City No. 2 Detention Center, where I was held for 15 days.
When I was released from the detention center on July 5, 2000, a policeman named Tang from Jintie Police Station took me straight to a brainwashing center that was set up by Jinzhou City Political and Legal Affairs Committee and the 610 Office. It was located at former Jinzhou City Jade Artifact Factory.
Approximately 100 Falun Gong practitioners were detained there. Some of them were transferred from detention centers. Most were arrested while they were at home, working in the fields, or at their workplaces.
Through torture and propaganda videos, they tried to destroy our will to practice Falun Gong. They forced us to do intensive physical exercises. They beat and cursed me, slapped my face, grabbed me by the hair and banged my head against the wall. Li Xiejiang, the head of Jinzhu 610 Office, was one of the cruelest perpetrators.
I was detained there for about one and a half months. On August 18, policeman Tang from Jintie Police Station, director Wang of Linhe District Political and Judicial Committee, Chen Yuhua (an official from Jintie residential community), and my family came to pick me up.
Chen took me and my family to the Jintie residential community office, where I was ordered to pay 1,000 yuan. I told them I had no money. My family finally paid them 500 yuan.
On the morning of January 18, 2001, I went to fellow practitioner Ms. Cai's home to deliver Falun Gong informational materials. A policeman answered the door and suddenly grabbed me by the arm. It just so happened that officers from Lin'an Police Station were ransacking her home when I knocked at the door.
Two policemen took me, Ms. Cai and her husband to the Lin'an Police Station. We were detained in three separate rooms. Several policemen took turns interrogating me about where I got the Falun Gong informational materials. One policeman hit me with my cloth bag.
Meanwhile, the two policemen who had ransacked Ms. Cai's home went to ransack my home. They came back and showed me my ticket stubs from the Falun Gong lectures in Jinzhou and Harbin, which they planned to use as “evidence” against me.
At midnight of the following day, January 19, they took me to Jinzhou Detention Center. The living conditions there were inhumane.
I slept alongside dozens of detainees on a wood plank that was only inches above the cement floor. There was only barely enough room for me to lie stiffly on my side. If I moved a little, someone next to me might be woken up, and I would be cursed at and kicked if she was a criminal detainee.
Everything we did was inside the cell, including using the toilet. Our food was only a piece of corn bread and a few vegetable leaves in watery broth, which had sand and worms in it. No hot water was provided to drink. The quilt, though very dirty and foul-smelling, cost me a usage fee of 70 yuan a month. During the day, we were forced to sit alongside the wood plank motionless.
About four months later, in mid May, 2001, Falun Gong practitioners at the detention center went on a hunger strike. The Jinzhou 610 Office ordered the detention center to release us temporarily.
On June 15, 2001, while I was repairing my house, several policemen from Lin'an Police Station came to me and said their supervisor wanted to meet with me. They promised me it would take only a couple of minutes. I followed them to the detention center, and then they locked me up.
On the morning of June 16, 2001, Li Weimin, head of Linhe District Police Bureau and several policemen took me to the notorious Masanjia Forced Labor Camp.
As the police car parked at the entrance of the labor camp, a policeman took out a slip of paper and told me to sign it. It was a sentence of one year of forced labor. I refused to sign it.
I was then taken to the Branch 4, 2nd Group, No. 2 Camp. They then tried a “soft” approach, feigning kindness and taking turns trying to coerce me into giving up my belief. They deprived me of sleep at night.
At the labor camp, we were subjected to many forms of inhumane torture.
We were forced to get up at 5:30 in the morning and given only 5 minutes for washing and using the toilet. We were forced to do slave labor and sit on small plastic stools with both hands on the knees, motionless. There was monitoring equipment in the rooms.
At approximately 7:00 on the evening of October 26, 2010, someone knocked at my door. When my daughter-in-law was just about to open the door, I stopped her and asked who was there. The person replied, “I'm from the census and statistics department.”
But when the door was opened, about six policemen forced their way in. One of them said they were from Linhe Police Bureau. They immediately started ransacking my home and confiscated my Falun Gong books, photos of the founder of Falun Gong, materials, and some bags. One policeman attempted to take a photo of me at the same time.
They took my things away. One policeman from Jintie Police Station stayed and told me to follow him to the police station. I refused to go with him.
My daughter-in-law objected to his taking me away, “She is already in her 70s. You cannot take her away.”
He said he needed me to verify something and that it would take only a couple of minutes. We couldn't believe him this time. Finally, he promised my daughter-in-law that he would send me back soon. I followed him to the police station.
At the police station, he asked me many questions. I told him I had no idea and couldn't answer his questions. He then asked if I knew Qu Wei. I replied him, “Yes. I know him from our local Falun Gong practice site before the CCP launched the persecution.”
He took notes as record and then asked me to sign it. I refused.
At approximately 11:00 p.m., they took me and another practitioner, Ms. Wu, to the Jinzhou City Detention Center. Ms. Wu, who was ill and bedridden, had been carried to the police station from her home.
A policewoman who received us asked him for a legal document. The officers who took us there promised to deliver the documents the following day. Three days later, Ms. Wu and I were released and returned home. I guess it was because the police didn't provide any legal document to the detention center.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners in the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.