(Minghui.org) Ms. Zhao Li, 36, was recently arrested for filing a lawsuit against former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin.

In the suit, filed in 2015, Ms. Zhao named Jiang as the person responsible for initiating the persecution of Falun Gong that resulted in her being interned in a forced labor camp for a year and a half in the middle of her college education. She was also fired from her job.

Retaliation for Filing Lawsuit

After Ms. Zhao filed her suit in early October 2015, neighborhood committee and police station officers started to harass her family. At the time, Ms. Zhao was out of town at a training session for work. On November 4, 2015, Xigucheng Police Station officers asked her if she had ever filed a lawsuit.

When she returned to work on July 1, 2016, government officials started to threaten her on a regular basis, saying that she would be fired and sent to a brainwashing center if she did not sign the three statements.

By August 2, the harassment had gotten so intense that Ms. Zhao left her place of work and went into hiding.

When Xinanlu Police Station officers arrested her on November 14, Ms. Zhao shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” as they slapped and kicked her. She was handcuffed to a pipe in the police station and taken to Siergou Detention Center that evening.

Ms. Zhao was illegally detained in the detention center for seven days. She went on a hunger strike to protest the arrest and demand her legal rights of appeal and administrative review. The authorities responded by forcing her to stand in the cold.

Although she was released on November 23, the police have yet to return the items they confiscated from her.

Ms. Zhao requested a work review to get her job back and was notified verbally on January 18, 2017 that she’d been fired. On January 23, 2017, she received a written notice approving her dismissal, which her illiterate mother had been deceived into signing for her on November 24, 2017, when Ms. Zhao was not at home.

Tortured in Detention

When Ms. Zhao was a college sophomore, she was arrested for her belief, held in a forced labor camp, and tortured. In her lawsuit she recalled her ordeal in Xinan Forced Labor Camp in Beijing and in other facilities:

I was a sophomore when the Chinese Communist Party began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999.

In the fall of 2000, I was arrested for distributing Falun Gong informational materials and taken to a detention center in Beijing.

I was threatened that I would be detained indefinitely because I refused to tell the guards my name and address. I was not allowed to talk to other practitioners who had also been arrested. I was brutally beaten when I defended my right to speak.

When I went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution, inmates tied me to a Death Bed and force-fed me through a plastic tube in my nose for 21 days. Because they never let me up to relieve myself, the bed and my clothes were soaked with urine, and I developed ulcers. I lost about 20 pounds.

Torture reenactment: The Death Bed

Persecuted into Submission

In the winter of 2000, I was arrested again at Tiananmen Square by plainclothes officers and taken to a police station for interrogation. When I refused to give them my name, they beat me and knocked me down.

I was taken to the Haidian Detention Center that evening. There were many practitioners already crowded into the place. Thirteen of us were transferred to a shabby place the next day. We were on a collective hunger strike and were force-fed.

I was then taken to the Liangjiadian Police Station. The police shocked me with electric batons all over my body. The pain was excruciating.

Although I clenched my teeth to endure the torture, I eventually could not bear the pain and gave in. So did my fellow practitioners.

Once they got my name and address, we were taken to the Beijing Dispatch Center.

Barbaric Torture in Beijing Forced Labor Camp Dispatch Center

As we walked through the door to the dispatch center, we had to look down or the guards would shock us with electric batons. We were then stripped naked and body searched.

The Beijing Dispatch Center was an evil place. We were divided into 10 teams of 18 each and monitored by a criminal inmate. Each team was forced into one small room, with only four bunk beds, so 10 of us always had to sleep on the floor.

The 18 of us only had two minutes to use one restroom. As a result, many never had an opportunity to shower.

We had to get up at 5:00 a.m. and work until 10:00 p.m. Sometimes we had to work past midnight. We usually packaged chopsticks. We also glued silk cloth to cardboard to make shoe cushions.

Our daily life was militarized. There was roll call every morning. At meals, we had to hold our bowls in front of our chests and kneel down on one leg to ask for food.

We defied the order one morning to protest the abuse. Each of us was tortured in a different location. I was taken to a small house, where several inmates were waiting. They barbarically tried to force me to eat. When I refused, they pushed me down on the floor and brutally force-fed me.

A particularly vicious guard took me to the same place the following day and ordered me to eat. When I refused, she shocked me with an electric baton. The sparking of the baton reminded me of my earlier horrific experience. Because of fear, I shamefully gave in and ate.

I was taken to Xinan Forced Labor Camp in Beijing three months later.

Atrocities in Beijing Forced Xinan Labor Camp

I was in the labor camp for over a year and personally experienced and witnessed all the ways we were tortured. The more steadfast we were, the more severe the tactics they used to try to “transform” us.

We were forced to do slave labor and sometimes had to work until after midnight. We were forced to stand at attention or run back and forth nonstop in the sun for long periods of time. I passed out on one occasion because of the stress. We were not allowed to go to the restroom when we were ordered to stand still, and many of us couldn’t keep from wetting ourselves.

We were deprived of sleep for a long time. Some of us were not allowed to sleep for as long as three months.

All of our communications were censored. We were not allowed family visits.

We only got to eat one or two times a day, and the quality of the food was very poor. Water was also restricted.

The guards encouraged ordinary inmates to use any means to try to “transform” us. If they “transformed” us, their sentences would be reduced.

Every practitioner was closely monitored by several criminal inmates and collaborators. They beat and cursed us at will.

We were forced to read articles, listen to programs, and watch videos that slandered Falun Gong. We sere constantly threatened that we would be detained indefinitely—until we were “transformed.”

We were tortured mentally and physically until we wrote the three statements giving up Dafa. I witnessed another practitioner, Ms. Zhang Yijie, being tortured until she almost collapsed. Her abdomen was completely black and blue and she was confined to a small sealed room alone.

Entire Family Suffered

Because of the persecution, my thinking became slow and my ability to understand was compromised. I couldn’t focus on things and my memory was not as good as before. Consequently, it took me two more years to finish college and my grades weren’t good.

Because of my status as a Falun Gong practitioner, I had to do odd jobs after I graduated. In 2009 I passed an exam and was assigned to a public service job in the Hekou Township Health Center. That was the job I lost because I sued Jiang.

When I was in the labor camp, Xigucheng Police Station officers arrested my father in front of my mother. He was taken to a brainwashing center to be “transformed.”

My father had formerly been imprisoned 11 years after being wrongly accused. This tragedy not only caused our family financial hardship, it also destroyed my mother and left her mentally disordered. When my father was then arrested again, her symptoms worsened.

Benefits from Falun Gong

After my father started practicing Falun Gong in 1997, his physical ailments disappeared. He became so healthy and full of energy that he was still able to drive his pedicab at the age of 63. He also became compassionate and forgave the person who had framed him and caused him to be wrongly imprisoned.

Seeing how much my father changed, I followed suit and also became a practitioner. I used to have severe stomachaches and dysmenorrhea. After I started to cultivate, these problems simply disappeared.

Falun Dafa helped me understand the meaning of life and brightened my heart. It also gave me wisdom. I was fortunate to pass the difficult college entrance exam and was accepted by the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine in 1998.

After I became a cultivator, I gradually got rid my selfishness, my competitiveness, and my jealousy. I became considerate and empathetic towards others. I apologized to my family members for whatever wrongs I had done to them.

Background

In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and initiated the violent suppression of Falun Gong.

The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners over 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.