(Minghui.org) My name is Jin Cuixiang. I am 57 years old. I’m from Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province. I was fortunate to take up Falun Gong 26 years ago, in November 1996, when I had been tormented by various long-term illness and in bad shape.
I was suffering from back pain, athlete’s foot, and skin allergies. I tried to find cures through other qigong practices, but to no avail. Shortly after I practiced Falun Gong, all my illnesses disappeared. I was grateful to the practice.
After the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, I persisted in upholding my faith and exposed the illegality of the persecution. Consequently, I was sentenced twice. Below is an account of my ordeal.
First Sentence: Ten Years in Prison
I set off to Beijing on December 16, 2000 to protest the persecution of Falun Gong. At Tiananmen Square, I unfurled a banner with the words “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance,” the principles of Falun Gong, and was arrested. After being detained in Miyun Police Station for two days, I was taken to Chaoyang City Liaison Office in Beijing, where I met another practitioner from Chaoyang. We managed to escape from there the next morning. To hide from the police, I left my home behind.
I returned to Chaoyang several months later in 2001, but did not return home. I worked with other practitioners and set up a material production center. After one practitioner who worked closely with me was arrested in November 2001, the police tracked another practitioner and me down, and arrested us on January 28, 2002. I was detained in Chaoyang Detention Center. The police raided my rental home and found ten boxes of self-adhesive stickers printed with information about Falun Gong. The stickers were then used by the Shuangta Procuratorate to indict me. The other practitioner and I were both sentenced to ten years in prison by the Shuangta Court. I was taken to the third ward of Liaoning Women’s Prison on March 17, 2003.
To protest the illegal imprisonment, I refused to add “inmate” before my name during roll call on the first day. Guard Gao Nan handcuffed me to the radiator, and I could only squat beside it. I shouted, “Falun Dafa is good.” Gao ordered inmates to stuff socks into my mouth and then pricked my fingers with needles. In order to force me to renounce Falun Gong, they deprived me of sleep for fifteen continuous days, with four groups of inmates taking turns watching me.
Later, inmate Liu Yan, who had been actively helping the guards to torture Falun Gong practitioners, tricked me into writing a repentance statement by promising me a term reduction.
I later realized that I had made a mistake. I wrote a solemn statement to void my previous statement.
All the inmates in the Third Ward were forced to work from 6:30 a.m. to 8:45 p.m. every day with no days off or pay. By 2007, we began to have Sundays off. By 2010, the Third Ward became the First Ward after a prison reorganization to pay inmates for work. My pay was set at 55 yuan a year. To get the money on payday, I was ordered to sign my name on the paperwork, which I refused to do. The team lead signed my name on my behalf so that I still got paid.
The team lead changed every year. During these years, I took the opportunity of writing thought reports to tell them about the beauty of Falun Gong. Many of them learned the facts that way.
I was released on January 27, 2012 and returned to my mother’s home in Yingkou City, Liaoning Province. I went to the Chaoyang City Labor and Human Resources Bureau to apply for retirement in April, but was told that my years in prison were not counted as years of service since my workplace had fired me. As a result, I must wait until I turned 50 to apply for retirement.
My retirement was processed at the end of 2016. Since I could not afford to make contributions into my pension between the second half of 2009 and 2016, my pension was only close to 1,300 yuan per month.
Second Sentence: Four Years in Prison
On my way back from a community fair on January 13, 2018, I drove by Liguan Town, Dalian City, where the two police officers from Liguan Police Station intercepted my car with the excuse of searching for fugitives. There were five other practitioners in my car and we were all arrested. They confiscated all of our possessions relating to Falun Gong, including DVDs, booklets, books, and cash. We were taken to a police hospital for medical check-ups in the evening, and then sent to Dalian Yaojia Detention Center after 1 a.m.
The Wafangdian Court tried all of us on September 5, 2018 and I was sentenced to four years in prison. I appealed with Dalian Intermediate Court, but the higher court upheld the original sentence.
I was transferred to Liaoning Women’s Prison again on February 26, 2019 and was assigned to the First Ward.
Since I refused to answer roll call or wear a prison badge as a protest of the illegal sentence, I was not allowed to buy anything at the supermarket during Chinese New Year. Around the same time, the prison began to implement strict control due to the outbreak of the pandemic. We had to sit from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. with two meals every day. We were given excessive amounts of food for each meal and were forced to eat it all, causing many of us to have bloated stomachs.
Shorty after, my team was assigned to manufacture protective gowns from February 17, 2020, and we had to work overtime until 9 p.m. every day. Later, we had to finish 3,000 sets per day and work until 1 or 3 a.m. every day, even overnight for three days. The guards played high volume rock music to keep the inmates awake. Practitioners who protested and refused to work had to stay in the workshop and keep the same schedule with other inmates. It was said that our team made a profit of ten million yuan for the prison by May 11, 2020.
I had asked about the process to file a motion to reconsider my case since I first came to prison, but had always been told that I could not file it, but my family members could do it outside of prison. I met guard Gao Wa on April 5, 2020 and asked her again. She repeated the same answer. She gave orders to take away my pens and to not allow me to have any in the future. A lead inmate named Sha Xiaochen announced loudly twice in my cell that no one was allowed to talk to me.
The guards collected the fingerprints of everyone in our ward on May 1, 2020. Four of us practitioners refused to do it since we were not criminals. I was taken to an office the next day. Sha Xiaochen and a few inmates forcibly took my fingerprint after handcuffing me, with one pulling my hair from the back and one gagging me. An officer also took my photo.
I refused to wear the inmate badge on August 14, 2020 and ward head Liu Yili punished me with a one-day standing torture.
Officer Chen Ying ordered me to take off my shoes and socks for no reason on September 1, 2020. I did not cooperate. As a result, several inmates stripped me naked. I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” and inmate Gao Qiuyan gagged me. Chief guard Li Xiaoting watched and did not stop them, instead, she threatened to spray me with pepper water if I continued shouting.
I was put under intensive brainwashing sessions from August 31 to September 14, 2020, in a solitary confinement cell less than 32 square feet. I was forced to watch videos defaming Falun Gong all day long.
Guard Li Xiaoting ordered inmates Zhang Rui, Gao Yanqiu and Ning Wenjuan to brainwash me. They treated me nicely during the first week and even gave me dishes with meat. Since I held firm to my belief and insisted on doing Falun Gong exercises in the second week, they handcuffed me behind my back. They did not remove the handcuffs during meal time, but put the food on my legs. I had to bury my head inside the bowl to eat. They did not let me drink any water and denied me the use of restrooms. I was forced to sit on the stool in the evening until washing time. I wasn’t allowed to wash myself in the morning or evening, or buy daily necessities.
Because I upheld my faith, the guards punished my cell by taking away the TV so as to provoke hatred from the cellmates. Cellmate Li Jiahui begged me to give in to get the TV back. Cellmate Zhang Rui got angry and slapped my face with her shoes. She also kicked my chest and back. I eventually comprised, but I knew that I should not have done that and felt sad.
During cleaning of the workshop near Chinese New Year in 2021, the guards found three handwritten Falun Gong books near my work station. They suspected that the books belonged to me and reduced my pay to five yuan per year.
Prison officials required all inmates to get COVID-19 vaccine injections in June 2021. I refused to do it but was beaten badly by inmates. Since Guard Bai refused to do anything until I got the shot, I had to give in.
I was released on January 12, 2022. The prison didn’t allow me to bring the hard copy of my verdict with me. I learned that my pension had been stopped since February 2019.
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