This article is specifically written to help more fellow practitioners discern the conspiracy and traps set by spies and government agents for the persecution of Falun Gong.
I personally witnessed the whole unfolding of the event on July 20, when tens of thousands of good people were arrested and tortured, and when Falun Dafa, the universal principle that teaches people to be a good person and upgrades people's morality, was defamed and slandered. The whole nation was all of a sudden covered by lies, rumors, and evil-doing, as if the evil forces wanted to destroy it. Right was labeled as wrong, good was treated as bad, and the kind was treated as the vicious.
There is a story in the movie of "Nero Burning the City". Rome's emperor Nero burned the old city of Rome in order to build a new Rome under his name. To quell the rage of the newly homeless people, they rumored up that it was Christians who burned Rome. Because of this, Christians were arrested, fed to hungry lions, burned alive, and nailed on the cross, which left a tragic and moving scene in Christian history.
Different periods in history sometimes look astonishingly similar. In the past year, a series of persecutions against Falun Gong practitioners took place in China there were arrests, unwarranted searching houses and confiscation, sentences, labor camp, even torture to death in the extreme cases. From a historical perspective, we should be more clear and sober about what is happening in China.
The large-scale arrests of Falun Gong contact persons nationwide on July 22, 1999 reflected a direct expression of the saying, "Square the accounts after autumn harvest" (a Chinese saying: wait until certain time to settle accounts, to deal with some tough issue) made by the few people in the Chinese government after April 25, 1999. In the face of the well-prepared troops, police, and spies, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners stepped forward to face and defy the evil force and violence, and they appealed with their lives for the restoration to innocence of Falun Dafa and for the release of the many innocent practitioners detained and tortured. These practitioners uphold justice and awaken people's kind nature while enduring being whipped, stabbed by bamboo sticks, tortured with electric shocks, and severely beaten to their bodies. The epic tale they have composed is shocking the universe.
I remember that many practitioners spent those days around July 22 by appealing to the government. They kept going to Beijing from every corner of the country, and they were often seen near Zhongnanhai (the Chinese central government compound) and Tiananmen Square. While at the same time, the policemen and secret agents were setting traps for the innocent Falun Gong practitioners. The following was my own experience.
I went to the office of appeals in Zhongnanhai, and was taken around to six different places before I was released. I could never imagine that this was the beginning of an intricate and underhanded scheme.
I took a taxi directly to a practitioner's home, planning to sleep there for one night. No sooner had I stepped into the house when another bunch of people came in. They claimed to be practitioners from outside Beijing. We asked them to recite several sentences from "Lunyu" (the introductory statement in Teacher Li's book), and if they answered correctly, then we let them in. At that time, I could never imagine that the long-time secret agents could recite "Lunyu", as well.
We sat down and began sharing experiences with those people. Within two days, tens of thousands of practitioners were arrested for appealing, and some of my friends were lost without any word. I was in very sad mood and didn't know what to do at that time. As for myself, I was arrested together with thousands of practitioners in Xisi Street. After being released, I went to look for the Office of Appeals of the State Council. I asked a policeman where the office was and said that I wanted to report the truth. Suddenly six or seven policemen surrounded me, and took me with them, wandering around to six different places until they released me around 9:00PM. Although I tried my best to tell them the truth in each place, I understood that it was not appealing but being interrogated. The channel to appeal was blocked what should we do next?
Right at the time when we were pondering what to do next, those people mentioned above found the place where we were staying. I asked them how they found us. They showed me a small piece of paper with several digits on it, which I wrote to a girl the other day -- on that day, we let in a girl who claimed to be a practitioner from a county in Hebei province. Before she left, I wrote her a note with only the building and apartment number for her to find the way back. But around 9:00PM, with only few numbers and without that girl with them (they were all from other cities), how could they find this place, and find the building and the apartment, and why did they come right after me? These were all suspicious points. However, with an urgent feeling of protecting Falun Dafa, and lacking rational thinking, I didn't think them over calmly.
Those people also brought us false scriptures (I didn't realize it at the time). They suggested going to Tiananmen Square. I agreed, and we all decided that I would inform Beijing practitioners, and they would go to Tiananmen Square to tell the practitioners from other cities the next day. That night, other practitioners already saw the plainclothes police near the entrance to our building. At 6:00AM the next morning, when I went downstairs, the plainclothes officers were still in the hallway. In those days between April 25 and July 22, 1999, we often saw the plainclothes police and heard things about how they monitored and followed practitioners, so I wasn't concerned very much about it. Thus I went out and managed to inform whichever practitioners I could find.
Many astounding things happened on my way to inform the practitioners, such as our car was chased (I won't describe it here). I made every effort to find all the practitioners I knew until I was seriously warned by other practitioners. At that moment, I came to realize that I was in a trap, and all the suspicions points came to mind:
The day before, the police already blocked one end of Xisi Street and were loading the practitioners onto the vehicles when some practitioners and I went westwards to Fuyou Street (parallel to Xisi Street). We were intercepted at that end of Xisi Street. I told the policeman that I wanted to go over (to Fuyou Street), so they let me go. Along the one kilometer-long street between Xisi Street and Fuyou Street, there was not any other practitioner except me, since the police at the ends of both Fuyou Street and Xisi Street caught them all. I had thought it was the opportunity for me to get rid of the attachment to fear, so I encouraged myself: don't be scared. One hour later, it was the same when I came back to Xisi Street from Fuyou Street, other practitioners were stopped and forced into the vehicles, but I was let go (I also took two practitioners from the crowd with me). At that night, I went to a park practicing Falun Gong exercises after being released from a gym. After I finished, a girl of about 20 years old came to me and said she was a practitioner from a county in Hebei province, and happened to find this park and us. We brought her to the apartment. She told us she was a teacher, and left a one-year old child at home to appeal in Beijing. She was almost driven off the train, and thought she would have come to Beijing on foot if she missed the train. We were deeply moved, and I had been to that county before. The next day we separated, and I thought it would be hard for her to find the way back so I wrote her a note with those numbers.
Long after that incident, I asked another practitioner from that county in Hebei province, he said there was no such a person at all. Because it is in the countryside, a poorly-educated region, it's difficult to find an educated and well-cultivated practitioner from that area. If there were such a person who had cultivated for such a long time and with certain degree of education, then she surely would have been a contact person. He knew all the contact persons there, but had never heard of anyone like her.
I suddenly realized that it was a trap set by some people with ulterior motives. They had already prepared heavy forces in Tiananmen Square, and then invited us to come and found excuses for further persecuting Falun Gong and innocent practitioners.
I'm not a contact person, but what I have is the eagerness to promote and protect Falun Dafa, and I knew many local practitioners. However, I was almost trapped by the spies and government agents. What an underhanded plan!
I made another connection after thinking about it. After last April 25, 1999, before May 1, there was a rumor that Falun Gong practitioners were going to Xiangshan Mountain to collectively commit suicide I felt it was too absurd. How could such a thing happen? We practitioners all know that suicide is a sin. As time passes by, I came to realize the vicious intention of such rumor: What suicide? They would kill the innocent people first, and then fabricate such a charge! One of my friends had even been threatened this way! I have also heard that there is a special "rumor-creating" unit in the State Security Department
I recalled again what had happened in the past. A friend of mine told me a story: one day, he stepped out of the office, and took the elevator, then he came back to his office without apparent reason. The phone in his office was ringing, and he picked up the phone. There was a female voice saying: "It has been connected, been connected," then came a busy signal. He hung up the phone, and realized that his phone was monitored.
I once made an appointment with a fellow practitioner who was closely monitored by police. We were chatting in the street without paying attention to the surroundings. Later, a practitioner who was at the scene told us that he saw a young man with sunglasses who walked over to us and kept watching right in front of us while we were talking. Later, he moved to a nearby vender's stand, but his eyes were still focusing on us rather than on the stand.
I still remembered one ironic story: One day, a retired woman in a practice site asked me whether she could offer me her help and told me that I was the person she liked to work with the most. I didn't understand her at the time, so I asked her how she wanted to help. She said she had learned some English in school, and could help us in some way. I was very surprised since I had never spoken with her in depth before, how could she know that I was a member of the translation group? (Moreover, the translation group was dismissed a few years before). She is a retired woman, without much education, and often uttered dirty words. I thought initially that it might be because she didn't study the Fa (the principles of Falun Dafa) very well. I often saw her looking around during practice and I thought she might be a new practitioner. Later on, after I asked the contact person of the practice site, I came to know that she is the wife of the head of our local police station, so I was not surprised.
Yet another thing came to my mind: When the police dragged the practitioners who were trying to appeal into the buses at Xisi Street on July 22, 1999, a voice from the crowd came out: "Let us get on the bus, get on the bus." Thus, kind-hearted practitioners willingly got on the vehicle one by one. When the buses arrived at the gym [used to hold the practitioners at that time], and the practitioners were unwilling to get off, then another voice came out: "Let us get off the bus, get off the bus." Thus, those practitioners who were not willing to doubt other people were again persuaded to get off the buses.
It was like what had happened on April 25, 1999: The policemen led the practitioners standing in a circle around Zhongnanhai, forming a pose surrounding the compound. To add salt to the wound, Zuoxiu He [a person who had slandered Falun Gong in articles and instigated the April 25 incident] was there walking around among the Falun Gong practitioners with the purpose of irritating them and making trouble. Such traps and conspiracy have been used again and again against our practitioners. Many of our practitioners are just too kind and credulous.
Indeed, as practitioners, we should learn many lessons from this. The reason why the evil force can still do damage to Falun Dafa is because we still have omissions and attachments that need to be further given up. But, on the other hand, the means used to suppress innocent and kind Falun Gong practitioners are extremely vicious and evil, and it is clearly criminal behavior.
As the time passes by, as our fellow practitioners become more and more sober in this extremely harsh environment, and as more and more people in the world come to know the truth that was covered by rumors, the truth will eventually be revealed to everyone and all evils will have no place to hide in the human world.
Fellow practitioners, let's make further advancement! Let's use the wisdom we have cultivated from Falun Dafa to clean away all the conspiracy and traps, to better "assist the teacher in the human world."
Falun Dafa Practitioner in China
August 11, 2000
