A Young Missouri Woman's Experience in China

Hello, everyone. My name is Sue Jiang, I graduated in May 2000 from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Master's degree in Statistics.

After graduating I went back to China to visit my parents. In China all the channels for telling the truth about Falun Gong have been blocked by the government. Like other practitioners, I had no choice but to go to Tiananmen Square to appeal peacefully to the government. On May 13, 2000, I went to Tiananmen Square and held a banner, on which "Falun Dafa" was written, choosing to use this peaceful but special way to tell the people of China and the government my thinking. I was arrested and sent to the detention center in my hometown in Hebei province.

The cell I was detained in was dirty and damp. Six people share one piece of wooden board to sleep on. We had to lie like sticks and could not move. I could only use the restroom twice a day. During the 24 day detention, I was not allowed to take a single shower. We almost had no privacy since the door and window had no covering except metal bars.

The officers in China's detention centers are not only brutal; they are also corrupt. The officers did not torture me physically because my father gave them lots of money and gifts. They told me that if they didn't know my father, they would definitely beat me! The officers interrogated me almost everyday, and threatened me, saying they would send me to a labor camp, to a jail or to a mental hospital, and told me I would never be able to reunite with my husband and daughter in the US. They threatened to expel my younger brother from college, although he is not even a practitioner, and also put tremendous pressure on my parents in other ways, which nearly made them collapse. In less than two weeks time my father's hair became much whiter than it had been before.

But thanks to the great help of my local congressman, Kenny Hulshof, and the timely media coverage, one month later I was released and came back to the US.

There is one other thing worth mentioning: The Chinese Consul told my local congressman that I was only detained for 15 days. Actually, the more one tries to hide the more one is exposed. On the one hand, by lying about my 24 day detention and subsequent house arrest, the Consul showed an awareness that the government had done something wrong, that it had deliberately broken the law, which needed to be covered up. On the other hand, this lie exposes to broad daylight the true nature of the government's persecution once again.

The brutal persecution is still going on and has been escalating, as tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners in China are suffering tremendous tribulations. My dear, kind-hearted friends, your help can definitely make a difference. Please make your best efforts to help these innocent, good people in China. Thank you!

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