(Clearwisdom.net)
Editor's note: The following is an article that was written by practitioner Ren Pengw, now deceased after suffering from brutal persecution while defending his right to practice Falun Dafa..
Related articles:
- "Dafa Practitioner Ren Pengwu Beaten to Death by Hulan County Police"
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/3/23/5617.html
- "Falun Gong Practitioner Ren Pengwu Was Murdered and All His Bodily Organs Were
Removed by the Hulan County Police in Heilongjiang Province"
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/4/21/6812.html
On November 11, 2000, according to a previous plan we had made to meet at a certain time, two fellow practitioners and I went to Beijing to unfurl banners and clarify the truth.
About 11 o'clock in the morning, we arrived at Tiananmen Square. At that time, there weren't many tourists but there were police and patrol vans everywhere. Upon observing this situation, we walked around the square, waiting for others to arrive before we unfurled banners. After about 12 minutes however, we still didn't see many people. We felt we could not wait. I walked toward the national flagpoles and then turned my back toward Tiananmen. Suddenly I unfurled my banner that said, "Falun Dafa is good." At that moment, my mind was empty. The feeling is hard to express. Two policemen rushed toward me. They grabbed the banner and one of them grabbed me. I shouted, "Falun Dafa is good." He waved his fist and yelled, "Don't shout!" Peacefully, I looked into his eyes. He gradually lowered his fists. I shouted again, "Restore our Teacher's name." At that moment, I saw a policeman kick a female practitioner to the ground while another policeman grabbed a banner from her hands. A little further away, there were about a dozen practitioners unfurling banners. Plain-clothes and armed police were running about trying to arrest practitioners. There were some practitioners who were pushed into police vans. Some police even beat practitioners in front of the police vans. The driver said, "Be careful of the impression you are making." Obviously they knew what they were doing was wrong and were afraid of being seen by others. There were already over a dozen practitioners in the van by that time. They drove the van to the Qianmen police station.
At the police station, they first questioned each one of us and tried to get our name, addresses, etc. Those practitioners who didn't say anything were sent to an underground jail cell. When I walked down to the cell, I saw that the iron-fenced cell was packed with practitioners. Accompanied by a wave of clapping, I walked into the iron cage. There was no fear there. There were only kind and benevolent faces. We all treated each other warmly as if we were family members. We recited Lunyu and the Hong Yin together. A practitioner carried a mini Zhuan Falun with him so we were able to study it together. We also exchanged understandings. We hung the banners, ones that we had kept hidden and that the police hadn't managed to confiscate, out on the window bars and on the heating pipes.
Whenever a uniformed or a plain-clothes policeman came in to identify someone, we would shout together, "Falun Dafa is good", "Restore our Teacher's name." Every time the evil was shocked by our righteousness. The small cell became a place for our over one hundred practitioners to rectify the Fa. The scene was touching. It was the first time I had the opportunity to study Fa and share experiences with so many practitioners all in one location.
By the afternoon, the cell was so crowded that the police had to leave practitioners outside the cell. Arrested practitioners kept arriving. I estimated that there were more than 300 practitioners who came to Tiananmen to validate Falun Dafa that day.
At about 5:00 pm, police started to send practitioners to the suburbs of Beijing. At about 9:00 pm, I was sent to the Miyun County Detention Center.
Two policemen, one senior and one young, interrogated me. First they asked me to sit down and then they asked me my name and where I was from. I answered peacefully, "I can't tell you. It will get my local government, my company, and the local police in trouble. You know that better than me." Then I began to introduce Falun Dafa to them.
The older policeman started to reprimand me, turned his back toward me and picked up an electric baton. He waved the electric baton in my face and said, "Do you want to be electrocuted?" The whole time I looked at him with smile on my face. He rushed toward me and kicked my legs. At that moment I felt that these policemen were very small and miserable. I held my head up high and stood firmly. A strong-looking policeman then came in. The three rushed toward me: one grabbed me by my arms, one pushed my head, and the third punched and kicked me. I thought, "I am as a divine being. How could a divine being yield to you?" In the end, they were all exhausted and short of breath. I remained standing. I told them with the force of righteousness, " I am not a criminal. I didn't commit any crimes. Everything I have done is righteous. I will speak with you with my head held up high." They started to slap me one by one. I told them, "It is not right to beat people. It is illegal." One policeman turned and grabbed an electric baton but when he turned it on it did not work, so he had to put it away. They continued to torture me until 2:00 am the next morning. They ended up exhausted so they sent me back to the cell. When I entered the cell, I saw that the room was filled with many practitioners sitting on the floor. That night, we all fully understood that we'd done nothing wrong. We started a hunger strike. During the following two days, we recited Lunyu and Hong Yin together, along with other teachings by Master. We also did the exercises and shared our experiences.
During the two-day interrogation, they policemen continually took shifts and used the same tricks over and over again. They would pretend they were peaceful, but would beat practitioners brutally once their tricks were exposed. Once, after I came back from an interrogation, I heard a policeman say, "Within less than one month, three policemen from our Miyun Detention Center have suddenly died." When I heard that, I felt that the policemen who had suddenly died must have been extremely brutal to Dafa practitioners. No wonder whenever I would talk about the karmic retribution they would receive if they tried to block the Fa-rectification, they would become agitated and avoid the topic.
On the morning of Nov. 14, the person who sent meals to us asked us to eat, but we refused. While we were exchanging experiences, a fat policeman approached our window along with two other policemen and several prisoners. He shouted, "Sit down and face the window, in two rows." All of us remained still. I looked at him and said, "We are not prisoners. You cannot treat us the same way you treat prisoners." He rushed into the cell and pulled each of us up and forced us to sit facing the window. When he came to a practitioner and the No. 4 cellmate beside me, neither yielded to him, so he beat them. I shouted, "Stop beating people!" and then the others all shouted, "Don't beat people. It is against the law to beat people." Then the policemen outside the cell asked the prisoners to get leather belts and sticks. The police and the prisoners rushed into the cell and started to beat us. We all sat in the lotus position with hands in the Jie-Yin position and recited "To live with no pursuits; To die with no regrets; Extinguish all illusory thoughts; Cultivating Buddhahood is not difficult ("Non-existence", from Hong Yin). Our loud and clear voices drowned out the snap of the batons beating against our bodies. The leather strip lashed against me and though I felt swelling, I didn't feel any pain. I saw police tear the No. 4 cellmate's clothes off his back and whip him with a leather strap and beat him with batons. Seeing that, I felt pain in my heart. Next to me I saw that a practitioner's head was injured and a clump of hair came off another practitioner's head. None of us was moved, however. I stared directly into the eyes of the thug who beat me and his hands started to shake. The police also softened their tone and said, "Today the People's Representatives will visit our place to inspect our work. I hope you will keep up appearances and cooperate with us." I told him, "We are not criminals and you cannot treat us the same way you treat criminals. We Dafa practitioners conduct ourselves well wherever we are and do not cause trouble for anyone." Thus, during this round of tests, the evil failed.
During the afternoon's interrogation, a policeman asked, "Is it possible for all of you to really let go of life and death?" I told him, "All of us have been able to do this. We're not afraid."
The same evening, the Miyun Detention Center sent nine of us to cells where regular criminals were held. They put one practitioner into each cell. The criminals in the cells utilized every means to persuade us to eat. I told them the reason why I was on a hunger strike. They then pulled me out of the cell, pushed me to the concrete floor, and tried to pour soup into my mouth. They tried to open my mouth with their hands and they also tried to pry it open with a toothbrush. They were not able to do it.
That night the cell was so crowded that all the beds and the entire floor were covered with people sleeping. The prisoners pushed me against the toilet into a space of less than one square meter. The toilet was in the middle and the floor was dirty and slippery. I could only stand or squat at the door. I was not able to sleep that night.
The second day, I had a husky voice but felt fine. After breakfast time, the prisoners again tried to persuade me, but I paid no heed to them. They again showered me with punches and kicks and tried to pour soup into my mouth. Yet again they failed. They then asked me to stand next to the wall. I didn't cooperate with them. Five or six criminals started to hit my legs and twist my arms. In the end, they didn't get anything and said, "Let's stop! If we beat him to death we will be given additional prison terms for the death. The government could say anything to their advantage. If something serious happened, they would say that they didn't ask us to beat him."
I endured it all. However, my legs were in so much pain that I could not stand and I had to squat down. The criminals saw that I could not stand so they would not let me squat. Whenever I squatted down, one of them would step forward to pull me up. They repeated this several times. They said, "Have some food. We will allow you to sit down if you have some food." I shook my head. I thought that I, as a Dafa practitioner, must maintain a dignified image, so I clenched my teeth and stood there.
In the evening, the head of the detention center showed up. He led two criminals who had a large wooden board with them. The board was as large as a door and had rings to secure hands and feet and three belts to fasten the waist, chest, and arms. They pushed me onto the board, put my arms through the handcuffs and fastened the various belts around me. I felt as if I was nailed to the board. They started to force feed me but they failed again. This time, they didn't beat me but pleaded with me, "Please have some food. Otherwise we will have no room to sleep. This board has enough space for three people to sleep. If you don't eat, we will also be beaten in turn. We are already miserable. Now since you are here, we are not allowed to have meals and have no place to sleep." This time I could not bear it and was moved by human notions. The second morning, I ate a little. The criminals hurried to report, "He ate, he ate."
That night, the criminal who was on duty snuck over. He told me that the practitioners who had come before me all performed very well. They all admired them. He said, "I never expected that the Dafa practitioners are all so great." So I told him the principles of Falun Dafa and how to be a good person.
The second morning, after I had some food, I started to tell the criminals how wonderful Dafa is. However, I was so disappointed because whenever I mentioned Dafa, they would respond with a whole slew of attacks to Dafa and to our Teacher. I was so sad. How compassionate our Teacher is! Teacher gives even people like them an opportunity to be saved. When I thought of this I began to cry.
After the dinner, it was time to do the roll call. At that moment, I heard someone in cell No. 8 shout, "Falun Gong practitioners refused to call the roll." I was shocked to hear that. I immediately realized that it was Teacher who used the words of the fellow practitioners in cell No. 8 to remind me of maintaining righteous thoughts. I realized I had had three meals that day, which I should not have eaten under those circumstances. My heart ached, as if a knife had stabbed it. I regretted that I didn't maintain righteous thoughts on this matter. I wanted to cry but no tears would come out. I sat down and made a decision. I would take every step well and would not make a mistake again.
I started another hunger strike. They intensified their beatings. It had become a routine to beat me every day. At one point, the criminals tore off my clothes and poured over 50 basins of cold water on me. I was very cold and shivering a lot. I clenched my teeth in order to keep going, thinking that, "Teacher! I am not sure if I can stand it any longer." Right away, they stopped pouring water on me. After that, I blamed myself for not thinking of Teacher's words "When it is difficult to endure, try to endure it. When it looks impossible and is said to be impossible, give it a try and see if it is possible," (Zhuan Falun) but instead I asked Teacher for help.
On the third day of my hunger strike, they again tied me to a large board in order to force-feed me. They persuaded me to have food and used a hose to force feed me. This time, I had made up my mind. If they would not allow me to use the bathroom, I would just urinate in my pants. I was determined that I wouldn't back off one inch. They would have to release me otherwise I would rather die on the board then take any food. The third night as I was shackled to the board, a policeman came in and said to me, "Boy, I will untie you. If you eat something I will release you." I didn't say a word but looked at him and smiled. He asked others to release me. Two criminals helped me up. The criminals said that if someone got released after being cuffed to the board, he would suffer from paralysis and would not be able to walk. I, however, pushed away the criminals and did the first set of Falun Dafa exercises called "Buddha showing a thousand hands" once. I then started to walk. The criminals were surprised and said, "You are truly amazing, higher than a human being." I thought, "We are as divine beings and we have come here to safeguard the Fa, how could we be the same as human beings."
The policemen found a doctor and made sure I was okay. He then asked me to go and collect my personal belongings.
I called my family in Beijing. They picked me up and took me home.
