(Clearwisdom.net) I am a resident of Fushun City, Liaoning Province. In February 2001, the party secretary at my workplace, Song Yingzhi colluded with the deputy secretary of the street committee office and came to my home to harass me. They tried to persuade me to give up my belief in Falun Dafa. After I rejected their request, they reported me to the police station, and I was thrown into the Fushun City Labor Camp.

At the camp, the police used all means possible to persecute Dafa practitioners. For example, they did not allow practitioners to sleep at night; they pierced practitioners' fingers and toes with needles; they simultaneously used several electric batons to shock practitioners; they hung practitioners on the wall with handcuffs day and night; they tried to force practitioners to curse at Teacher and Dafa; and they applied various torture methods on practitioners, such as forcing them to sit on a tiger bench. [The "tiger bench" is a torture where practitioners are forced to sit on a small iron bench that is approximately 20 cm (6 inches) high with their knees tied together. They are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead with their hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees. They are not allowed to turn their heads, close their eyes, talk to anyone, or move at all. Several inmates are assigned to watch over the practitioners and force them to remain motionless while sitting on the bench. Usually some hard objects are inserted underneath the practitioners' lower legs or ankles to make it harder for them to tolerate this abuse (see illustration on http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2001/11/24/16156.html).]

A practitioner named Yao Yan became paralyzed in his lower body after being forced to sit on the tiger bench for extended periods of time. Another gentleman, named Yao Shengdong, was tortured to the point of becoming mentally ill. There was also a family of three in which both the husband and wife practice Falun Gong. Their daughter does not practice, but because she tried to prevent the bad people from taking her parents away, she was also arrested.

The evil people in Fushun City have used all kinds of methods to persecute practitioners. They waited in ambush to arrest practitioners, tapped practitioners' telephones, blocked the Internet, and intercepted email messages. I was pursued by the police because they intercepted my email. They also broke into my home and took away the only two valuables in my home--my cash card and my son's pager. They also detained my 18-year-old son for many hours, pressuring him to tell them my whereabouts.