(Clearwisdom.net) When I received the news that fellow practitioner Zhang Haiyan had died from the persecution she received because she practices Falun Gong, I felt extremely sad. I recalled the days when we were together. Her smiling face appeared in front of my eyes, as if it were yesterday.
In mid September 2001, I was sent to the detention center just for telling people that "I practice Falun Gong." Haiyan was arrested for going to Beijing to validate Falun Dafa. That was how we met. She was 31-years old at the time. She had big eyes and a very fair complexion. In the brief couple of weeks we were together, I came to know her as a wholesome and innocent woman, untainted by established human notions, and with a relaxed disposition and simplicity of outlook free from worries that beset most people. She was seriously injured as the police shocked her with electric batons and beat her with wooden clubs. Her hips turned black and blue, all covered with bruises. But I did not see any expression of pain on her face. She was so strong.
Haiyan grew up in the countryside. She had never traveled very far from home, not to mention going to Beijing. Setting out with only her sincere belief in Dafa she went to Beijing to validate Dafa alone. When she arrived in Beijing she was not able to find Tiananmen Square. She came across an ancient style building (she did not know that she was quite close to Tiananmen Square) and sat down to meditate. In no time a policeman came and took her to Tiananmen Square. The police asked her: "Do you dare to take a picture with this banner?" As he spoke, he took out from his pocket a yellow banner with red characters - "Falun Dafa is Good" (he must have confiscated it from some arrested practitioners). Haiyan replied, "Why not, I am a Falun Gong practitioner, of course I would dare to take a picture like that." The police then snapped a photo with Haiyan holding up the banner with the words, "Falun Dafa is Good." The policeman then took her to the detention center.
The Heishan Public Security Bureau and Hujia Police Station sent policemen over and took Haiyan and the picture of her with the banner back to the Heishan Public Security Bureau. At the Public Security Bureau Haiyan was again brutally beaten and tortured by the Heishan police. They asked her who gave the banner to her or if she made it herself. Haiyan told them that it was the police in Beijing who gave the banner to her and took the picture. The police at the National Security team said, "That was fabricated evidence to entrap you." Later Haiyan was illegally sentenced forced labor at the Masanjia Forced Labor camp where she was persecuted even more brutally.
Regrettably, Haiyan has thus left us. She has departed forever. This is another bloody debt that the Jiang's regime has incurred.
