(Clearwisdom.net) Dafa disciple Shen Lizhi was tortured to death by a policeman from the 610 Office in Chengdu on March 3, 2002. This young man was tortured to death just because he persisted in his belief in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." Such a murder happened in China, a Communist country filled with atrocity, where the murder and torture of Falun Gong practitioners is occurring every day. Numerous families have been broken due to persecution, numerous children have lost their parents, and countless spouses have been separated. I cannot help recollecting the days of going to Beijing to validate Dafa together with Shen Lizhi.
I got to know Shen Lizhi in November 1998. One day while I was at Shenyang 204 Square practicing the exercises, I met a tall young man. From that day forward, I got to know him. Shen Lizhi was a humorous, outgoing and optimistic graduate student.
In July 1999, Jiang's regime started to persecute Falun Dafa. Shen Lizhi went to Beijing to validate Dafa immediately. Shen Lizhi called me several times to urge me to go to Beijing. At the beginning I had a heavy human heart, but through continuous Fa study I gradually strengthened my righteous thoughts and became determined to go to Beijing to validate Dafa. In August 1999, I stepped onto the train to Beijing.
After arriving in Beijing, Shen Lizhi and another practitioner came to the train station to meet me. On the way to Tiananmen Square, while passing a building site, Shen Lizhi picked up a piece of plastic from the roadside and asked me to put it into my bag. At that time I did not know what it would be used for. At night, only when we took a rest in Dongdan Park did I realize that this plastic cloth would be our bed sheet. During our stay in Beijing we took the earth as a bed and the sky as a quilt. In order to save money, many Dafa practitioners who went to Beijing to appeal during that period of time lived in the open air in parks or on the streets at night. Our merciful Teacher protected us. In September, while sleeping in the open air, we never felt cold and we were never drenched by the rain. Policemen often did searches, so we sometimes needed to change sleeping places several times a night and we were arrested often. We got out every time with our righteous thoughts.
At that time Shen Lizhi, myself and many other practitioners did not know how to do Fa-rectification work. We only realized that we should step forward and go to Beijing to safeguard the Fa. Thus, after Fa study, we often communicated with practitioners from all over the country in Tiananmen Square or in the park. Because the environment was difficult, some practitioners went back home or displayed a lack of enthusiasm, but Shen Lizhi was always happy and kept encouraging us.
Later, Shen Lizhi realized that we would have a strong attachment of relying on each other if we often stayed together, so he suggested we separate and act independently. Later, Shen Lizhi was abducted by the police when he was practicing the exercises in a park and was sent back to Shen Yang.
Later, I saw him several times in the Shenyang Detention Center where we were both detained. After that I never heard from him directly.
October 28, 2005