(Clearwisdom.net) My mother, Gu Zhiyi, began practicing Falun Dafa in 1992 and used to be the coordinator of a Falun Gong practice site in Chongqing City. Before she started practicing, she suffered from many diseases. My father, Liu Jianhua, suffered from hardening of the blood vessels in the brain. My sister suffered from psychosis. My work place was far from my home, so my mother took care of my father and sister. The mental and physical stress of the situation caused my mother to contemplate ending my sister's life and committing suicide. After obtaining the Fa, my mother underwent huge changes. The diseases that had tortured her for many years disappeared without a trace, and she became more open-minded.
Having witnessed my mother's changes, my husband, my father and I began to cultivate Falun Dafa one after the other. After practicing Falun Dafa, my father's brain disease was cured without taking a single pill. My husband gave up smoking, to which he had been addicted for many years. Even more miraculous was that my sister's mental disease lightened significantly within the pure field of the Fa, and her medication was reduced by half.
After cultivating Falun Dafa, we diligently followed the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. My parents are both senior teachers with 40 years' experience in the Chongqing City Tax School. Mother was awarded the honor of "outstanding teacher" in Sichuan Province. After retirement, she worked for the school for one more year as a volunteer. Father once worked in the mathematics curriculum group in the Polytechnic Education Office of the State Educational Committee. He was honest and dedicated to his work, winning the deep respect of both the teachers and students. My husband was a computer engineer in the Chongqing City Coal Design Institute under the China National Coal Group Company. He was awarded third prize for scientific and technological achievement in Chongqing City and the second prize for outstanding software design in Sichuan Province. In addition, he also worked as a scientific English translator for his work unit. As a civilian, I never took a bribe or became corrupted. During the calculation of the enterprise income tax for the first half of 2000, I personally inspected and collected half of the tax payments for the tax center.
Falun Dafa returned joy to my family. However after July 20, 1999, when the persecution began, overwhelming rumors, propaganda and brutal persecution pitched my family into boundless disaster.
1. Police Officers in Chongqing City Broke the Law While "Enforcing the Law," and Members of the CCP Were Extremely Cruel
At dawn on July 20, 1999, the Chinese government began arresting Falun Gong coordinators across China. My mother, Gu Zhiyi, was taken away by police officers when she went to practice the exercises outside in the early morning. All of the Falun Dafa books, our bankbooks, and the cash in our home was confiscated. The bankbooks were returned after many demands, but 1,600 yuan in cash was never returned. I requested that the police show warrants or documentation for the arrest. In the afternoon, Li Zhiwei, Director of the No. 1 Division of the Chongqing City Police Department, brought a copy of the criminal detainment notification. The seal on the document was blurred (only the circle of the seal was legible) and the charge on it was "damage to the social order." My mother was taken to several places and was finally sent to the Shibanpo Detention Center. This place was specifically reserved for felons, but now many Falun Dafa practitioners are detained there. After being deprived of personal freedom for 14 months, mother was released in September 2000. During her detainment, her retirement salary was confiscated.
The Chongqing City 610 Office deliberately collected the "evidence" they planned to use to frame Falun Gong. In October 1999, Director He (this person visited our home many times to harass and threaten us afterwards) of the No. 1 Division of the City Police Department, together with 2 police officers, visited my husband at his workplace. They brought a pile of worn out 3-inch floppy disks, which had been confiscated from my mother's home. After closing the door, they beat the table and pounded the stool to force my husband to acknowledge that the disks were encrypted, hoping to use that as evidence against my mother. My husband warned him sternly, "Practitioners are frank and upright. We do not have any secrets. If you suspect something, you should ask the experts to decipher them. Why do you threaten me?" At noon, they coerced the authorities of the Chongqing City Coal Design Institute into examining the disks.
In November 1999, the Yuzhong District Court in Chongqing City held the so-called "public trial of the case of Gu Zhiyi's damage of the social order." All large media outlets in Chongqing City wantonly propagandized this event to create the false impression that it was a public trial. However, on the day of the court session, police officers and plainclothes agents sent every bystander away, and guarded the place as if enemies were at the gates. When presenting the evidence, the witness for the plaintiff, who was a staff person in the Security Division of the Chongqing Evening News, showed the record that proved that Falun Dafa practitioners were quite peaceful when reporting facts to the newspaper office. The prosecutor felt extremely awkward. Soon after the court session opened in the afternoon, the judge suddenly announced that court would adjourn for ten minutes. Thereafter the court only heard at length from the prosecutor who recited the official opinion on [slanderous word omitted]. The attorneys were completely deprived of their opportunity to speak. Later, we learned that a deputy president of the court threatened the two attorneys, criticizing them as being sympathetic toward Falun Gong since they had defended Falun Gong practitioners. The attorneys narrowly escaped having their licenses revoked. Ruizheng Law Office, where the attorneys worked, changed the written alibi that the attorneys submitted to the court, at the request of the Chongqing City Judicature Bureau, so that it no longer resembled the original statement.
Even more despicable, the next day I received a phone call from a woman who claimed to be a reporter from Beijing. At the very beginning she asked, "Have you seen your mother?" I answered without precaution, "Yes." She asked, "Is she in good condition?" I said, "Not bad." Then I tried to speak further saying, "However..." But she hung up in a hurry. I realized immediately that our conversation had been recorded. As a matter of fact, suppression of Falun Gong violates the Chinese Constitution. All of the charges lodged against my mother were fabricated. The Chinese authorities were attempting to cover up their crimes using despicable and shameless methods.
After mother was arrested, my aged father was unable to withstand the police officers' repeated visits and harassment. This resulted in him becoming more and more feeble. He fell down on the ground many times at home and lost control of his bowels and bladder. On July 21, 2000, father was sent to the emergency room of the No. 1 Affiliated Hospital of Chongqing Medical College. The hospital issued a critically ill written notice. However, at midnight the next day, the police officers from the Shiyou Road Police Station abducted my husband, Zhang Quanliang, who was looking after my father at the hospital. They were totally heedless of the need for this critically ill patient to be cared for 24 hours a day. My husband was arrested on the charge of "damaging the social order" (after my husband requested again and again to be allowed to notify me, they let him call me on the afternoon of following day). The reason they arrested him was that my husband took a rest sitting cross-legged under a shade tree outside the ward one night, since there was nowhere to rest in the emergency room. He was reported to the police by the guard at the hospital, who accused him of practicing the Falun Gong sitting meditation. Will taking a rest sitting cross-legged at midnight disrupt the social order? Additionally, when the leader of the Chongqing Coal Design Institute requested the reason for my husband's arrest, the police officers made up a story saying, "He assembled Falun Gong practitioners to practice as a group at 2:00 a.m."
I called Li Zhiwei from the No. 1 Division of the City Police Department, asking him to release my husband for humanitarian reasons. He answered bitterly, "He did not work wholeheartedly but went to Beijing!" (My husband went to Beijing to appeal on May 22, 2000 and was detained for 15 days illegally afterwards.) I answered, "We have been performing well at work. My husband went to Beijing on his vacation. What is wrong with legally appealing? "I heard his fierce roaring through the phone again, and hung up since he would not listen to reason. This was how my husband was illegally detained in Yuzhong District Detention Center for 15 days.
During this period, fellow practitioners exposed my family's experience on the Internet. Within two days of bringing my father back home, the No. 1 Division of the City Police Department visited me, led by Director He. With my mother in tow, who knew nothing about what was going on, they brought a camera to videotape a show called, "The Solicitude of the Communist Party and Government." Father and I saw through their plan, resisted this taping, and aborted their plot. Afterwards, we learned that they specially asked my mother to "dress up" in order to arrange this performance.
In September 2000, my mother, who had been already detained for a long time, was sentenced to 3 years in prison with 4 years' probation, without any evidence being presented. Thereafter, the police officers visited her residence to harass her many times. One time, more than ten officers came. Police cars could be found parked outside of mother's door most of the time, and she was often tracked by plainclothes officers when she went out.
2. The Evildoers Viciously Persecuted my Husband
On May 22, 2000 and July 22, 2000, my husband was illegally detained for appealing in Beijing. Each time he was held for 15 days and during that time was forced to sit with his legs crossed until midnight. He was detained for a total of 30 days.
In October 1999, when the Chongqing Coal Design Institute rated senior engineers, my husband was rated "excellent" in the specialty and foreign language areas. However, Xu Fengjia, Director of the Intelligence Division in his work unit, cancelled his qualification for senior engineer, using his refusal to give up Falun Gong as the reason.
At the end of August 2000, under the coercion of the Chongqing City 610 Office, the Chongqing Coal Design Institute prepared to send my husband to a local brainwashing class. To avoid being persecuted further, my husband was forced to leave our home and his job and move from place to place in the countryside.
In December 2000, my husband went to Tiananmen Square to call resolutely for a redress of Falun Gong. In January 2001, after being detained illegally for one month by the Dadukou District Police Department, he was asked to write a statement promising that he would not go to Beijing again. He solemnly refused, after which they stated that he would "taste the ferocity of the Communist Party." They then illegally sentenced him to three years of forced labor. My husband was sent to the Xishanping Forced Labor Camp, where he suffered all sorts of torture, such as "being torn limb from limb by five horses," and "the hunger cure." He was also force-fed hot pepper water and laundry powder water, his eyes were pricked with sharp objects and his body hair was burned. The perpetrators beat the arches of his feet and palms of his hands, tied him to the tiger bench, and forced him to sit on a nailed stool. He was force-fed barbarically and subjected to freezing cold in the winter and deprived of water in the summer. Other tortures included "pulling the foot muscle," being dragged upside down, and electric shock torture, among others. Sometimes, my husband suffered a dozen different tortures in one day, resulting in loss of consciousness many times as well as losing control of his bowels and bladder. He also lost his hearing in the right ear, could not speak properly, and suffered from dementia. My mother was not able to see him for three years.
My mother did not hear anything about her son-in-law until December 2001. At that time, it was heard that the Xishanping Forced Labor Camp was treating Falun Gong practitioners very cruelly, and many were dying as a result. Mother put aside caring for my paralyzed father and her young grandson and went to the labor camp to visit her son-in-law. She brought along a bunch of his favorite apples. Guard Li Qiwei asked mother to help "transform" my husband, but she flatly refused. So he forced her out. Mother overcame untold hardships to get there, but was not allowed to see her son-in-law. She shouted out loudly at the labor camp, with grief and indignation, "Quanliang, I, your mother, came to see you. I have not been able to obtain any information about you. How are you? I really worry about you!" The guards were extremely panicked and forcibly removed her. They gripped mother's arms so tightly that they were bruised black and blue, and the apples scattered everywhere. Mother severely denounced their illegal activity. At that time my husband cried out loudly from inside, " Mother, you'd better go back to expose the truth to people!" Inside and outside the labor camp shouts and abuses were heard. Later Li Qiwei ordered police officers from Xishanping Police Station to force my mother out.
On January 1, 2004, my husband, who underwent so many tribulations and tortures, was released from the labor camp. During the "hunger-cure" in the labor camp, he could only eat about 50 grams of rice per day. However, due to his righteous belief in Dafa, my husband experienced a miracle. His skin became fair and clear, and as delicate as that of a baby. Witnessing this, the guards became extremely panic-stricken, and they locked him up in a cell so other practitioners couldn't see him. In addition, the labor camp authorities forbade all guards and inmates from looking inside the cell or talking to my husband.
After being released, my husband slowly regained the ability to speak properly four months after he went back to studying the Fa and practicing the exercises. When he went to the dormitory at his work place to retrieve his personal belongings, he discovered that they were no longer there. He found his former supervisors and requested that they return his belongings and restore his job. At first, they put him off. Later, they simply said they did not know him. They threatened to call the police and have him arrested. When my husband showed them the relevant documents, they refused to read them, and threatened publicly, "You may sue the work unit. We are not afraid of that at all."
The 610 Office also spoke to other units and convinced them not to employ my husband. As a result, he is now unemployed
3. The Crimes Perpetrated Against Me by the Chongqing City 610 Office
After the "April 25", appeal in 1999, the director of Xinshancun Tax Station met with me under pressure from the higher authorities, and urged me to give up practicing Falun Dafa, claiming that I would lose my job sooner or later if I opposed the government as a civilian. I told him about my personal cultivation experience in order to clarify the fact that we were not opposing the government at all. I wanted him to know that if more people practiced Falun Dafa, it would be to the advantage of the government and there would be no drawbacks for individuals either. I also pointed out that the authorities' behavior went against the gist of the article "Answers to part of the appeal questions raised by Falun Gong practitioners from the leader of State Council Appeal Office," published in the communist party's newspaper on June 14, 1999. The director did not comment on my opinion but instead said, "How can you not see through the CCP's consistent practices?"
After the persecution started on July 20, 1999, the director of the Tax Bureau talked with me many times under coercion from the city's 610 Office. He tried to compel me to give up cultivation with the threat of dismissing me from my job. I refused solemnly. At the beginning of August 1999, police officers from the No. 1 Division of the Chongqing City Police Department went to my workplace and told my boss that he must force me to go the police department. There the police officers intimidated me and attempted to trick me into acknowledging that I took part in a practitioners' gathering and organized group practice. Thereafter, I was monitored by a specific person in the workplace and tracked by plainclothes police when I went outside.
On September 30, 2000, the leader of my work unit called and said that my husband and I were to go to Xinshancun Police Station. At that time, the police officers in Chongqing City were blatantly abducting Falun Dafa practitioners in order to set up a brainwashing class. Before this, Lai Guohai, a police officer in the No. 1 Section of the Dadukou District Police Department, had forced me to acknowledge that I distributed many truth-clarifying materials at different times, as testimony for a subpoena.
In order to resist the brainwashing, I had to leave my home, my job, and my young son, after having been reunited with my mother only 20 days previously. For three years after, the heavy burden of caring for our entire family fell to my 60+ year-old mother. After more than one year of detention and persecution by the police in Chongqing City, her health took a turn for the worse and her hands began trembling unceasingly. It was in this condition that my mother took care of her paralyzed husband, her elder daughter who could not attend to herself, and her two-year-old grandson (she had to ask for other's help to cut her husband's and grandson's nails). Moreover, she worried for her younger daughter who was forced to wander about destitute and homeless, and her daughter-in-law who was persecuted horribly in the labor camp, all while facing the police officers' unceasing harassment. A happy family was torn to pieces by this persecution.
Chen Ce, the director of the Dadukou District Tax Bureau where I worked, publicly criticized me at a bureau conference before July 20, 1999, claiming, "A civilian will affect our bureau's public face if they practice Falun Gong publicly." He also prevented fellow practitioners from going to my residence to study the Fa and practice the exercises. When I called his home to clarify the facts about Falun Dafa to him, he insisted, "A civilian cannot oppose the government while earning the government's money." After I was forced to leave my job and home, under the implication policy of Jiang's regime, he fired me.
My mother and my husband went to my residence (I have complete property rights) in the Tax Bureau but the guards refused to allow them in. Tan Yuan, the director of Human Resources, even went to my home to ask them to "register" and write a guarantee statement (though he was not sure what to guarantee). At one time, dozens of people surrounded the guard office to see what was happening. Many of the staff members in the tax bureau fully understood my character. They were indignant, but did not dare to speak up because of the director's attitude. When my family members questioned the guards about why they interfered, they could not answer but said that it was the decision of the Bureau's Communist Party Committee.
After I left home, police officers from Chongqing City, Fujian Province, visited my mother and my relatives' residences many time to harass and ransack, and attempt to abduct me. All the money in my personal bank account was frozen illegally by police officers from Chongqing City. The leaders of the Dadukou District Tax Bureau told the staff to report me if any of them discovered my whereabouts, claiming that they would be left alone as long as they handed me over to the police.
4. The Bitter Experience of My Young Son
After July 20, 1999, my son had to withstand this horrible persecution, though he was barely 1 year old. First, the corrupt police abducted his grandmother, who loved him dearly. Later, they harassed and threatened our immediate family unceasingly, and moreover, his father was abducted twice.
When my son was 2 years old, the police from Dadukou District attempted to abduct his parents and take them to brainwashing classes, so they had to leave him and move from place to place, being helped by kindhearted people.
One month after his parents left, the police from Dadukou District abducted Li Yamin, who had taken care of him for more than one hard year, and who treated my son as his family member. Li Yamin was taken to the detention center for persecution. Henceforth, my son could only depend on his grandmother, who had just been released from prison, for survival.
In 2004, my son should have started elementary school. My family members appealed to the Chongqing City Police Department, the Gaoxin District Police Department, the Chongqing City Education Committee, and the Jiulongpo District Education Committee many times in order to get him enrolled. But the Gaoxin District Police Department, the location where my son's address needed to be registered, still unreasonably refused to accept my husband's registration. As a result, we had to pay 6,000 yuan to send him to school. Since both my husband and I had been deprived of our income, that proved to be another large burden for us.
More than five years of persecution has deprived my young son of a family. He longs for his parents' care. He once told his grandmother, "Someone said I did not have a mother and father." The family's tribulations made have him extremely sensitive and adaptable. In the winter, he held the ice-cold feet of grandmother to his body to warm them. One time during the absence of his grandmother, he nestled with a female practitioner who often came to visit him, putting his face next to hers and said, "May I call you mom?" The practitioner cried.
At present, I still cannot return to my home. And more significantly, I cannot look after my 70-year-old parents, my young son, and my ill sister.
For five years, many kindhearted people have been resisting this persecution silently. They have actively looked after my family. An uncle from the neighborhood helped my mother to carry a rice bag home. A lady upstairs brought daily necessities for my mother. My friends and classmates visited during the holidays, and lots of other people expressed their concern in their own way. Fellow practitioners risked their lives and exposed the persecution of my family and the persecution in Xishanping Forced Labor Camp to the public, thus alleviating the horror of this persecution against us. Many practitioners helped to take care of my son, and brought him clothes and toys to comfort him. I hereby represent my entire family in expressing my deep appreciation to all my friends who have showed solicitude toward or helping my family. We will continue to forge ahead, diligently following Teacher's direction and striving to perform well in the future.
This persecution has continued for more than five years in China. Tens of millions of families who cultivate Falun Dafa have suffered brutal persecution and threats for no reason other than refusing to deny what they believe in. Kindhearted Falun Dafa practitioners are beaten to death or injured every day. Families who suffered even more serious persecution than my family can be found everywhere. I call for more kindhearted people to stand up with Falun Dafa practitioners to stop this horror and end the brutal persecution as early as possible.
Phone numbers of the related work units and personnel:
Office of the Dadukou District Tax Bureau: 86-23-68904183 (can be transferred to the director's line)
Director of the Dadukou District Tax Bureau: Chen Ce
Deputy Director of the Dadukou District Tax Bureau: Zhu Jianghong, Yan Jiong
Chief of human resources of the Dadukou District Tax Bureau: Tan Yuan: 86-23-68904193 (Office)
Director of the Xinshancun Tax Station under the Dadukou District Tax Bureau: 86-23-68841223 (Office)
Office of the Xinshancun Tax Station under the Dadukou District Tax Bureau: 86-23-68832505 (Office)
Director of the Waqiao Tax Station under the Dadukou District Tax Bureau: 86-23-68830759 (Office)
Address of the Dadukou District Tax Bureau: 166 Cuiyuan Road, Dadukou District, Chongqing City, Zip code: 400083
President of the Chongqing City Coal Design Institute: Yang Yongxiang: 86-23-68725003 (Office)
Deputy director of the Chongqing City Coal Design Institute: Tang Daxin: 86-23-68725005 (Office)
Director of human resources of the Chongqing City Coal Design Institute: Wang Weiping 86-23-68725008 (Office)
Address of the Chongqing City Coal Design Institute: 177 Changjianger Road, Yuzhong District, Chongqing City, Zip code: 400016
