(Clearwisdom.net) My name is Ma Xuejun. I used to work as a deputy division head at the Jiamusi Railroad Bureau, head of Jiamusi Railroad Utility Section, head of the Business Management Office of Jiamusi Railroad Bureau, and deputy head of the bureau's retired officials department. I grew up in the countryside, but I went to school. I advanced from being a farmer to a factory worker, then to a deputy division head. I didn't have any money or social connections and earned everything through hard work. Just as I had made a good name and a status for myself through struggles, numerous illnesses struck me; the most serious one was aplastic anemia. I then contracted hepatitis B from a blood transfusion at the railroad hospital. Although my condition was somewhat relieved at that time, as I grew older and suffered more hardship, by 1993 I was completely dependent on medications. All the doctors told me the same thing, "Work less, don't catch a cold, watch your diet, and come to the hospital quickly if you don't feel well." The director of the Infectious Disease Section of the Railroad Hospital said to me, "Mr. Ma, you are a frequent visitor at our hospital, and we've saved this office bed for you." Each treatment session cost more than 5,000 yuan, and I felt that living this way was worse than dying.

Ma Xuejun, smiling after starting to practice Dafa

A picture taken in late 2003, which shows Ma Xuejun after he was persecuted

One day in September 1994 I started to practice Falun Dafa. All of my illnesses left soon afterwards. The old me who was sick from so many illnesses and was often on the brink of death was no more. Even the aplastic anemia and hepatitis B that were difficult to treat vanished. Dafa's principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" changed my declining moral standards that had gone down with the general society for the better. I gave up my assigned housing to my colleague and gave my annual bonus and award money to my subordinates. I conducted myself according to "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" at all times.

Yet, Jiang's regime started to persecute Dafa practitioners in 1999. During the past seven years I was illegally arrested four times. After the most recent arrest I was sentenced to 12 years in prison and was disabled from torture. I was carried home on a stretcher while on the brink of death.

1. Dealing with the police for the first time

Falun Gong practitioners went to Beijing to appeal because some practitioners were arrested in Tianjin City. I also went to Beijing. I arrived late, so I didn't go to Tiananmen Square. The next day I heard practitioners who had gone saying that the problem was solved after the premier had a meeting with practitioners.

Afterwards, Chen Wanyou at the Jiamusi City Police Department called some practitioners who had gone to Beijing to his office and asked us some questions. I thought that if we openly explained to the government officials about our experience with Falun Dafa, we would be responsible to the country and the society. We had nothing to hide, so I told the truth about everything I knew and what I had experienced. At the same time I also hoped that they would act responsibly and inform the related branches about our request and expectation to be able to practice Falun Dafa in a peaceful environment.

At that time, Chen Wanyou said, "We are in charge of this issue. We have conducted many open visits and secret inspections of you Falun Gong, and we didn't find anything wrong with it. We indeed feel this practice is very good and many people have benefited from the practice. We know that many of the practitioners are old and are people who used to be ill. We didn't find any problems; otherwise we would have restricted you a long time ago." He also said that the problem was that too many people practiced it! What the Communist Party fears most is a large group of people who do or believe the same thing.

From then on we started dealing with the city police department. Around 3:00 a.m. on July 20, 1999, Chen Wanyou came to my home and took me to the police department in a car. About six or seven more practitioners were also taken to the police department. We were held for a whole day and were told to watch the news later that night. We learned later that they had received an internal notice that Dafa-slandering news was going to be broadcast that day and that's why they brought us over. For some reason it didn't broadcast as scheduled, and we were released after we watched the regular news.

2. City police department abuses its power to arrest people

On the afternoon of July 21, 1999, Chen Wanyou came to my work unit and said that Li Yunyang, the head of the police department, wanted to talk to me. I never saw Li Yunyang when I got there, but they started to watch my every move. I was followed even when I went to the restroom. They didn't let me go home that night.

The next morning, three police officers, including Chen Wanyou, took me to the Jiamusi City Detention Center and told me that I would be under administrative detention for 15 days. I asked Chen Wanyou for the reason. He said, "Sorry. Just bear with it for a few days. It's because Falun Gong practitioners from all over are going to Beijing to appeal." The next afternoon I heard the detention center radio broadcasting CCTV news, and a more severe persecution began.

During my detention, Chen Wanyou, Gao Zhilun, Chen Zhenglin, and others at the city police department interrogated me many times. They saw that I was determined in my belief in Dafa and threatened me with losing my job and sending me to prison. Around July 26, my status was suddenly changed from administrative detention to criminal detention. When I arrived at the cell, the head inmate said he was going to help me take a shower. He ordered an inmate to pour more than 20 basins of freezing cold water over me. The water was freshly taken from a deep well, and the cold shot through my bones. I shook like a leaf for more than two hours. At night we went to find our own beds. Several inmates with money and connections each took a single bed. The other 18 people, including me, were crowded together. They didn't arrange for a place for me to sleep. It was very hot in August. We were so jam-packed that it was hard for me to breathe.

Each day thereafter a group consisting of officials from the city police department, the city party committee, the politics and law committee, the propaganda bureau, the TV station, and the railroad police branch came to pressure me. They refused to let me talk about how I benefited from the practice and tried to force me to lie. The most vicious person was Gao, the head of the Politics and Law Committee. He slandered Dafa and Teacher and threatened me. He screamed, "You must not say that you got healthy from practicing Falun Gong! You must say you got well from taking medications! You gave up your housing to another person because it's what a Communist Party member is supposed to do."

I said, "I wouldn't have given up my housing if I didn't practice Falun Gong. The officials from my bureau are here. You can ask them. I was the only person to give up my housing among about 20 to 30 deputy division heads at the bureau, and I knew why I was doing so."

No matter what I said, they acted as if they had gone insane. They pressured me daily to such an extent that it exceeded my limits. Later I learned that they had deliberately arranged for the inmates to forbid me from going to the restroom or refuse to give me any toilet paper when I went to the restroom.

As I faced the tremendous pressure and could hardly bear it anymore, a bureau chief named Yang said to me one day, "Mr. Ma, we admit that you benefited from practicing Falun Gong, but the current situation calls for 'minor principles obey greater principles, and greater principles follow hardcore principles.' In other words, you have to obey, whether you want to or not." I recalled the Chinese Communist Party's various political movements and realized that, finally, someone understood me. Under coercion and tremendous pressure, while suffering physical torture and mental torment, I began to agree with them that I should practice at home. I did something that I regret the most in my life, especially after I started practicing Dafa--I said things against my conscience. I was released from the Jiamusi City Detention Center on August 8, 1999.

The persecution did not end there. After I went home, Wang Zixi, the head of Railroad Bureau's Politics and Law Committee who later died from liver cancer, ordered us to write so-called self-criticisms.

3. Five months of deception, extortion, and detention

I answered two phone calls from two fellow practitioners on September 9, 1999. Around 7:00 p.m., Chen Wanyou from the city police department and a young police officer took me to the police department and told me that Li, the head of the police department, had invited me over for a talk. They also guaranteed my safety. They tricked me into going to the police department.

I met with Li Yunyang, deputy head of the police department and Gao, the head of the Politics Committee. Li asked me, "Who contacted you?" I said, "I only answered two phone calls." Gao Said, "That's contact." They refused to listen to anything else I had to say and detained me, charging me with "disrupting the social security."

I developed scabies during that unlawful detention period. The itch and pain were unbearable. I could not sleep. I suffered for nearly five months. I was released the day before the 2000 Chinese New Year, after I had signed a guarantee statement promising that I would not go to Beijing and I would not appeal. This time I was held for almost five months.

The night after I went home, the party head from Taiping Town in Jixian County led a group of police officers who came to my home and pounded on the door. They said that several practitioners, including my younger sister, had gone to Beijing. They demanded that I turn these practitioners over to them. They took me to Jixian County as hostage. Later that night, my wife and I were taken to the Shunhe Police Station in Jixian County and were held there overnight. The next day our employers bailed us out. My family and my work unit paid more than 1,000 yuan and spent more than 3,000 yuan on luxurious meals and gifts for officials at the city police department. Chen Wanyou pocketed 1,000 yuan for himself and claimed it was "guarantee money."

4. Sentenced to three years of forced labor for exercising my right to appeal

In the months before June 2000, I wrote letters to the city police department and the officials at my work place to tell them the truth--that Falun Gong practitioners became healthy and served the society better after they practiced Falun Gong. They responded, "The central government has made the decision. We can only obey and we cannot go against it." I said, "Then it seems we practitioners have no choice but to write directly to central government officials." They threatened me, "You know what'll happen if you go there. You'll be held responsible for all consequences."

After much thinking, on June 12, 2000, I took a bus to Beijing. Police officers from all over the country were standing outside the front gate of the State Council Appeals Office and the National People's Congress Appeals Office. All Falun Gong practitioners were intercepted before they could speak. The Appeals Office became an arresting office.

I had no choice but to go to Tiananmen Square. One fellow practitioner handed me a banner with the words "Falun Dafa is good" on it. I unfurled it, in hopes of speaking the truth directly to the state's leaders. Tiananmen Square Police Department officers immediately arrested me and took me to the Jiamusi City Liaison Office in Beijing. They bought a pair of handcuffs for 50 yuan and handcuffed me to a bed. One officer told me, "I bought you out for 300 yuan, so you won't take up the quota for Jiamusi City." [Note: the Communist government issues quotas for each city. If the quota of arrests of Falun Gong practitioners from the corresponding city that appeal in Beijing is not met, the city officials are punished or even removed from office.] They said, "Most Falun Gong practitioners came from Shandong Province, but [the Shandong government] spent money and bought themselves out. The Shandong Province government even bought the Iveco buses used in Tiananmen Square."

I was held for one day and one night at the liaison office in Beijing. Officers from the Jiamusi City Railroad Police Department took me back to Jiamusi City on June 14. Police officers from Jiamusi City extorted 1,000 yuan from my employers and said it was to cover the money they had spent to buy me out. They kept 700 yuan, because they actually spent only 300 yuan to buy me out. After I returned to Jiamusi City, the local police officers were afraid that my hunger strike would adversely affect their reputation, so they held me at the railroad detention center. I was sentenced to three years of forced labor on July 25, 2000.

During the time I was held at Xigemu Forced Labor Camp in Jiamusi City, I had to eat steamed buns made of moldy flour and plain vegetable broth. The environment was terribly filthy. Many times I was forced to watch Dafa-slandering videos and TV programs. The head of the detention center, Zhao, and deputy head Hou, as well as Liu Guifan, the head of the Education Section, and Lin, the head of the "Reform" Group, tried to make me give up my belief many times. I refused to "reform" and was held in isolation for nearly two months. Several practitioners who refused to "reform" were held in the Group Drill Division. The lack of a normal environment to practice Dafa, coupled with the poor living conditions, made me suffer from frequent bouts of diarrhea. I gradually lost feeling in my lower limbs. They refused to release me despite my condition, so I went on a hunger strike. I was released on medical parole on December 5, 2001. Two heads of the Administration Section took me home.

5. Returned home at the edge of death after savage tortures

I was carried home on the brink of death after enduring savage tortures when the officials thought I would die for certain.

I was released from Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp in December 2001. I quickly recovered through Fa study and doing exercises. Mou Yongping, the head of the Shunhe Police Station in Jiamusi City, led a group of police officers to come to my home in April 2002. They pounded on the door. Prior to this, several practitioners who had also been released on medical parole were arrested again.

My wife and I left home in order to avoid the persecution. The city government publicly issued an award for my capture. The city 610 Office and police department pressured my employers by connecting the manager's promotions with my capture. Officials from numerous government agencies, including the city police department, the Shunhe Police Station and the Security Division of the railroad police department, opened the door of my home with a master key many times without any notice or warrant. They ransacked my home each time and took Teacher's portrait(s), one large TV and one small TV, a VCD player, a meditation mat, and other things. They even took my calendar and two cups.

My 19-year-old daughter told me that officers from the security division of the railroad police department once barged inside and ransacked my home when she was home alone. The police opened the door with a master key, and a brawny police officer screamed at my daughter, who had just awakened, to get up and get out of bed. Two police officers body-searched her while she was in her underwear. They groped her. From then on, my daughter's heart would beat rapidly whenever she heard a police siren, and she is now suffering from poor health.

At another time my mother, my daughter, and a cousin were staying at my home when Wang Huamin and other officers from the city police department posed as neighbors and knocked on the door. They forced their way in as soon as my daughter opened the door. After they turned the place upside down, they took my younger, practitioner sister away and sentenced her to two years of forced labor.

Officers from the city police department and the railroad police department frequently harass my relatives, including my parents, my brothers and sisters and my mother-in-law.

On December 12, 2002, when I went to my former landlord to cancel my lease, Wang Fengjun and Li Xiangguo, who has late-stage liver cancer, arrested me. They were waiting outside and immediately turned me over to the Jiamusi City Police Department.

Li Shuqing, deputy head of the city police department; Chen Wanyou, political head from the National Security Division; Chen Yongde, head of the National Security Division; Gao Zhilun; Zhang Donghui; and many other police officers from Dongfeng Police Department brutally tortured me. That same afternoon they locked me inside a conference room at the Jiamusi City Detention Center. Police officer Zhang Donghui grabbed me by the ear and took pictures of me. They put handcuffs and shackles on me and asked where I lived, whom I had contacted, and what I had done during the time I lived away from home.

I told them, "I'm a good person wherever I am, and those who I contact are also good people."

In the evening, Li Shuqing brought a group of police officers and asked me, "Do you know who these people are? They are from the Criminal Police Division at the Dongfeng Police Department. Do you know what the criminal police officers do? They'll pry your mouth open, even if you are the most stubborn criminal. You better speak up now." I didn't say anything.

At night, a group of police officers headed by Zhang Donghui and Gao Zhilun started to torture me. They covered my head and handcuffed me behind my back. They hung me up by my handcuffs with my toes barely touching the ground. They stepped on my shackles to prevent me from raising my legs. They stretched my body to the maximum. My hands felt as if they were being burned on a hot stove because the handcuffs were cutting into the nerves. I soon lost feeling in my hands.

The police shook my hands every one or two minutes, saying they were afraid my nerves would atrophy, but in fact they did it to increase my pain, because heart-searing pain shot through my body each time they shook my hands. They also punched my chest every two minutes while I was handcuffed behind my back. Each time they punched me I felt as if I was going to throw up my internal organs. They also constantly whacked me with a metal rod, all the way from my calves to my thighs. The police also forcibly bent my fingers outward or inward. As a result my right ring finger is permanently disabled. The police also put the back of a chair against my back while pushing down my shoulders and my legs, saying they were straightening my back for me.

I lost consciousness from the torture many times, but the torture resumed each time I regained consciousness. They didn't give me a minute's break for two days. Whenever I closed my eyes, a police officer would kick me. Later, all of my toenails came off. The police officers divided themselves into three groups and took turns torturing me until I could no longer stand up. My lower limbs swelled and I lost feeling in them. They had originally planned to torture me for seven days. After two days, two police officers dragged me into a cell before the detention center doctor could check my injuries. I went on a hunger strike. The detention center officials shackled me to the ground and injected me with unknown drugs on a daily basis.

Ten days or more later, the city police department agents started another round of torture. They took me to the Shunhe Criminal Police Division at the Qianjin Police Department. They again divided themselves into three groups and took turns torturing me. The night after I arrived at the Shunhe Criminal Police Division, Li Shuqing led Chen Youde, Chen Wanyou, Zhang Donghui, Wang Huamin, and other police officers. They were all very drunk. First, Li Shuqing hit my face with a Buddha statue. I didn't move. The others, including Zhang Donghui and Wang Huamin, hit my head with a large water-filled soda bottle. They later poured the water over my head and body. They cursed in such vulgar language that it was really hard for me to listen to them.

Li Shuqing threatened me, "I'm not afraid of you keeping your mouth shut. If we move our pen a little, we can still sentence you to ten years or twenty years in prison." After two days of torture they dragged me back to the detention center.

Zhang Donghui from the city police department interrogated me in March 2003. He read what he claimed to be an indictment of me in which he fabricated a list of charges without any witnesses or physical evidence. People at the Dongfeng District Court convened a trial at an interrogation room in the Jiamusi Detention Center in April. They were afraid my family would attend, so they didn't tell my family the exact date of the trial.

On the day of the trial, while the public prosecutor read witnesses' testimonies, almost all of the witnesses said they had nothing to do with me. Without any incriminating evidence they fabricated some bogus evidence and sentenced me to 12 years in prison. I immediately appealed. The intermediate city court judge asked whether I would still practice Falun Gong and I said, "Why wouldn't I?" He said, "I'll only tell you one thing: if you don't change your mind, we won't look at anything else. People like you are qualified [for a prison sentence]; there is nothing you can say that will help your case."

In July 2003, Jiamusi City Detention Center officials sent me to the Xianglan Prison in Heilongjiang Province. I didn't pass the physical exam, so I was sent back to the Jiamusi City Detention Center. The detention center officials attempted to coerce me to wear a prisoner's uniform, but I refused. Section head Wang Yinhui called in guards and inmates. They handcuffed me to the bed. I held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. On the fifth day doctor Gu force-fed me and knocked out two of my front teeth with pliers in the process. One of them fell out immediately and the other came out a few days later. All of my molars were knocked loose; later, eight of them fell out, one after another.

By October 2003 I was skin and bones. Officials from the Jiamusi City Police Department, the Procuratorate, the court and the 610 Office ignored my condition. I was injected with unknown drugs on a daily basis, until December 2003. I had been bedridden from torture for three months and was semi-conscious. My weight was only about 60 jin [66 pounds], and my heart rate was more than 130 beats per minute. The muscles in my legs had atrophied, and yet they were still coercing my family to pay "insurance money." On December 25, my hands and feet started convulsing periodically and my mind became muddled. On December 28, they feared being held responsible if I were to die, so they took me home in a car. They left me in a room alone on a stretcher and walked out.

6. Further persecution through harassment, monitoring, and financial cut-off

After I was taken home, officials from the city police department, Dongfeng District Court, Qianjin District Office, Shunhe Police Station, and the residential community office constantly harassed me while claiming to be "visiting" me.

My wife constantly read Dafa books to me, and other practitioners and some kind-hearted neighbors helped me. They dragged me back from the gates of hell. I was fired from my job. The three of us lived off my wife's 300 yuan a month pension. My wife went to related government agencies many times and requested a physical exam for me and also for living assistance. Although many officials expressed sympathy, none did anything for us.

Huang, a doctor from the Jiamusi City Detention Center, and guard Sun Liansheng from the same place, as well as several inmates, came to my home and took me for a physical exam. Because the fees were too high, we went to two different hospitals. At the surgical unit of a medical university I was diagnosed with muscle paralysis in both legs and was certified that I could not take care of myself. After that Doctor Huang said, "The exam is over. Our job is done. No other exam is needed here." I suddenly realized that they were not showing concern for me, but instead were trying to find out whether I was fit enough to be tortured again. I was carried home. After I was moved around, I was in pain for a long time.

The Utility Section of the Jiamusi Railroad Bureau, my former employer, cut off the electricity to my home because we could not afford the utility bill. I had worked as a deputy division head and division head at the Utility Section for four years and never gave a hard time to any one. All of the employees in the section called me the "cleanest" (someone who doesn't take or ask for bribes) official. I received the highest score during job reviews. Now, my electricity was cut off simply because I conducted myself according to "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" and wanted to be a good person and because I lost my job as a result and could not afford the utility bill.

Jiamusi City Police Department officials dispatched police officers and monitoring devices in October 2005 to watch and search people who came to my home. My daughter's boyfriend was also followed. Kind-hearted people who wanted to help us dared not visit us. For a while our life was very difficult. Jiang's group was indeed implementing its persecution policy: "destroy them physically, exhaust them financially, ruin their reputation."

7. All of my family members practice Dafa; everyone benefited from the practice and suffered the persecution from the CCP.

Looking back, after the onset of the persecution in July 1999, my parents, my two uncles and their wives in their 70s, and my brothers and sisters--more than 20 people--were arrested and taken to the Jixian County Detention Center.

My wife, Chuang Jing, used to suffer from a uterine tumor that was cured through Dafa practice. In the past several years she was arrested four times and detained three times. She was twice sentenced to forced labor. The last time she developed cervical cancer. She was released on medical parole when she was skin and bones.

My mother used to suffer from lung disease, heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, and many other illnesses, all of which disappeared after she started to practice Dafa. She was detained for two months, and she went into convulsions. The detention center officials were afraid of taking responsibility and released her. The other practitioners in my family were released after they paid the guarantee fee of 2,000 yuan. My mother lived with nerve wrecking tension because our family members were persecuted. She is now blind in both eyes.

My father, who is in his 70s, took on the responsibility to provide for the whole family after my brother-in-law was sent to a forced labor camp, including cultivating more than 20 mu (3.3 acres) of land.

My brother-in-law, the husband of my first younger sister, was a village doctor. His good character was well known in the area after he practiced Dafa. Jixian County 610 Office officials at the detention center and at the Suihua Labor Camp tortured him. He developed epilepsy symptoms and could no longer work. His two children, who were attending high school, could not afford the tuition and dropped out of school.

My other brother-in-law, the husband of my second younger sister, was sent to the Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp for practicing Dafa and was tortured until he was skin and bones. He was released only when he was on the brink of death.

My mother-in-law was still reeling from grief because her husband was tortured to death during the Cultural Revolution. This time she was worrying about us all the time and died from a sudden heart attack.

The persecution made my family destitute. Last year my daughter met her future husband in the countryside. His family is also poor. When they got married she only took a few used quilts, several pairs of chopsticks, and bowls from our home. She didn't have any new furniture, equipment, or a ceremony.

My wife said to my daughter, "Liang, your father and I cannot help you because we are persecuted for practicing Dafa. Do you hate us when you see other young people dressed better than you?" She said, "No, I don't hate you! I know that I probably would have lost both of you [to illnesses] a long time ago if you didn't practice Dafa and I would have become an orphan. It would have been worse."

8. Calling for conscience and justice

The doctor gave up on me when I was gravely ill before I started practicing Dafa. Dafa gave me a new life. Dafa saved me again when my life was in crisis once more from torture.

It's my responsibility and duty to tell the world's people, "Falun Dafa is good," even if it costs me my life. Today I write down my persecution experiences to help more people understand Dafa, to distinguish good from evil, and to choose a bright future for themselves.