(Minghui.org)
Story I: Prison disciplinary guard changed after learning the facts
I was illegally sentenced and taken to a prison in the capital city of a certain province in 2002, because I was producing Falun Gong truth-clarification materials for distribution. At that time the police officers and guards who worked at the prison did not understand the facts about Dafa as they had been brainwashed by the lies from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They were very hostile towards Dafa practitioners.
Chen Ren (pseudonym) was the first disciplinary prison guard I’d encountered. He was a little bit over 30 years old and had been a policeman for a decade. We had regular contact for over one year. I still clearly remember one meeting in his office when he was sitting on a rotating chair with an arrogant look on his face. He was holding the papers of my arrest and case. He stared at me (and I was also looking at him) for a full three to four minutes, and it seemed that we both were trying to see who each other really was.
He said, “A Bachelor's degree, lieutenant commander for 30 years and you also practice Falun Gong? Strange, strange! How many years have you practiced? Where do use what you have learned? It seems that I really need to have a good talk with you.” He shook his head while he was talking with a puzzled look.
After several interviews with him, I began to understand that all of the prison personnel had been poisoned by the propaganda of the CCP and its lies and slander about Dafa. They mistakenly thought that Dafa practitioners were either mentally ill or uneducated, and they were deeply deceived. After six months of getting to know me, Chen Ren noticed that Dafa practitioners are not only clear thinking and rational, but also very down-to-the earth, and very kind. It was not like the CCP's propaganda at all. After that realization, he did not have any hostility or arrogance towards me. He also changed his understanding about Dafa and Dafa practitioners. I found that the more propaganda the CCP sends out, the easier it is to rationally expose these lies.
Once, Chen Ren asked me to write my understanding and feelings about Dafa. That was a good opportunity for me to clarify the truth to him. For three days I thought of how to really help him be rid of the absurd propaganda indoctrinated in his mind by the CCP – such as the slogan “The CCP government is always right.” At first, I told him that those people who are put in the prison might not all be bad guys. Good people might also have experienced a miscarriage of justice. Dafa practitioners are trying to follow the universal standard of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance to be good people. They do not commit any crimes at all. They are now suffering this persecution, which is a colossal miscarriage of justice. Then I explained what Falun Gong is all about and I shared how I became healthy after taking up the practice and how my moral standard improved and that my family life was now very harmonious. I wrote about why Jiang Zemin began the persecution of Dafa – that it was because of his jealousy. Dafa practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong hoping that the government would come to their senses and support Dafa. The CCP authority would not only not listen to us, but began to persecute Dafa practitioners by utilizing the nation's police, security agencies and prisons. They ignored the facts that during the short seven years of Dafa's spread throughout China, practitioners benefited both mentally and physically. People became kind and their morals had been upgraded. The CCP used lies to slander Dafa; they even orchestrated what is now known as the staged Tiananmen Square "self-immolation" to frame Falun Gong. Dafa practitioners were found to be innocent after international media that were present on Tiananmen Square exposed the lies from the CCP. Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance are not wrong. It is the CCP that is doing the bad deeds and committing shocking crimes against all of humanity. People my age remember the absurdity of the Cultural Revolution, and the bloody June 4th massacre on Tiananmen Square,which was a crime against all Chinese people by the CCP. Dafa practitioners are cultivators who truly understand the meaning of life, and who would give up their life rather than deny the truth. That's why hundreds of thousands of Falun Dafa practitioners, in the face of brutal repression, jail, or even the threat of loss of life, still wish to tell the truth to the public. No matter how a lie disguises itself, it is still a lie after all. Eventually the truth will be revealed to the world, for devotion to the Dharma is the glory of one's life, so despite this persecution, I have never regretted being a Dafa practitioner.
After reading my letter, Chen Ren did not bother me for a long time and I could feel that he was changing. Later, a criminal who was close to him told me that he'd said to him privately, “Falun Gong practitioners are not dumb, they are actually very intelligent. The paper he wrote is pretty good.”
At that time I was being brutally persecuted and I became very weak. I basically stayed in the cell. Chen Ren saw my condition and never ordered me to go to work. He only advised me to walk around in the workshop to try to strengthen my physical condition. When it got colder, he arranged to move me to a lower level bunk in a cell facing the sun. (For relative newcomers in prison, it is very difficult to receive any benefits or special care.) Every time the prison had good food or distributed extra food (not to the inmates who did not work), he would ask some of the criminal inmates to save a share for me. I understood that he was taking care of me quietly.
Once he said to me, “Originally I wanted to ask your family to come to help me 'transform' you and now I feel that it is not necessary.” I agreed saying, “Don't do that. It is useless.” He said, “Some people in other jail districts had been 'transformed.' Other jail guards told me their experiences of how they did that and told me that they would not be able to 'transform' Falun Gong practitioners if we tried to speak to them. The only way to 'transform' Falun Gong practitioners is to use clubs and other tools of torture. They said, 'The more ruthless we are, the more it will work.' I told them that this is the way a bandit does it and what is the use if people do not change from the bottom of their heart?” I answered, “That's correct. My Master said 'Coercion Cannot Change People’s Hearts.' Who is evil and who is good – isn't this clear?” Chen Ren looked at me, and for quite a while, he did not say anything.
“Transforming” Falun Gong practitioners is the required task of prison disciplinary guards. For over a year, Chen Ren did not have anything to do with “transforming” Falun Gong practitioners. However, he must have been pressured from his leaders. As to how much pressure he got from his leaders, I did not know. One year later, he was transferred and stopped working on jobs related to prison disciplinary matters.
Story II: A criminal who was helped by a Dafa practitioner later protected a Dafa practitioner
Yang Wa (nickname), is a man from the Northwest of China. He has a sturdy body with a rustic face. In 2006, at the provincial prison, I got to know him by chance. He seemed very happy after I told him that I practiced Falun Gong. Then Yang Wa told me a story that he and I would never forgot.
This is YangWa's story:
I live in a poor remote mountain village in the Northwest. My family is very poor and live on a few acres of mountain land. Since we live in a very remote area, which is far away from the government, the village party secretary (of the CCP) then became the “local tyrant” and nobody dared to fight against him. It was the beginning of summer in 1999, and my father had offended the village party secretary by driving away several of the village party secretary's goats that were ruining our crops in the field. The village party secretary retaliated by taking weapons and breaking into our home, chasing my father and beating him up. While I was trying to protect my father I accidentally killed the village party secretary. I knew that I was in trouble. After comforting my parents, I gave myself up to the police. However, the village party secretary's family had a lot of power and money. They bribed some people in the local government to sentence me to death. Our family is very poor and we did not have money to hire a lawyer to fight for justice. My elderly parents felt hopeless and could only shed tears.
After being sent to the detention center, I treated myself as dead already. One day at the beginning of 2000, a Falun Gong practitioner was sent to our cell. He was a director of a bureau in our county. As we got to know each other, I learned a lot about Falun Gong from him. Director Li was very kind. After hearing about my case, he was very sympathetic. He was willing to support me by hiring an attorney to defend me in court. It was going to cost around five to six thousand yuan. Given my family's economic condition, this was an astronomical figure. Yet with Director Li's help, I began to hope for my life.
The lawyer I hired came and even though he tried his best, the village secretary's family had a lot of power and I was still sentenced to death, but with a reprieve. The lawyer said the court sentence was unjust, but I was content with the result. At least I still had my life. The day the verdict was announced, the police from the detention center shouted at me, “You are lucky. If it was not for the Falun Gong practitioner, you would have never been able to save your life!” Everyone knew how my life was saved and all of us felt grateful to Falun Gong, and grateful to Director Li. Thank you to all Falun Gong practitioners, as without you, how would I have had the opportunity to live and to get to know you?
During that time, people in the cell got along with Director Li and listened him talking about Falun Gong and how people should live their lives. Everyone began to understand Falun Gong and knew that what was repeatedly shown on the TV every day were just lies to deceive the Chinese people. It would be very nice if everyone in this world would act like Falun Gong practitioners, and be good people by following the principles of Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance. Then I would not have been sentenced and the Falun Gong practitioners would not be locked up in jail with police officers trying to stop them from being good people. It’s really hard to figure out why the world is like this now.
Unfortunately, I only had a very short period of time with Director Li. Six months later, I left the detention center and was sent to prison.
I would like to say that I have a predestined relationship with Falun Gong. Unexpectedly, in another prison district, I met several Falun Gong practitioners who were wrongly sentenced. But the prison monitored Falun Gong practitioners very tightly at this prison. They would not allow them to contact us at all. The guards thought of all kinds of methods to torture them. They selected those most vicious criminals in the jail to monitor Falun Gong practitioners. They would monitor Falun Gong practitioners 24 hours a day and would not allow them to speak with or contact anyone. Those criminals would verbally abuse or beat up Falun Gong practitioners without any conscience. It was very obvious that the guards were enticing those criminals to do it. Other prisoners could not stand it, but they had no way to prevent the persecution. In order to reduce his or her sentence, nobody dared to say anything. Seeing those bad guys randomly bullying Falun Gong practitioners, I held back my anger for a long time.
Once, in the workshop, three criminals pushed Lao Liu, a Falun Gong practitioner who was over 60 years old, into a corner and punched and kicked him. I saw that and ran over and slapped those bad guys on their faces and then asked them “What kind of hatred do you have towards Falun Gong practitioners? You, such cowardly people, would dare to bully only good people.” They looked at me surprised and nobody dared to say anything.
At that time, I really did not use much strength but one of those person's nose began to bleed. Three of those guys were drug addicts and they were very weak. Before I got a chance to help Lao Li to get back on his feet, those bad guys had already run away. I knew that they probably went to report me. As a result, before the end the work day, the instructor guard asked me to go to the “conversation room” (a place specifically used for interrogating prisoners). The disciplinary prison guard slammed his hands on the table with anger and shouted at me, “I think you have had enough. How dare you protect Falun Gong practitioners and fight against the government? I am now reminding you that you are still in the term of reprieve of a death penalty. You should not look for trouble for yourself. From now on, be on your guard! I am going to deduct your living allowance for half of this year (each month the prison gives each inmate a wage of five yuan), which will be used as medical expenses for them...” He said a lot of nasty words yet I was not afraid, neither did I listen to what he said. Later, Lao Liu helped me to pay for those medical expenses.
Falun Gong saved my life. I know that Falun Gong practitioners are all good people. Those who terrorize Falun Gong are certainly not good people. However, after that incident, everything really started to work out well. Those bad guys dared not to blatantly bully Falun Gong practitioners any more. Other inmates in the prison district admired me and said that I was full of justice. They said that even though I was sentenced to a reprieve of a death penalty, I dared to stand up to those people who took orders from the authorities. It was strange that after that, the prison guards never bothered me again.
From the Call for Submissions to Commemorate the Twentieth Anniversary of Falun Dafa's Introduction