Ms. Feng Xiaomei Suffers Retaliation for Seeking Justice

By a Clearwisdom reporter in Hebei Province, China

Name: Feng Xiaomei (冯晓梅)
Gender: Female
Age: 46
Address: Kuaibei Road Post office Dormitory, Shijiazhuang City
Occupation: Engineer for a joint venture company
Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 5, 2009
Most Recent Place of Detention: Hebei Provincial Women’s Forced Labor Camp (河北省女子劳教所 )
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labor, brainwashing, illegal sentencing, beatings, solitary confinement, torture, denial of restroom use

(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Feng Xiaomei has experienced all sorts of injustices and persecution over the past 10 years. She was fired from her job and so were her beloved husband, father, and younger sister. As a result, she had to support the family all by herself. She needed to support an aging mother, a young child, and the five-year-old son of her late sister. In addition to this hardship she was illegally arrested and put in detention. She had no way to formally complain about the detention, the unconstitutional physical abuse, the illegal detention, or even the heinous violence she suffered. As a result of the physical abuse, there was blood in her stool for over a year and she became extremely weak.

Ms. Feng Xiaomei

Ms. Feng Xiaomei’s family

Ms. Feng Xiaomei was released on November 27, 2010. She sent letters to the appropriate government departments asking that the law be upheld and that those responsible for persecuting her be held legally accountable.

The following is an excerpt from Ms. Feng’s open letter:

1. My abduction

I was at work on April 27, 2009, when officers from the Gaocheng City Police Department suddenly appeared and took me away by force.

I was secretly transferred to Hebei Provincial Legal Training Center (a brainwashing center) on May 2. After being held there for 20 days, I was sentenced to 18 months of forced labor although no legal procedures were followed. I was then escorted to the Provincial Women’s Detention Center. The “evidence” cited in the deposition that resulted in a forced labor sentence included:

Testimony: There was “personally signed transcript,” as well as testimony by a person with the surname of Deng. The transcript doesn’t exist because when I was abducted and interrogated I did not prepare a “written statement.”

Material Evidence 1: There were SMS messages between lawyers in Beijing and me in my mobile phone.

Materials Evidence 2: There were records of browsing Falun Gong websites in my laptop computer.

During the whole process the authorities did not abide by the rules of a legal hearing, did not allow me to hire a lawyer, and did not notify my family of my whereabouts.

I was the mainstay in my family. The very fact of sending me to the forced labor camp was disastrous for the elderly and the young in my family. My mother, who was over 70, had to take care of two school-age children. She had no income, and, on several occasions she was on the verge of collapse. She even thought about sending her six-year-old nephew to an orphanage.

I came back home from the forced labor 19 months later and was totally exhausted. Since I had blood in my stool for more than a year I was extremely weak and was unable even to do any housework. My mother was so worried about me that all her hair fell out. My son was forced to drop out of school and work as a laborer wherever he could find a job. My nephew was very dark and skinny. He did not want to go to school.

The subsistence allowances I applied for to support the children still haven’t been approved, so we have had to ask relatives and friends for help or borrow money elsewhere to stay alive.

2. Torture

I was confined in an isolation ward and put under “strict control” for more than 100 days. I was monitored and followed 24 hours a day. The time allotted for using the toilet was also limited. Sometimes I was not allowed to use the toilet for the entire day. Several times I had to use the basin I used to wash my face as a toilet. The inmate monitors forced me to use the cup I used to brush my teeth as a scoop to empty the urine outside the iron bars one cup at a time, because they did not want the guards to know that I had urinated in the basin. They were afraid that their term of forced labor would be extended. I was not allowed to wash my face or brush my teeth. I was not allowed to buy daily necessities like toilet paper. Whenever I had a bowel movement, I had to use the water in the toilet to clean myself. The guards and officers could be heard yelling and swearing every day. Sometimes these sounds would be mixed with the sounds of beatings and pitiful cries.

Qiao Xiaoxia from the provincial 610 Office and several of the education assistants participated in swearing at, insulting, and attacking me. They used “harassing warfare,” as well as the tactic of having several persons take turns attacking me to wear me down. Qiao Xiaoxia ordered her people to force me to stand still day and night. During the day I was forced to listen to the propaganda that slandered Falun Gong as I stood. In the evening the guards would force me to stand in front of the monitoring device. If I slumped the slightest bit, the guards would order the inmates to drag and push me back to the standing position. They also threatened to handcuff me to the headboard of my bed to keep me in a standing position.

When I was really sleepy and my legs and thighs had become swollen from impaired circulation, Qiao Xiaoxia would employ a torture method that she often used. She would order four inmates to push me onto a bed and force me to sit in the double lotus position, both legs are crossed over each other. Inmate Liu Zongzhen twisted my arms behind my back, pulled them upwards, and pressed her knees into my torso, while inmates Zhu Liying and Qi Xiaolu forced my legs down with their knees. Zhao Jianli was their helper. The pain was so severe that several times I was on the verge of going into shock. I screamed repeatedly.

Qiao Xiaoxia seemed to think that this wasn’t severe enough, so she called in a doctor who listened to my heart and took my pulse, and then she ordered the inmates to intensify the torture. Her intention was to make me feel so much pain that I would want to die. I endured the torture for 40 days and was on the verge of physical collapse. I did not want to die because I had my mother and two children to look after. In these severe circumstances, I signed a statement promising to give up my belief, but I did it against my conscience.

I later wrote a solemn statement that declared null and void the statement in which I renounced Falun Gong and that was signed under extreme duress and after relentless torture. When I handed in the statement, I was locked up in an isolation ward and placed under strict control. Feng Kezhuang drove to Qiao Xiaoxia’s home and brought her back to begin a new round of torture.

The depression I felt was beyond description. Under such relentless physical torture, blood showed up in my stool at the beginning of August. After that, I saw blood in my stool whenever I was physically attacked. This still occurs.

3. “The Provincial Leaders Really Hate You”

During a conversation with Yuan Shuqian, deputy director of the “Legal Education Center” (Shijiazhuang City 610 Office), he said, “You found defense lawyers for Wang Bo and you found the lawyers in Shijiazhuang. Because you did that, the provincial leaders really hate you. They were determined to find an excuse to arrest you and “transform” you. Of course, finding a lawyer should not be considered a violation of the law. However, it set a bad precedent [meaning it would serve as an example and encourage more people to seek lawyers’ help]. How many Beijing lawyers do you actually know? What did you talk about with a certain lawyer in a taxi one day?”

In Shijiazhuang, people who had heard about Wang Bo were sympathetic to the suffering of her family. When people learned that six Beijing lawyers, including Li Heping, Deng Biao, and Li Xionbing, wanted to work with the family, they were relieved. When one lawyer said in court, “The Constitution is above anything else and following a belief is not illegal,” it meant that, from the legal point of view, practicing Falun Gong is not illegal. The practitioners clarifying the truth, distributing fliers, and browsing the Falun Gong website are absolutely legally allowed to do such things. It was really refreshing and stirring to hear. Their defense caused a sensation at home and abroad.

I finally understand the real meaning of what Yuan Shuqian said to me. The reason that I was sentenced to forced labor and suffered terrorist-type retaliation was because the provincial leaders wanted to get revenge. This was because they “really hated me” for finding the lawyers to defend Wang Bo.

The harm the retaliation caused proves that government departments will make vindictive attacks on those who help others to find a lawyer. This matter gives society much food for thought. I, however, feel saddened.

Submitted to the leaders and departments involved.

Chinese citizen: Feng Xiaomei

Chinese version available at
http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/1/26/235345.html

By Helping Falun Gong Practitioners, I Became a Practitioner

By a practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) One of my relatives was arrested in 2006 because he practices Falun Gong. He was held for nearly one month and was tortured. The authorities also tried to extort thousands of yuan from him. I was not a practitioner at the time, and told my relative not to give them any money. I said, “If you consent to this, then you’re admitting guilt.” I called the head of the police station and asked him to release my relative. He was released within a few days. However, he was arrested again six months later. When I called the station again, I told the officer that my relative is a kind and very honest person, and that they should treat him well. To my surprise, he was soon released.

From seeing my relative’s character and behavior I could tell that practitioners have compassion, selflessness and perseverance. I was deeply moved and very much appreciated his belief. The police arrested and ransacked the home of one of my distant relatives, also a practitioner. When I called the head of the police station, he said, “This relative of yours has caused a lot of trouble. We found many anti-communist materials in her home. This is very serious.” I then asked the official for help, “You don’t know her. She’s a very kind person and loves helping others. Please help us out, I would really appreciate it.” The official agreed to help us and she was released a month later.

To see practitioners remain firm in their belief and try to help people understand the facts about Falun Gong in order to save them, even after being arrested and tortured, really touched my heart. What spiritual level were they at? Where do they get such strength? I thought that Falun Gong must be different from other types of Qigong. I thought that since it was so good, I should give it a try.

I began practicing at the beginning of 2008. Through Fa study, doing the exercises, sending righteous thoughts and talking to people about the Falun Gong, I came to understand the meaning of life. I learned a lot of universal principles. Teacher said:

“We see that in this universe a human life is not created in ordinary human society; the creation of one’s actual life is in the space of the universe. Because there is a lot of matter of various kinds in this universe, such matter can, through its interactions, produce life. In other words, a person’s earliest life comes from the universe. The space of the universe is benevolent to begin with and embodies the characteristic of Zhen-Shan-Ren. At birth, one is assimilated to the characteristic of the universe. Yet as the number of lives increases, a collective form of social relations develops in which some people may develop selfishness and gradually their level will be lowered. If they cannot stay at this level, they must drop down further. At that level, however, they may again become not so good and not be able to stay there, either. They will continue to descend further until, in the end, they reach this level of human beings. ” (Zhuan Falun)

People are attached to all kinds of things at this human level, and their moral standards are gradually becoming worse. When I first began practicing, I couldn’t arrange my time well and didn’t do the exercises every day. I didn’t always send righteous thoughts at the correct times, and even when I did, I couldn’t focus my thoughts properly. I was usually busy with work and enjoyed my social life. I didn’t cultivate well and wasn’t diligent. I had a variety of attachments and wasn’t clear about the Fa principles.

I used to have severe back problems and a swelling in my breasts, and often woke up in the night due to the pain. But all these problems soon disappeared after I started to practice.

In March 2009, a year after I started practicing, my colleague and I took a business trip to the northeast of China. I had an ominous dream the night before our departure, and the next day I was worried. As we were driving to the airport, we got stuck a traffic jam, which was caused by a crowd of people going to the temples. I didn’t mind if we missed the flight, and thought how lucky I’d be if there was an accident with the plane. I immediately thought that I am a practitioner and it is dangerous to have such thoughts, and very selfish. There were so many innocent people on the airplane, I should care for them. At that moment, the crowd dispersed and we drove off to catch our plane.

About 20 minutes into the flight, the plane shook severely, and then the flight became smooth again. Right after lunch, it began to shake again. It was more violent this time, and my book fall out of my hands and onto the floor. The plane kept dropping and then rising for quite some time. The passengers were frightened and screaming.

I was also very frightened, but was still clear-minded. I knew that as a practitioner I must be calm. My colleague and I kept repeating, “Falun Dafa is good. Truth-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” The airplane gradually settled down, and I kept thinking in my heart: Thank you, Master!

I began distributing truth-clarification materials to my friends, relatives, work colleagues and other people with predestined relationships with the Fa. If I met someone on the roadside or at a gathering, I would let them know the facts about Falun Gong. I would talk in depth to people that have a high level of education, and for those without much education, I would try to make it easy for them to understand. I spoke directly to the point. Many people quit the CCP after listening to what I had to say. Some people gladly accepted the information I gave them and were very grateful. Those who were ingrained with the party culture wouldn’t believe what I said, even after speaking to them several times. Some people wouldn’t even look at the materials I had with me, and would say some bad words to me.

On my way to a city in Inner Mongolia one time, I chatted with a couple on the train. We started talking about corruption and then moved on to Falun Gong. They had heard that Falun Gong was good, but were confused about the Tiananmen self-immolation incident. I explained how the event was fabricated by the CCP, and used to turn people’s hatred towards the practice. I told them, “Falun Gong is a high-level cultivation practice of the Buddha school and teaches people the principles of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance.” I told them about how the CCP will receive karmic retribution for all of its crimes. When I finished talking, they wanted to quit the CCP.

I tell people that the numerous disasters that are occurring around the world are due to the decline of mankind’s moral standard. Human beings are created by divine beings, and divine beings will eliminate those incorrigible people. Falun Gong teaches the universal Law to save sentient beings. This is a rare opportunity. However, many people don’t grasp it. They believe the CCP’s lies and propaganda about Falun Gong. When people ask me, “Why should I withdraw from the CCP?” I tell them, “When you joined the CCP, you vowed to go along with it forever, and fight for your whole life. The CCP is going to be eliminated, this means that you will die with it, right?” For those that say, “I don’t believe what I can’t see or touch.” My reply is, “Can you see or touch the earthquakes, tornadoes and tsunamis? If you wait until you can see or touch them, the disasters will have already occurred and you might have already died.”

With in-depth Fa study, I became more skillful in clarifying the facts and helping more and more people to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. Saving sentient beings is our historic mission. It is Master and Dafa that saves us all.

Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/2/6/235927.html