“It doesn’t matter how famous you are, how successful you are,” the guards said, “as long as you practice Dafa, you are a target.”
Mr. Liu, executive director of Hubei Province Sculptor Institute, and winner of many international art awards, had been watched closely by the Chinese Communist Party security forces since 1999—the year the persecution of Falun Gong was launched.
In mid-1999 he was called to the office at work. “The communist party official in charge of my workplace told me to quit Falun Gong and take down all my related calligraphy at my home” said Mr. Liu. The communist officials were putting on the pressure. A client who hired Mr. Liu for a commissioned sculpture was forced to sign a document from the Public Security agency, promising to watch him.
“Before I started practicing Falun Gong I had heart problems and arthritis,” said Mr. Liu through a translator, “That’s all cured.”
The 67-year-old was arrested in 2002 and locked in a brainwashing center—a hotel that had been converted for the purpose. For two months he was locked in a small twin share room with a guard who stayed all day, every day. Mr. Liu was handcuffed to a bed at night, and sometimes during the day, the handcuffs cutting into his skin.
“The officials took turns to interrogate me, day and night, in the room, so that I didn’t have a chance to sleep. They wanted to break my will this way.”
“The mental torture was the hardest.”
The worst was yet to come. Six days in a detention center was next, testing his limits. “We were all treated like animals,” he said, “there were a lot of criminals in there.”
For six days, Mr. Liu said he was forced to sit facing a wall, every day from morning until 10 p.m.
“We were told to memorize the rules of the brainwashing center,” he said, “without a drop of water the entire day.”
The police warned Liu that if he didn’t stop practicing Falun Gong, his art career would be over—and no one would commission him to sculpt again.
“They changed the guards in the room all the time so that I didn’t have a chance to sleep.”
Release was bittersweet—he was let out as bait—for his wife had escaped from a hospital and she was the bigger prize. The Communist Party officials put up a bounty of 50,000 Yuan for her capture, but she remained elusive until she fled to Thailand in 2007.
Mr. Liu’s wife had been captured with him in Shenzhen in 2002 and it was the last time they would see each other for more than five years. “I had no idea where she was or how to find out where she was,” he said.
“For those who have not experienced persecution, it is very distant. But to me it’s very real,” he said. “I could not go home, my grandson grew up sick with fear, my family is broken.”
Days after his release, Mr. Liu evaded the security forces and escaped from the city by changing taxis three times. Making it to southern China, he phoned a friend in Hong Kong, who arranged travel to Thailand for him. Now, a United Nations refugee in the U.S.A., and reunited with his wife, Mr. Liu can practice his craft, and spiritual discipline, freely.
His practice of Falun Dafa has also had a profound influence on the direction of his sculpting.
“I want to leave beautiful sculptures for future mankind,” he said, “I want to make them very compassionate.”
