Pang’s mother, Cao Junping, was arrested and taken to the police station for practicing Falun Gong exercises in the public square. She was taken from the same spot where she had practiced peacefully in the early morning every day for four years prior to the regime’s crackdown.
She was released after the family paid 2,000 yuan (US$300), and Cao promised not to practice Falun Gong, an agreement she later publicly retracted.
Cao knew what was likely to happen if she practiced Falun Gong in public. Many practitioners had already been arrested and tortured for similar silent protests, explained Pang.
It was 2001, and the persecution of Falun Gong ordered by the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) top leadership had been raging for two years. Already, hundreds of practitioners had been tortured to death by Chinese authorities. A couple of torture deaths had occurred right in Xingbu.
Falun Gong is a spiritual practice teaching truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, and a set of gentle exercises and meditation. After its introduction in northeastern China by Mr. Li Hongzhi, the ancient practice spread quickly because, practitioners say, it was free, its moral teachings improved lives, it had profound health benefits, and was rooted in traditional Chinese culture.
Its popularity upset then-Chinese-leader Jiang Zemin, who declared the practice illegal in 1999. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), the official press office for Falun Gong, Jiang launched a Mao-style campaign designed to “eradicate” Falun Gong within three months. In order to terrorize an estimated 100 million practitioners into submission, he was said to have told security forces that “no measure is too excessive.”
Thinking of Others First
When Pang’s mother was dropped back home, her daughter found herself full of anger and hate for those who had tortured her mother and wanted to retaliate.
Her mother cautioned her strong emotion, saying: “Daughter, we are Falun Gong practitioners. We don’t have hatred. We don’t have anger. We just treat people well, no matter what they are doing to us, because they are also brainwashed. They are cheated, and when they know the truth they will give up these crimes.”
Pang recalls that on hearing these words half of her anger disappeared. The other half turned into determination to tell people what had happened to her mom, so that others could understand the truth about the persecution.
In an attempt to justify the persecution to the Chinese people, the CCP had concocted slanderous stories about Falun Gong and used its state-controlled propaganda machine to flood all media channels with the false accusations 24/7. Under such a severe brainwashing barrage, mixed up with the terror invoked in the Chinese people by all the hallmarks of another political campaign, many cooperated with the persecution.
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Pang, who was attending college at the time in a nearby city, recalled how she would hear “bad news” every month when she went home to visit.
Everyone knew somebody affected by the persecution. At the time of the crackdown, nearly 1 in 10 Chinese practiced, and the neighbors and extended family members all had stories. Pang said she heard about several practitioners who had been beaten to death, homes that had been confiscated, a funeral forcibly canceled, practitioners arrested while attending a funeral.
“Sometimes I could not bear [to hear]. I refused to accept that, and couldn’t bear it,” said Pang.
Again her mom counseled her, “these people are suffering with their bodies, with their lives, and you cannot even stand it with your eyes and ears?”
Pang says she learned to handle the hardships, and she began to tell her roommates and school friends about her mom’s story.
She had been interrogated at school before, so she was cautious. At her first choice of colleges, she was dismissed when she refused to give up practicing Falun Gong.
