SYDNEY—When Falun Gong practitioner Yue Changzhi was taken to the No.10 Ward in the Beijing Women’s Prison in 2004, she said she stood tall and proud. The authorities had arrested her in order to force her to renounce her belief in Falun Gong. One week later, she was bent and limping. One month later, her body had buckled to a hunchback position.
“They tried to brainwash me. They punched me, dragged me and kicked me; they tried to break my fingers, then fold my wrists back,” she told The Epoch Times through a translator.
She repeatedly refused to sign their renunciation forms or to agree that Falun Gong was not good. They then upped the ante and moved her into the notorious torture position known as “The Stretch”, reserved for practitioners that did not respond to the more routine pummelling.
“They separated my legs as one line on the floor and then they grabbed me by the collar and pressed down. My spine went ‘boom!’ My back cracked in three sections. At that time, I nearly died. They asked me: ‘Will you still practise FG?’ I said: ‘Yes, I will.’ Suddenly, they pressed my body onto my lap; my spine bone, especially the waist part, was excruciating so now I can’t straighten my back.”
Mrs Yue said they continued to force her body down onto her legs, first to the right, then the left, only releasing her because they could see she was suffocating. Each time, they asked her if she would continue to practise Falun Gong and each time she said: ‘Yes, I will!’
Mrs Yue was 65 years old.
In lieu of her persecution as a Falun Gong practitioner in China, Mrs Yue was granted refugee status and is now a permanent resident of Australia. She is as feisty and energetic as any other person on the street and can practise her exercises freely.. Much of the damage done while incarcerated for four years has been healed through practising the exercises, she says. Her back, however, will never completely straighten.
Falun Gong Praised
Mrs Yue’s story is one of thousands of similar stories from Chinese practitioners of the ancient meditation and exercise practice.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, was officially banned in China in July 1999 and to this day, practitioners in China remain severely persecuted.
Mrs Yue had begun practising Falun Gong in 1996. Like millions of Chinese people at that time, the unique “cultivation” practice had bought great health benefits. One colleague she remembered had damaged his back so that he was forced to wear a metal frame. After practising Falun Gong, he was able to move around like a young man and no longer needed the metal support, Mrs Yue said.
After taking up the practice, besides the health benefits Mrs Yue said she had become a model worker in her electrical engineering unit. She was praised openly and asked to speak publicly about the benefits of Falun Gong, which she espouses to this day.
“It is so mysterious, so great,” she said.
The Crackdown
Once the crackdown began, however, attitudes to Falun Gong changed. Her house was ransacked by security forces, her computer stolen and her Falun Dafa materials confiscated. By 2000, they were searching for her, demanding she give herself in and undergo what is called “transformation”. This process involves endless hours of brainwashing, deprivation, abuse and derogatory remarks about FG, with the idea of breaking a person and forcing them to renounce their beliefs.
Mrs Yue went into hiding, she said, first staying with relatives and then hiding in another family residence. However, such is the obsessive pursuit of anyone with a world view that the Chinese Communist Party cannot control that the authorities instead arrested her youngest daughter, abusing and torturing her until she eventually told where her mother was hiding.
Mrs Yue was captured, tortured and for the next four years forced to endure endless rounds of abuse, sleep deprivation and humiliation.
Detention
“They would organise criminals in the detention centre to punch me and abuse me,” she said, “and other times they would not let me go to the toilet for 24 hours at a time. Then, they would make me march—marching, marching for hours.”
During that time, she broke twice—the first time, she signed a renunciation because she felt she could not take anymore duress; the second time, she signed as a result of narcotics hidden in her food.
“You may have one thought: “I won’t do that,” but then, actually, you are doing it. My heart did not want to do it, but I found my hands were following their directions.”
At the time, she could not understand how that could happen, but after her release, she heard that the police had admitted they were using drugs on Falun Gong practitioners to get them to confess.
“They have a quota to fill,” she said.
Mrs Yue said that despite her confessions, it would take less than a month before she would renounce the confession, again saying Falun Gong was good and that she would continue her practice.
In the end, she said the authorities gave up. She also noted that they were worried about her condition, concerned that they might, in fact, be blamed for her back. Inexplicably, out of all the prisoners, she was the only one who was allowed to take a break during the day if her back became too painful.
“They know they have committed a crime,” she said.
In Australia, Mrs Yue continues to attend rallies to raise awareness of the terrible brutalities Chinese authorities are inflicting on practitioners of Falun Gong. One of the activities she is particularly attentive to is the Quit the CCP movement, which facilitates and records the resignations of Chinese mainlanders from the Chinese Communist Party.
After the persecution began, I realised that they were full of lies and resigned, she said.
“I could not stay in such an organisation; it was so hopeless.”
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