An Open Letter from Women in China Who Practice Falun Gong
To Concerned Individuals around the World,
We are female Falun Dafa practitioners from the People’s Republic of China. With great indignation, we relate the inhumane torture we have been suffering over the past four and one-half years. We are seeking your help.
We follow the teachings of Falun Dafa [Falun Gong], (website) which expound upon the universal characteristics of Truth-Compassion-Tolerance, and practice gentle exercises and meditation to maintain our health. On July 20th, 1999, the former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin launched a campaign to eliminate Falun Dafa. We have been deprived of our basic human rights ever since, and have been physically and mentally tortured in many ways.
Throughout China’s labor camps and police stations, we have been subjected to torture and humiliation. Some female practitioners have been forced to stand still for days and nights while being denied food, the use of a restroom and sleep. Many have been beaten and shocked with high-voltage electric batons. Others have been sent to mental hospitals and injected with unknown substances. Many have been exposed to extremely hot or cold weather.
There has been sexual torture, including stripping 18 women of their clothes and forcing them into the jail cells of male criminal offenders. Some women have been subjected to forced abortions. Some have been force-fed urine and feces. Many so-called ìpolicemenî in China have exhibited the most base and inexcusable behavior. One said: “Don’t you say you practice tolerance? I will see if you can tolerate it when I rape you!” They have ripped off our clothes in public and shocked us with electric batons. Iron wire has been used to pierce our nipples. They have sexually violated our bodies using eggplants, toothbrushes and plastic water bottles. (news) In one Female Labor Camp located in Jilin Province, the police inserted hot pepper powder into women’s vaginas in order to force them to give up their belief and practice of Falun Dafa. They have forced electric stun batons into female practitioners’ vaginas to torture and shock them.
In Beijing, a policeman raped a practitioner under a bridge. (news) Ms. Zhao Jing, a 19 year-old practitioner, was beaten to death after she escaped the persecutors by jumping from a bus that was being used to transport her against her will. Ms. Xinyan Wei, a graduate student from Chongqing University, Sichuan province was arrested on campus simply because policemen suspected that she was distributing Falun Dafa fliers. (news) She was sent to a police detention station and was raped by a policeman in front of two prisoners. Ms. Wei has disappeared, never to be heard from again. None of the policemen who have conducted such sadistic acts have been punished. Instead, they are rewarded and promoted by the government! The head of the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, where the 18 female prisoners mentioned above were abused, was rewarded. He was given 50,000 Chinese Yuan, which is equivalent to about six thousand dollars in the United States. This reward came from Jiang Zemin and his followers. Masanjia’s deputy director was rewarded with 30,000 Yuan for mistreating us.
During the past four and half years, Jiang Zemin’s followers have built more jails and prisons to detain Falun Dafa practitioners. Hundreds of thousands of practitioners have been suffering tremendous pain and are forced to live away from their spouses and families throughout China. So many of us have been expelled from our jobs, from school and have been forced to become destitute and homeless. So many have been beaten, arrested and sent to forced labor camps. Many have lost their lives due to brutal torture.
Jiang Zemin and his followers have attacked our dignity, violated our bodies and our womanly nature because we practice Falun Dafa.
Please help uphold justice, help stop the vicious persecution and protect the dignity and basic human rights of women! This issue should be of concern to all women everywhere, not just in China.
Please help us.
Female Falun Dafa Practitioners from the People’s Republic of China on the occasion of International Women’s Day.