Former Judge Tells About Being Persecuted in China
Huiying Li (left) a Falun Gong practitioner and former judge from Dalian City, China, shared her story of persecution by the Chinese regime at a May 11, 2011 forum at the University of San Diego, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice.
Former Judge Tells About Being Persecuted in China
Ms. Li Huiying, was a judge in Dalian City, China, until she, herself, became the victim of the unlawful, state-launched persecution, sent to a labor camp without trial, while authorities forced her husband, a surgeon, to divorce her.
In 1994, Ms. Li and her father started practicing Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa), and both of them became very healthy through the practice.
Her father, a retired court prosecutor, used to have six very serious diseases, including very high blood pressure, and heart and lung disease. She also had a very serious health problem. Through practicing Falun Gong, they recovered from all of those illnesses, she said.
But the most important thing she and her father learned from practicing Falun Dafa, was to follow the guiding principle of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, and to become a better person.
“For example, I was a judge. In China corruption is common in the judicial system. As a judge, almost every day, we would encounter bribery. Almost every one would try to bribe us. It was very hard to refuse bribes. Through my practicing Falun Dafa, and being honest and truthful, I was perhaps the only judge that refused bribes and was known as a fair and just judge,” Ms. Li said.
During the late 1990s more and more people in China began practicing Falun Dafa, and started to lose faith in communism. So in 1999, the Chinese government started banning and persecuting Falun Gong.
In 2001 her father was locked up in a labor camp for 16 months without any trial and forced to do slave labor. Conditions and treatment were very bad at the camp. For example, he was only allowed to go to the restroom twice a day. His health deteriorated drastically. His high blood pressure returned and became very critical, and he even had difficulty walking. So they finally released him. But within one week after his release he suffered a stroke and became paralyzed.
Ms. Li also encountered very severe pressure to stop practicing Falun Gong from the government at her workplace.
Ms. Li felt it was terribly wrong to persecute people like that, and in April 2002 she went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing and pleaded with the government to stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.
“I was taken to the police station. They punched me, and my nose was bleeding,” Ms. Li said.
Without a trial, she was put in a labor camp for three years and was forced to work for 16 to 17 hours every day. After 30 months she was transferred to the notorious Masanjia labor camp, known for its brutal torture of Falun Gong practitioners. There they extended her term 10 more months.
“In order to force me to give up my belief, they deprived me of sleep for three days and three nights,” Ms. Li said.
At Masanjia she witnessed a lot of torture.
One practitioner insisted in doing the Falun Gong meditation. “They taped her entire body in that position [with her legs folded in double-lotus] for two weeks, until she was almost paralyzed,” Ms. Li said.
Three other practitioners told here they were sexually assaulted by other female (non-Falun Gong) prisoners with a broken, jagged rod and a broken beer bottle to force them to denounce Falun Gong.
Some of the practitioners were taken to the hospital for blood testing.
“At the time I didn’t know why they were blood tested,” Ms. Li said, referring to the information released in 2006 that Falun Gong prisoners of conscience were systematically killed for organ harvesting.
Ms. Li was also fired from her job because she would not sign a statement denouncing Falun Gong. And even after being released from the labor camp, she was under surveillance by local police who constantly called and checked on her.
Her family members were also put under tremendous pressure, she said. Her husband, a surgeon, was forced to divorce her. And her daughter changed from being very happy, to becoming introverted and staying away from people.
Her father passed away when she was at the labor camp, and she was not allowed to attend the funeral.
“I think it is very sad, just for wanting to be good people, to follow truth, compassion and tolerance, so many people [in China] have died,” she said.
Ms. Li considered herself to be one of the few very fortunate Falun Gong practitioners to have escaped the persecution in China and now lives in America. Her former husband sent their daughter to college in the U.S., and that’s how she was able to come for a visit. She then applied for asylum.
“I hope the communist system will collapse like it did in Russia, and that all Chinese will enjoy freedom,” Ms. Li said.