After my father saw my recent posting above, he started talking to me about a man named Gao Zhisheng (高智晟), an attorney who is letting the entire world know what really happened to Falun Gong. Here’s Wikipedia’s entry on him, though his article doesn’t include the recent events that has occured. After doing some research on this man, I’m really touched by what he’s doing and there are still some Chinese in Mainland China that has the courage to stand up against the oppressive communist government.
My grandma tells me that professors at universities are actually reading these letters outloud to the entire class during lectures. The people who hear it are shocked and moved at the same time, and the person reading it would be crying. I’d like to quote several parts of the letters:
On October 15, I met with Xu Chengben, living in Shandong Province’s Wendeng City. Upon meeting with him, he told me, “My wife He Xiuling’s corpse has been in the police’s refrigerator chamber for nearly two years, waiting to be buried. They tortured her for a long time until she eventually died. It is ridiculous that they have been unable to close this case after two years. I just caught a short glimpse of her before she was tortured to death. When I saw her, she was out of her mind. She was tied to a bed and handcuffed, wearing nothing on the lower part of her body. My heart almost broke seeing my loved one having been tortured so cruelly. They were so inhumane as to push me out of the room after just a few minutes. She was only in her 40s at that time. This is what I saw when the police told me to look at her.”
Yang Kemeng is a sophomore at the Automobile Engineering Department of the Harbin Institute’s of Technology Weihai Branch. He was such a good student and was liked by everyone at the Institute, all the way from students to the president. His public withdrawal from the Communist Youth League (CYP) on a Web site became of particular concerned by an official on the Central Standing Committee of the CCP. … When school started on August 20, personnel from the “6-10 Office” came to the Institute to interrogate him again. He was arrested on August 29, but his parents didn’t know about it until they made a phone call to his dormitory. On September 7, his parents, Yang Pinggang and Chang Lijun, the couple Wang Shengli and Ms. Wang in Jining City were arrested at the same time. Nobody knows their whereabouts to date.” The above is what a teacher surnamed Wang told me.
The inhuman torture experienced by Falun Gong practitioner He Xiuling, before her ultimate death, will be forever imprinted in the memory of the human beings in future. When her family members, after they were finally allowed to see her in the mortuary after she was considered dead, noticed that tears were dripping down from the corners of her eyes, they cried and asked the doctor for an emergency rescue. The doctor’s unusual indifference drove the family members into despair. With the help of one of their fellow villagers who happened to know the doctor, the doctor finally brought over an apparatus for a medical inspection. The result indicated that He Xiuling still had a heartbeat. Instead of rescuing his patient as most doctors would do in normal cases, the immediate reaction of the doctor was to tear the electrocardiogram printout into pieces, and he escaped from the scene murmuring, “I didn’t see anything. I know nothing.” He Xiuling then died, her hopeless family members surrounding her. intears.
At last, I would like to ask your guarantee that the Chinese individuals mentioned in this open letter will not suffer from another run of uncivilized persecution. Hao Qiuyan, a female Falun Gong practitioner from Shijiazhuang, suffered nearly eight months illegal imprisonment because of one of my previous open letters. In the coming future when I still enjoy safety, I will continue to pay attention to their security. As a Chinese citizen and lawyer, I am entitled to do so even though this is threatened by great danger in China now.
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Ever since the morning of October 20, about 20 plainclothes officers from the Beijing Public Security Bureau and the Beijing Police Department have been closely monitoring my family and I. At least nine vehicles surround the entrance of my house every day. On October 18, 19, and 20, the number of vehicles parked outside my home increased to over 20. As the national leaders of China, I cordially ask you to answer the following questions:
First, were you truthful in what you told those tired young faces who monitor me night and day what I, Gao Zhisheng, have really done? Or have you deceived them as well?
Second, have those young policemen been told that the tactics you employ violate the Chinese Constitution and China’s Basic Principle of Law! Do they know that it is illegal?
Third, have you ever told this group of young people that the methods you use against innocent citizens are dirty and immoral?
Fourth, have you told those innocent people trembling from the cold at night how low your methods are? Do they know that threatening and limiting my entire family’s personal freedom is among the most dishonorable and uncivilized action in today’s world?
Fifth, have you ever explained to these people the purpose or meaning of monitoring my family 24 hours a day?
Sixth, have you told these young policemen that in the eyes of the Chinese people your scheme is dirty and humiliating behavior?
Gentlemen, when a citizen’s legal rights and interests have been violated in a civilized country, writing a letter of complaint to the national leaders is considered ridiculous. However, this is the only recourse that the citizens of our country have in such circumstances. There is no way either of you could relate to the amount of pain I am suffering from!
Our child, my wife and I, have the right to ask you both: Who is actually giving the orders to do such wicked things? Our country is not wealthy. Nine hundred million farmers still live in very poor conditions. Because of their poverty, countless children cannot afford to continue their education. Instead, taxpayers’ hard-earned money has been squandered on persecuting its own citizens under the command of a tightly disciplined and unscrupulous political organization. How can you face your own conscience, your countrymen or the civilized world?
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On October 18, also with red-hot enthusiasm, I wrote an open letter to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao, two fellow countrymen of mine, urgently calling on their government to “Stop Persecuting Believers in Freedom and Mend Your Ties with the Chinese People.” The next day, I received blatant threats over the phone at home. Starting the third day, at least 10 cars and 20 plainclothes police officers began circling, monitoring, and following my entire family every day, 24 hours a day. The 15th day after I wrote the letter, the Beijing Judicial Bureau illegally closed the law firm I ran. It is very regrettable how our country treats a citizen who openly makes suggestions.
At this moment, with a trembling heart and a trembling pen, I am writing down the tragic experiences of those who have been persecuted in the last six years. Among the true accounts of unbelievable brutality, among the records of the government’s inhuman torture of its own people, the immoral acts that shocked my soul the most were the lewd yet routine practice of attacking women’s genitals by 6-10 Office staff and the police. Almost every woman’s genitals and breasts or every man’s genitals have been sexually assaulted during the persecution in a most vulgar fashion. Almost all who have been persecuted, be they male or female, were first stripped naked before any torture. No language or words could describe or re-create our government’s vulgarity and immorality in this respect. Who with a warm body could afford to stay silent when faced with such truths?
At 4:20 p.m. on October 28, 2005, Ms. Wang Shouhui (mother) and Mr. Liu Boyang (son) from Changchun City were followed by 6-10 Office staff and were illegally arrested. The two were brutally tortured by the police. At about 8 p.m., 28-year-old Liu Boyang died from the torture. About 10 days later, his mother was also tortured to death. The bodies of the unfortunate duo are still in the hands of the 6-10 Office officials. It took the 6-10 officials three days to inform Liu’s father of his death, while Ms. Wang’s time of death remains unclear. Liu’s father looked for a lawyer in his city, but no one dared to accept his case. The elderly man said, “In a society like this, it is harder to live than to die. Living brings more pain. After I take care of their burials, I’ll follow them and leave, too.”
The stories continue and they get even worse. I hope you have the gut to actually finish the story without throwing up.
American and Taiwan are not perfect. I’d admit to that. I can even accept torture in the times of national emergency. But after reading all this and you still think the current China should take back Taiwan, I have nothing left to say.
