Ladies und Gentlemen:
My name is Liu Wei and I am now living in Germany since March of 2004. I have studied architecture at the FH university in Dortmund. I like to mention the following three points in my report:
- Why was I, a Falun Gong practitioner, maltreated in a labor camp and prison in China?
- Why were we Falun Gong practitioners forced to undergo a physical examination?
- How important is the involvement of the international community against the crimes in China?
1. Why was I, a Falun Gong practitioner, maltreated in a labor camp und prison in China?
I have been practicing Falun Gong, which is a chinese buddhist school since 1995. In September 2001, I had already worked for a German company in Bejing for quite some time. On 24 September 2001, a chinese coworker of mine noticed information material on the persecution of Falun Gong in my office, which I accidentally forgot und left behind. This coworker was against Falun Gong due to the hate propaganda of the chinese government und she was afraid when she found materials in the office. She reported it to the security personnel of the hotel, where our office was located in and the security personnel then reported it to the police. The next day when I arrived at work, they immediately arrested me. From 25 September 2001 until 25 January 2003, I had been detained because of practicing Falun Gong. Police officers took und locked me successively in the prison of the district Dongcheng in the city Bejing, then the distribution site for prisoners who had been sentenced to labor camps and the Bejing women's labor camp. In these labor camps all Falun Gong practitioners were subjected to brainwashing sessions und we were forced by torture to sign a disclaimer, wherein we had to state that we would no longer practice und would renounce Falun Gong.
While I was in prison, a policeman handed me a notice stating that I had been sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp without any court proceedings. I refused to accept this sentencing with my signature und requested an administrative review of this judgement. Yet the policeman was simply angry at me because I refused to sign this conviction. He insulted me und yelled at me: „Even if you don't sign it, I still can send you into the re-education camp!“ Thereafter, I asked to be allowed to lodge an objection against this sentence. The policeman in charge of our cell und using many excuses gave me neither pen nor paper. Inspite of that, the next day at 5 a.m. I was taken to the distribution site for prisoners who had been sentenced to a labor camp.
During the first day in the distribution site, they forced Falun Gong practitioners to squat down for more than five hours and remain in this position. Whereby we had to put our hands on top of our head and were forced to bend our heads down at the same time and our heels had to be aligned in a straight line. Because my posture was not exactly correct, policemen und other prisoners used their feet to strongly kick against the back of my head and insulted me. As a result my legs became numb. I no longer had any feelings in my legs above my knees. Many practitioners lost consciousness und fell to the ground. After the squating position we were forced to stand for about five hours. Some practitioners were forced to squat for days without any break.
Die policemen treated us worse than animals. They said to me: „Prison is just the human hell und here we are the gods. If you don't listen to us you will never be released or set free again.“ While in the labor camps, I was never left alone not even for one second. Not only that we were constantly monitored by cameras (including in the toilets) but we were also constantly monitored by other prisoners.
Immediately upon arrival the first day in the Bejing women's labor camp, they re-educated me until 2 a.m. in the morning, whereby they forced me to always sit on a very low und small stool and I was not allowed to move or get up. After some time, my thoughts were no longer clear, my heart felt as it was constricted, and I felt als if it would leave my body at any time. I had to take heavy breaths und I sweated due to being weak. Because I felt very uncomfortable, I closed my eyes. Yet everytime, these people immediately woke me up. All I wished for was some rest, if only for one minute. I could no longer bear to listen to their nonsense. But they took turns and continued talking. They did not even allow me to rest for one minute. I felt as though I would collapse at any time. It felt worse than dying! Such torture lasted several days, my body was broken and my thoughts were no longer clear. Against my consciousness, I signed the third statement: Renouncing Falun Gong. Under duress, I have written many thousand words against Falun Gong and the founder and read it infront of a running camera.
All the Falun Gong practitioners in the re-education camps and prisons have only two choices: Physical death penalty – if one with a noble soul holds onto the believe of Truthfulness, Compassion und Tolerance,“ or mental death penalty – selling intuitive recognition, or unworthy vegetation. I was robbed of my human dignity through psychological torture, my body had to endure forceful violence, and that is why I wanted to destroy myself und put an end to it. The final goal of the persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lies therein to turn people into devils. All re-educated Falun Gong practitioners have to thank the CCP for being saved by them (after the persecution) und on top of that they have to help the poicemen to beat und cheat those who have not yet been re-educated. In order to test whether or not I was truly and „with all my heart“ re-educated, the police forced me to re-educate other Falun Gong practitioners. I was re-educated from someone who wanted to be a good person and to orientate my life according to „Truthfulness, Compassion und Tolerance“ to a person who insulted und beat others. Under the immense pressure and fear, I totally collapsed und my soul was totally distorted. Even though I was still alive, I rather would have been dead at that time. At this point I told myself: „I am dead, I am dead, dead...“ All I was able to do was to secretly cry at night. Even though I am now in Germany, I often dream about the tortures I endured in China.
We had to performe slave labor starting at 4 a.m. in the morning until midnight (many products were exported overseas, but none of us were ever compensated). Due to the tortures und the slave labor, my back had been injured; I could neither walk straight nor bend over. Furthermore, I had to watch more than one hundred times propaganda newsreports (movies with slandering contents about Falun Gong, which also showed violent szenes).
They only allowed me to go to the toilet three times a day und every time only two minutes. I was only allowed to drink 100 ml water each day und at night they locked the cell door. If someone had to go to the bathroom at night, one had to do it in ones own wash bowl. They only allowed me to change my cloth and wash my hair once a week; and only once a month could I take a shower. When we had visitors at the women's labor camp, I was forced to put on a „show“ in the computer room und the library or play on the sports ground. Normally the computer room und the library were locked up and the sports ground was the place where people were tortured, instead of playing freely.
2. Why were we Falun Gong practitioners forced to undergo a physical examination?
Every Falun Gong practitioner received the same bad maltreatment as I did. Under constant pressure and torture, we were physically and mentally broken. However, while being detained in the Dongcheng prison in Bejing from 25 September 2001 until 20 November 2001, myself and more than one hundred Falun Gong practitioners there were forced to submit to a physical examination. For this occassion, lots of medical personnel and technical equipment had been sent to the Dongcheng prison. Nobody explained to us why we needed to be examined. They checked our bloodpressure und abstracted blood from us in order to examine the blood type and the condition of our inner organs. They examined our heart with an electrocardiogram (ECG). It was peculiar though that none of us ever received any test results of this examination nor any medical treatment. No matter where I had been detained, they always examined me. In the women's labor camp in Bejing we even received a physical examination two times within one month.
We asked ourselves why this examination was only performed on Falun Gong practitioners and not the other prisoners. We could not und did not believe that these examinations were for determining our health conditions, because after all every day they maltreated and tortured us mentally as well as physically.
When in July 2006 and after investigations, Mr. Matas und Mr. Kilgour published in a report, that caused quite a stir in the international community, confirmed the facts that the CCP in China has been and still is performing organ harvesting on living Falun Gong practitioners, I immediately realized the goal of these medical examinations in the re-education camps. These physical examinations were meant as a preventative measure for a possible future organ harvesting. Consequently, I realized that if one of my organs would have been suitable for a patient at that time, I almost became a victim myself of this practise.
While in prison, many Falun Gong practitioners did not reveal their names and addresses because they wanted to protect their relatives und collegues in their workplaces so they would not be implicated and experience any difficulties. When such practitioners would have disappeared, nobody would have looked for them, therefore they were ideally suited for a living „ on call organ bank.“
3. How important is the involvement of the international community against the crimes in China?
After I was released, I returned to work at the obove mentioned German company (GTZ – Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit [German Community for Technical Cooperation]). The responsible person of the chinese partner (Financial and Economic Committee of the Chinese National Peoples Congress), where I had been employed in connection with a project before my arrest, told my German director of the GTZ, that a Falun Gong practitioner was not allowed to work in a German firm. Otherwise our office had to be closed down. The German government had invested over 1 Million Euro of developmental assistance into China through this office. This was a distinct offense against the chinese law und a obvious interference in the decision making process of an overseas company. The Chinese National Peoples Congress is a legislative medium. The officer though did not shun away from treatening to deprive a citizen of her right to work. In this situation, I was always monitored by my chinese an german collegues. Under force, I signed a declaration statement in this company, which stated that I will never say or do anything in connection with Falun gong in the office. If I should defy this, I would be fired. Even though I had been released from the labor camp, I again had been detained in another type of prison. This means that in China the entire society is like a huge prision for all its citizens. I don't know what an overseas company could do in China if a high ranking chinese official is acting like this.
The persecution, especially the organ harvesting on living Falun Gong practitioners is being hidden by the chinese communist regime. This is no longer only a chinese affair, it is a question of human morality und human ethics. A form of destruction und extermination of any human morality in this world.
I herewith urgently appeal with all my heart to all German companies in China:
Please do not try to understand the dictatorship of the communist regime in China, and only because of current small interests, do not support the persecution financially!
I herewith urgently appeal to the German government:
Please help and assist in saving lives in China and immediately stop this absurd und arbitrary persecution of Falun Gong!
Thank you very much
Liu Wei
March 15, 2007
