CW: Story of Incredible Courage, Endurance and Compassion
Falun Dafa Practitioner Changes Hearts of Prison and Labor Camp Inmates and Guards
(1/3/2003 19:31)

(Clearwisdom)On July 22, 1999, several thousand Dafa practitioners, including Song Xu, went to the provincial party committee of Henan Province to appeal peacefully for the release of practitioners in charge of the Dafa Assistant Center of Henan Province who had been illegally arrested on the night of July 20. In the afternoon, all practitioners were detained in a nearby elementary school. Song Xu spoke to the police about the truth of Falun Dafa the entire time. Several police were around him and earnestly listened. When almost all the people had left in the evening, he was seen still picking up the litter on the ground.

In March 2000, during the conference of the National People's Congress, Song Xu went to Beijing to appeal for the end of the persecution of Falun Dafa. He was arrested and detained at Qiliyan in Zhengzhou City. At that time, most practitioners were passively enduring the persecution, but Song Xu started a hunger strike. He was released unconditionally after seven days on a hunger strike.

In June 2000, Song Xu went to Tiananmen Square to tell the truth about Falun Dafa. He was arrested and detained in a detention center in Beijing. He started to deny all of the persecutors' arrangements to persecute him from the first day of his detention, refusing to tell his name or to wear a prisoner's uniform. He went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention. At the instigation of the police, prisoners in the cell tortured him brutally. They claimed, "There have even been people with death sentences here who still gave their names. Nobody walks out of here without telling his name." Although he suffered severe physical injures, he still kept clarifying the truth of the persecution and the practice of Falun Dafa to both the prisoners and the guards and introduced Dafa to the prisoners who had beaten him. Everyday the prison guards force-fed him. Once a prison guard violently pulled out one of his teeth with pliers and force-fed him with two packages of salt. During this extreme suffering, he called out, "You will not have a good ending." The next day, when the guard came to force-feed him again, Song Xu said to him, "I thought about it a long time last night. I'm sorry that I was angry with you and scolded you yesterday. My Teacher told us not to have any complaint or hatred, under any circumstances. I didn't do well yesterday and said something that a Falun Dafa practitioner should not have said. Although it was wrong that you tortured me, I still want to apologize to you sincerely." The prison guard was struck by what he said, and was on the verge of tears. He put down the pliers in his hand and left.

Gradually, all the prisoners in the cell made friends with Song Xu. The prisoners, with tears in their eyes, who had brutally beaten him earlier, helped him wash his wounds. After being detained for 20 days, Song Xu was released. The prison guard accompanied him all the way to the railway station. He held Song Xu's hand and said, "I would like to have a friend like you. You are the first one who walked out of here without telling your name."

Song Xu studied the Falun Dafa teachings diligently and was able to understand major issues from the perspective of the teachings. Because of this, he was able to play an influential role in helping to clarify the truth of the persecution in the Zhengzhou area, and the corrupt authorities tried very hard to find him.

In November 2000, Song Xu went to help a practitioner who had been had encountered some great difficulties through not closely following the teachings as written. When he opened the door to that practitioner's home, the police from Jinshui District of Zhengzhou happened to be there. They were over-excited and shouted, "Song Xu, we finally got you!" At that moment, the practitioner who had gone astray was shocked by the situation and was deeply moved by Song Xu's selflessness and by his willingness to risk his own life to help a fellow practitioner. Since that incident, that practitioner has again become a steadfast and diligent Dafa disciple.

Song Xu was detained in the No.1 Detention Center of Zhengzhou. He refused to cooperate with any of the authorities' evil demands. On the 13th day of a hunger strike, he was found to have no pulse. The authorities became scared and sent him back home. He recovered quickly at home and again resumed telling people the truth about the persecution and practice of Falun Dafa.

In February 2001, Song Xu and another practitioner from Kaifeng were arrested at the Zheng Zhou railway station. He was directly sent to the No.5 Unit, Baimiao Forced Labor Camp in Zhengzhou, and was sentenced to two years of forced labor. Song Xu denied any arrangements by the authorities to persecute him from the very beginning. He refused to wear the prison uniform and to have his photo taken; he refused to answer roll call and to do manual labor. He went on a hunger strike at the end of March. His righteous actions intimidated the authorities so they brutally tortured him.

There was no bed for Song Xu in the prison cell and he had to sleep on the ground. With the excuse that Song Xu had violated the rules of the labor camp, the deputy of No.5 Unit, Chen Lingling, and the political instructor Han Hongtao, locked Song Xu in a small cell and commanded four prisoners to monitor him. Li Mingyao, Wu Minghai and Mao Bo were three of those whose names that are known

Song Xu suffered brutal beatings constantly from the prisoners. He was also forced to undergo daily "brainwashing" from collaborators. [Note: collaborators are former Falun Dafa practitioners who have been "transformed" due to brutal torture and brainwashing].

At one assembly, a deputy mayor said, "We must transform Song Xu, and make him "the second Zhuang Li in Zhengzhou"! [the name of an active collaborator detained in the Provincial Labor Camp] Chen Lingling and Han Hongtao are constantly putting pressure on the collaborators, saying, "We must transform Song Xu!" None of the collaborators dared to talk to Song Xu, because faced with all of his righteous thoughts and deeds, all of their own ugliness and maliciousness was completely exposed.

After about 20 days on the hunger strike, Song Xu stopped and started to eat a little bit. The persecution intensified immediately. Because he could not walk due to his damaged legs at that time, he needed help from those four criminals in order to cope with daily life. When he wanted a drink of water, they would not give it to him; when he wanted to eat, they would not pass the food to him; when he wanted to write, to appeal against the torture he suffered, they would not give him any paper. Under the instigation of the team leader Chen Lingling, the four criminals locked him up in cell No.9, covered his mouth and beat him up in order to force him to give up his faith and to compromise.

A few days later, Song Xu realized that his determination had wavered, of which the persecutors had taken advantage. Realizing this, he strengthened his righteous thoughts and started the difficult hunger strike again.

When the authorities saw that their hopes to make him give up his belief in Falun Dafa were again shattered, they treated him with extreme cruelty and severely tortured him. When they force-fed him, they used metal tools to pry his teeth apart. They used a very dirty and thick pipe to forced-feed him through his nose. They also forced-fed him with hot pepper water and highly concentrated salt solution. In addition, they also wiped burning ground chili pepper paste into his eyes. Once, when forced-feeding him, the vicious authorities even tore his mouth badly. Each time they tortured him, they were afraid that what they were doing would be known or heard by others. Song Xu quickly realized that the authorities were most afraid of being exposed to the public, so whenever they persecuted him, he would shout loudly, to expose their criminal acts, so that everybody could hear him.

In order to prevent Song Xu from exposing their evil conduct, they would beat him up at midnight, with his mouth covered up. When this happened, Song Xu would shout loudly about the torture the next day. He also sternly warned the doctors and the police who forced-fed him that this kind of conduct was illegal. After that, they dared not to force feed him themselves, and had the criminals do it. He would shout out loudly the names of those who were persecuting him this way. During the few days, while he suffered through extremely brutal persecution, he loudly shouted, "I, Song Xu, don't want to die. If I should die, it is because I was tortured to death, and is not a suicide!" [Note: Practitioners who are persecuted to death in prisons or labor camps are often reported as having committed suicide]

In order to prevent Song Xu from appealing against their atrocities, after each beating they would forcibly take away Song Xu's bloodstained clothes and also remove pieces of his broken teeth resulting from the force-feeding, and then declare that he had no evidence for his appeal.

With such inhuman tortures, the police still claimed that, "nobody tortured Song Xu." The collaborators also slandered him, but no matter what they said, nothing could waiver Song Xu's rock-solid determination to resist and expose the evil and to defend Falun Dafa. Song Xu's righteous thoughts and deeds frightened the evil authorities, and eventually nobody dared to torture him or treat him unscrupulously any more.

Song Xu's story was published on Clearwisdom website (a website for Falun Dafa). The labor camp saw the report on the internet and strictly blocked any news from reaching the public, and they fabricated rumors that it was not true, saying that Song Xu had not been on hunger strike. In order to discredit Clearwisdom, the authorities concocted a propaganda scheme. They arranged for all who were detained in Team 5 at the labour camp to participate in a sports meet, and secretly pointed several video cameras at Song Xu, intending to get pictures of Song Xu playing games or watching games together with others. But Song Xu saw through their plot and firmly refused to cooperate. The whole time during the sports meet, he kept bent over the table and did not lift his head at all.

Song Xu always made sure that the persecutors would not have any opportunity to take advantage of him for their propaganda purposes. Whenever there were reporters or video cameras present, he would keep waving his hands in front of his face while speaking so that his pictures could not be used to fabricate rumors and lies about Falun Dafa.

Once at a large assembly of inmates, which was attended by leaders from the prosecutor's office and some other departments, as well as journalists from TV stations and newspapers, Song Xu loudly shouted, "I am treated unjustly. I must appeal!" Several criminals quickly pushed him down, covered his head and carried him away. Afterwards, some people came to talk with him. He finally had a chance to hand in his appeal. Although the criminals who beat him had several days added to their incarceration terms, the fact that the police and the criminals acted in collusion with one another to torture him was not dealt with. From then on, though, no police dared to order any criminals to beat him any more, and the criminals were all very afraid of him. Whoever was ordered to guard Song, that criminal would become frightened and literally shake all over, because the criminals who tortured Song earlier were all threatened by the police being told that they could not tell anyone the truth of Song's torture and if they did, the criminals themselves would take full responsibility for the tortures against Song.

Song Xu's physical condition deteriorated. He became thinner and thinner everyday, and it looked like he was going to die. No criminals wanted to guard him, fearing that they would be held responsible for his death. The police also did not know what to do. Finally, they had to let those collaborators who had gone astray from Falun Dafa's teachings to take turns guarding him.

Once there were two of them guarding Song Xu. He took the opportunity to talk to them for several hours, and by the end they were both moved to tears. The next day, they wrote solemn declarations and handed them in to the police, declaring that all of their " three written guarantees" (to give up their practice Falun Dafa) were null and void, and that they would start practicing again. Inspired by these two, all others in the camp who had written the "three written guarantees" also declared that their written statements were invalid. The persecutors became very angry at this turn of events. They began to strictly supervise Song Xu, and nobody was allowed to approach Song at all. They also arranged specific people to guard Song, and encouraged criminals to torture Song. Although he could not contact anyone, whenever people passed by his cell, Song would shout some words to keep people alert. He would also raise his thumb to those who stayed firm with Falun Dafa, to encourage them to strengthen their determination.

The head of the group who was assigned to monitor Song Xu was a drug user by the name of He Suizhu. This person was very vicious and brutal. In order to score points with the authorities to get his sentence reduced, he brutally tortured Song Xu. They tied up Song Xu's whole body with ropes, then tightly wrapped him with a quilt, covered his head with a helmet and put a piece of dirty cloth into his mouth. They did not allow him to move or turn his body all day long. As a result he had to urinate and defecate inside his pants. He Suizhu, also a drug addict, once squatted in front of Song Xu, spit in Song Xu's face, cursed him with all kinds of words and slapped his face for as long as four hours. The whole purpose was to attempt make Song Xu angry.

During this whole event, Song Xu was not affected and kept quiet. He Suizhu got so angry that he started to curse Falun Dafa and Falun Dafa's founder, Master Li Hongzhi. At this point Song Xu shouted, "Stop your nonsense! Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is good!" He shouted and shouted until he lost his voice and his mouth was stuffed with a piece of dirty cloth. He Suizhu used to stand on Song Xu's chest, pressing down hard. He also forced Song Xu to lie face down on the ground and asked one prisoner to lift Song's feet and the other to lift his upper body while pushing down hard on the center of Song's back. Song was in extreme pain feeling his body was about to break. They often hit his buttocks with wooden sticks until they became bloody. He Suizhu also forcibly inserted a drumstick into Song Xu's rectum.

In addition to such inhumane tortures, Song Xu had to endure the daily brutal force-feeding, but Song Xu managed to hold on. Each time he was carried out for force-feeding and saw other Falun Dafa practitioners, although he was too weak to speak, he looked at them, and in his eyes they could see his encouragement and righteousness. At such moments, fellow practitioners would give him a thumbs-up and he would also raise his skinny arm to wave to them.

During the 80 days of Song Xu's hunger strike, his body weight dropped to about 25 kilograms (about 57 lbs) and his life was in danger. The labor camp had to take him to a hospital for medical examination. When Song Xu was carried out of the labor camp, he was all bones and was dying. A family member of a labor camp inmate said that she almost cried when she saw Song Xu's situation. The hospital found that Song Xu's kidneys, intestines and stomach had suffered serious damage due to long-term torture. As a result of being tied up for several weeks, Song Xu lost the ability to walk as his calf muscles had became atrophied. Even in such condition, Song Xu still took the opportunity to tell the facts and expose the persecution to the doctors and patients, telling them what he and other Dafa practitioners had suffered. Many doctors learned the truth.

The people who had persecuted him were extremely scared. They quickly informed Song Xu's family to finish the paper work to release him on bail for medical treatment. Thus Song Xu got out of the forced labor camp.

After the brutal persecution Song Xu had suffered and when his enormous endurance was revealed on Clearwisdom, the vicious people in the Baimiao Forced Labor Camp were deeply shaken and they had to somewhat restrain themselves in their behavior. This also strengthened the determination of other Falun Dafa practitioners in the labor camp. The vicious drug addict He Suizhu said in private after Song Xu left, "To speak from my heart, I was overcome by Song Xu's will. I have never seen such a strong man. I admire him from my heart. I wish I had a friend like him."

At that time a policeman said, "Song Xu is now crippled. He won't be up and about for another one or two years after he gets home." However, Song Xu recovered within a short period of time. He then left his home to again continue to tell the truth about the persecution and the practice of Falun Dafa.

Several days ago, Song Xu was captured once again by the vicious authorities. He is being kept in the Zhengzhou No. 1 Detention Center.

Below is contact information for authorities that have participated in the torture and persecution of Song Xu.

Provincial Police Bureau: Switchboard 86-371-5991155, Division 2 (criminal division), there are two division heads, one male, one female, both have last the name of Li.

Provincial 610 Office: 86-371-5902233, 86-371-5904038

City Police Department Switchboard: 86-371-6222023

Jinshui District Police Station: 86-371-6256038

Henan Province Party Committee Switchboard: 86-371-5902627
(1/3/2003 19:31)

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