Wang Jing, who recently escaped to the United States, is a victim of the regime’s torture. She recounted her story of being brutally beaten by police, when her son was 3 years old.
When Wang stood in Tiananmen Square in 2000 and unfurled a banner that read, “Falun Dafa is Good,” she knew she was risking her life. But she had benefited so much from practicing Falun Gong that she felt compelled to do something to appeal.
Wang, as well as others who joined her peaceful protest, were quickly surrounded by police who began beating them. “They took us one by one and stuffed us into their police cars,” Wang said. Once at the detention center, the police locked them in a steel cage.
“Eventually the police took me out of the cage and pulled me downstairs; they violently hit my face until it was full of blood. The next morning, because I was unwilling to give up my beliefs in Falun Dafa, police dragged me to a room and made me wear a jacket and tortured me for 3 to 4 hours. My arms were cuffed, cutting into the skin. My two hands became black. When they released my hands, I had already lost all feeling in my arms. A long time passed before I could feel them again.
“During this time, I still refused to give up my beliefs, so they brought in another police officer and dragged me downstairs and used a baton to hit my waist and thighs until they turned purplish-gray.”
She was imprisoned for 15 days before being released, but over the course of the next 2 years she was detained by police multiple times, sent to brainwashing classes, and her every move monitored.
Wang’s story is but one of tens of thousands.
Falun Gong practitioners account for two thirds of Chinese torture cases brought to the United Nations special rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, according to a report in 2006.
There are 500,000 to 1 million Falun Gong practitioners in captivity at any given time in China, O'Neill said.
Organ Harvesting, Mounting Evidence
“The ghastly crowning achievement of this persecution is that the regime perfected techniques of removing organs from living Falun Gong practitioners, killing untold thousands for profit, with the blessing of officials up to the Politburo level,” said Alder.
Practitioners of Falun Gong are being used as organ donors in a macabre state-sanctioned practice that advertises organs for sale through hospital websites, said Dr. Jing Fang, a member of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting.
“I don’t want to believe this is happening, but more and more evidence ... is coming out,” she said.
Dr. Jing says the number of transplant centers in China increased from 150 to 600 in 1999, the sharp rise coinciding exactly with the beginning of the persecution.
An investigation conducted by Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas and David Kilgour, a former Canadian Secretary of State (Asia Pacific), discovered that from 2001 to 2005, there were 41,500 organs transplanted whose origin could not be accounted for.
“Our conclusion is that there has been and continues today to be large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners,” the 2006 investigation report states.
Quitting the Party
Unprecedented political change is taking place in China, with more and more citizens standing up against the regime.
In November of 2004, The Epoch Times published “The Nine Commentaries of the Communist Party,” an unfettered delve into the nature and history of the communist regime and its multiple campaigns to destroy and control its citizens. From the Great Leap Froward that starved about 30 million citizens, to the Cultural Revolution and Tiananmen Square, the communist regime is responsible for approximately 80 million unnatural deaths of its citizens.
“Shortly after the series was published, tens of thousands of Chinese people per day began submitting their names wishing to renounce the Communist Party,” said Yi Rong, president of a global organization that helps Chinese renounce the communist party. “Today, 120 million Chinese people have quit from the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations.”
O'Neill and others reminded passersby that Falun Gong practitioners are not interested in political power. They understand a free China means freedom from oppression.
“After renouncing the communist regime, many people say they now feel free—they have found peace at last,” O'Neill said.
Support
The U.S. government has strongly condemned the persecution of Falun Gong, for example in House Resolution 605.
“Recognizing the continued persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China on the 11th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party campaign to suppress the Falun Gong spiritual movement and calling for an immediate end to the campaign to persecute, intimidate, imprison, and torture Falun Gong practitioners,” the 2010 resolution states.
