暴怒的地方官让陈女士赤脚在雪地里跑。据其他目击这一事件的监狱中的人说，两天的折磨使她的腿严重淤伤，她的短短的黑发上粘着脓和血。她在外面爬，呕吐并因虚脱而昏倒。她再也没有恢复知觉，并于2月21日去世。
祖母陈子秀
一年以前，中国以外只有很少的人听说过法轮大法以其养生的功法。法轮大法以法轮功这个名字为人所知，它包含了调息、打坐以及阅读功法创始人李洪志劝善、有时颇为超常的著作。（译者注：炼习法轮功功法无需调息。原文此处为西方记者的误会。）
尽管法轮功已经在中国数百万人中流行，他在国际上引起注意还是去年4月25日的事。那天， 10000多名信众汇聚北京，围住了政府领导所在地中南海，要求政府停止在国家报纸杂志上将他们描述为宣传迷信的邪教。这一人群构成了奇异的景象：大多数是中年人，劳动阶层，当日离开北京市中心回到各地自己的家之前，他们只不过安安静静地在那里打坐。
但是，在一个对其威权的公开挑战没有足够包容力的政府眼里，这个抗议是一次无法原谅的挑衅。政府逮捕了数百名法轮功组织者，并发现其中一些人是中央政府、警察甚至军队中的官员。由于担心一个迅速发展的宗教会影响这个无神论的国家，北京在去年7月宣布法轮功为“邪教”并正式予以取缔。
面临着政府安全部门的全力打压，法轮功本应该迅速消亡。但与偶尔挑战共产党的异见者不同的是，法轮功的活动并未因为大规模的逮捕、殴打甚至残杀而停止。相反，一个强硬的核心仍然继续抗议。在北京的市中心，每天有数十人因试图展开呼吁恢复这一团体合法性的横幅而被逮捕。一年以来，法轮功信仰可以说是对共产主义统治的50年威权最持久的挑战。
代价过高的胜利？
陈女士的故事是极端的例子之一。一方是共产党，它如此坚决地取缔法轮功，并已采用了自1989年在天安门广场镇压由学生领导的反政府运动以来最大规模的公共安全手段。政府在这场斗争中，如果可能获胜的话，将付出极大的代价；它的铁腕手段已使上百万的普通群众对它不抱幻想，比如陈女士的女儿，她在发生去年的事件以前是不关心政治的。同时这也损害了中国的国际地位，因为它需要外国的帮助来解决一系列紧迫的经济问题。另一方是像陈女士一样的人们，以他们简单甚至或许天真的方式站在要求中国法律和宪法保证的自由的缓慢趋势的最前沿。与此同时，许多法轮功修炼者已经妥协--，例如，换成在家秘密修炼的方式，但许多人仍公开强调信仰集会自由的权利。“我们是好人，”据陈女士的朋友回忆，在去世前2天，当潍坊市政府官员在那空荡荡的水泥囚室里审问她，陈女士告诉问道，“为什么我们不能炼我们的？”
陈女士最后日子的故事通过采访她的家人、朋友和囚犯重建了起来。近几个星期有两个同屋囚犯的报告还被偷偷带出了监狱。这些报告的初稿已被检查过，并给作者的亲戚朋友看过，他们证明这文字是他们所爱的人写的。遭受虐待的证言得到二十多家独立的对其他城市法轮功信徒的采访的支持。他们各自提到也被棍棒和电棒殴打过，被拴在栅栏上为的是迫使他们承认放弃信仰。地方官员拒绝为此事对他们进行采访。
与此同时，北京官方对所有监狱虐待证言的立场是：没有法轮功修炼者在拘留期间受到过虐待。它说35000法轮功信徒去了北京，除了有3人在试图逃跑时死亡以外，其他都被安全遣返。国际人权组织说很可能有7个以上像陈女士一样在监狱受虐待致死的事件发生。
“只要她说与法轮功断绝关系他们就让她走，”陈女士32岁的女儿张学玲说。“但是她拒绝了。”3年前，陈女士绝不会想象她会因练法轮功而冒生命危险。她那时55岁，在国营卡车修理厂制造汽车配件，工作30年后提前退休。一天她从自己家1层高的砖头平房走出去散步，陈女士注意到一些法轮功弟子。已守寡20年而且孩子都长大成人，陈女士一天中没有多少事可做，所以她开始定时参加锻炼。“我母亲从来不是相信迷信的人，”张女士说，她自己并不练法轮功。“坦率地说，她过去脾气很坏，因为她觉得自己老了而且为独自抚养我们做了很大的牺牲。参加法轮功后，她的脾气好了许多，她变成了一个更好的人。我们真的很支持她。”
热情的追随者
在后来的2年里，陈女士变成了一个热心的参与者，早上4：30起床，在一小块土地上与其他几个炼功人练上90分钟。在给孩子看一天孙子后，陈女士在晚间阅读该组织的创始人，李先生的著作并与其他同修讨论其思想。这些信念结合了传统的道德观念--做好工作，讲真话，绝不推托责任--以及一些特殊的观念，例如外星人的存在和不同种族都有各自同等的天堂。
渐渐地，法轮功赢得了她附近居民区的拥护。她住在徐家村，一个坐落在中国山东省东部有1百30万人口的潍坊市近郊的工业区。这个小村是个由白杨树划线的土路构成的迷宫，还有许多被褐色碎砖砌的墙包围的小平房--一个典型的正在被其邻近的城市淹没的小村庄。到去年为止，她所在本地的小组已经加倍成有十几个成员--算不上是个庞大的组织，仅仅是居民区中的一个普通存在。
对陈女士来说，中国于去年六月决定禁止法轮功是个很突然的事。她还没留意报纸和电视对法轮功的攻击，而且也没注意一年前其他成员包围北京共产党领导所在地。政府宣布禁止法轮功的那一天“是她一生中最痛苦的一天，”她的女儿张女士说。“她不能接受他们批判《转法轮》还称其为邪教。”
在家修炼
尽管没受到过多少教育并从未关心过政治，陈女士反对这种禁止。她邀请其他成员到她家里练功并拒绝否认她与该团体的关系以及对被她尊称为“李老师”的李先生的热爱。于是，去年11月，几个法轮功的上层组织者被判了长期监禁。震惊之下，陈女士加入了去北京的数千个同修的行列。他们只是怀着一个朦胧的抗议政府的想法。自从七月被禁以来，许多人已经去了天安门，还在那里双盘打坐并把手臂在头顶举成拱形--最经典的法轮功功法的开始姿势。陈女士还根本没做过那些。12月4日，她刚到达北京的第二天，她正走在天坛公园的路上，一个穿便衣的公安人员问她是不是（法轮功）成员，她诚实地做了回答，然后就被逮捕了。据她的女儿后来说，她被带到潍坊市政府驻北京代表处的办公室，一个类似于办公署兼宿舍的许多中国省市都在首都建立的为招待来北京的官员住宿的场所。
第二天，张女士和3个地方官员坐了7个小时的车来北京接陈女士。这对这些官员来说是一种耻辱，他们因为没管好自己的人而受到批评。张女士付了相当于60美元的罚款--一个月的工资，和她母亲回到家。她母亲抱怨警察没收了她随身携带的相当于75美元的现金。
“行政拘留”作为惩罚，城关街街道委员会（街道委员会是中共政府体制的最低一级）的官员把陈女士监禁在他们的办公室，离她家只有200码远。她以被行政拘留的形式在那里待了2周。行政拘留几乎可以被国家任意地强加于人。张女士必须为其母亲另付相当于45美元的住宿费。
1月3日，陈女士庆祝了她58岁的生日。尽管在日夜的观察之下，她仍旧精神百倍，张女士说：“她知道自己是正确的。她想要的只是政府不要给她定罪，因为她知道自己不是罪犯。”
然后，在二月四日农历新年那天，成百的法轮功请愿者在北京被捕并遭到殴打。（尽管已经不再受到监管，陈女士并没有去中南海请愿），首都的官员们为突然的事件感到震惊。二月十六日，陈女士所在的区负责人来见她，告诉她北京要确保不再有其他的法轮功修炼者进京，尤其是中国的一年一度的人代会将在近几天内召开。他要陈女士保证不离开家。
张女士说，“我母亲明确地告诉他们她不能保证不出门，她说她有权利去她想去的地方”。那位负责人气愤地离开了。
被关押
两天之后，张女士回家发现家里的客厅里有六位官员，他们说她母亲在外面被一群在街道四邻徘徊寻找敢于离家出走的法轮功学员的告密者看到了。陈女士被关押，此后她女儿再也没有见过她。他们告诉张女士说，陈女士在城关街道委员会办公室关了一天，但她在夜里不知怎么逃走了，具体情况不清楚。陈女士第二天二月十七日在去火车站时被抓。她显然是想要到北京的信访办去为自己上诉，这是老百姓在蒙冤时能去申诉的最后一个地方。
这一次，当地共产党区办公室来的官员把陈女士关进一个很小的，非正式的监狱，该监狱由街道委员会负责，对法轮功修炼者称之为“法轮功教育学习班”。
而曾被监禁在那所谓的学习班的人都形容那是行刑室。据四位被关押过的学员各自描述，街道委员会的这幢建筑物是两层楼、中间有一个院子，在院子拐角有两间平房，这就是拷打折磨人的地方。
再度罚款
当陈女士被转移到拘留所后，官员打电话给陈女士的女儿张女士说如果交纳$241的罚款，她的母亲就可以获释。张女士已经受够了政府的罚款，她说她母亲是坚持维护自己的权利，她告诉官员他们的罚款不合法的，如果他们不释放她母亲，她要向当地的检察院提出上诉。二月十八日，张女士在他们打来的电话再次拒绝了他们的要求，并且告诉他们她要诉诸法律，尽管她没能这样做。
与此同时，陈女士在监狱里度过了一夜，据另外两位关在同一牢房的人说，整夜都能听到从行刑室里传来凄厉的叫声。在陈女士被关进来之前，她获准再打一个电话，十八日晚些时候她打电话告诉女儿把罚款带来。被陈女士不妥协的态度带来的麻烦而恼怒的张女士和她母亲争论起来，她恳求她母亲妥协回家吧，她母亲平静地拒绝了。
对陈女士的折磨在那天晚上开始了。在这间平房的隔壁房间的一位法轮功学员写道：“我们听到她的惨叫。我们的心在煎熬着，我们的精神几乎崩溃。”据目击者说城关街委会的官员们用塑胶棍棒打她的腿、脚、后背下方，并用赶牛用的刺棒打她的头和颈部。和她同一狱室的人说，那些人不停地吼叫着要她放弃法轮功并咒骂李先生，每一次，陈女士都拒绝了。
一位母亲的申诉
第二天，也就是19日，张女士又接到电话让她把钱带去。张女士犹豫了，接着她母亲接了电话请求她把钱带来，她母亲的声音由平时的坚强自信变成低软而痛苦。打电话的人又接了电话，她说拿钱来。
张女士有一个不祥的感觉，于是急忙带上钱和一些衣服去了。但是楼的周围满布了保安人员，不让她去见她母亲。这使她怀疑是让她交更多钱的圈套，而且可能她母亲根本不在那楼里，于是张女士回家了。一小时后，有位法轮功修炼者来见张女士，告诉她法轮功学员在拘留所被拷打，
张女士急忙和她的兄弟跑了回去，带了一些水果作为一点对公安的贿赂。然而她被拒之门外，他们也不收她的钱。当她看到一个房间里一位老年妇女时就大声叫道，“我母亲是不是被打了？”这位老年妇女摆手象是示意“没有”，但张女士怀疑也可能是示意自己离开，担心她也被抓进去。张女士和弟弟回到家过了一个断断续续的无眠之夜。
随意处置
那一夜，陈女士被带回到那间屋子。当她再次拒绝放弃法轮功修炼，她被用棍子毒打和猛击，另两名被囚者听到了打叫，其中一人从门缝中瞥到了这一幕。她同囚室的听到了她谴责那些官员，说一旦真相大白，中央政府会惩罚他们的。但是，正如法轮功学员在全国各地一次次听到的一样，潍坊的官员告诉陈女士，中央告诉他们，为了铲除法轮功，“怎么都不过份”。毒打继续着，除非陈女士改变思想才会停止，这是两位听到此事的被囚者的证词。
在她进去两个小时之后，陈女士被搡回到位于二层楼上的牢房中。没有暖气，只有一张钢板作为床铺。陈的另外三位室友来给她护理伤口，但是陈女士已经陷入神志不清的状态。其中一位室友记得她呻吟着：“妈妈，妈妈”。
第二天早上，也就是20日，她被命令到外面跑步。在一位同牢房的女士悄悄托她丈夫带出的信里写到，“我从窗子向外看到她困难地慢慢向外爬”。陈女士终于倒下，然后被拖回牢房。
拒绝给予治疗
“我是医药专业的，看到她奄奄一息，我建议把她送到有暖气的另一间屋子去”，一个同室者在信中写到。然而，当地的政府官员只是给她“三七”药片来止住内出血。“但是她已经不能下咽而吐了出来”。她的同室说，被囚者们恳求那些官员把陈女士送到医院，但是那几个一贯批评法轮功修炼者拒绝现代医疗方法是迷信的当官者，却拒绝了她们的要求。最后他们带来一个医生，这位医生宣称陈女士的状况健康。
但是，这位同室写到，“陈已神志不清而且不再说话，只是吐出深色的粘稠液体，我们觉得那是血。第二天早上他们才确认她快死了。”当地公安的刘光明警官说“试了试她的脉，而且她的脸已经僵硬了”，陈女士死了。
据张女士和她兄弟说，当天夜里，几个当官的到张女士家里说她母亲生病了。两人被带上车到了距离拘留所有一里远的一家旅社，旅社被公安包围了。当地的党委书记告诉他们陈女士死于心脏病了，但是不允许他们看她的尸体。经过几个小时的争吵，官员们终于同意让他们看母亲的尸体。但是必须在第二天才行，但他们必需在这个严密防范的旅店过夜。姐弟俩拒绝留下，最后被允许回家。
一袋衣服
二十二日，张女士和她兄弟被带到了当地医院，医院也被警察包围。他俩回忆说，母亲躺在一张桌子上，穿着传统的丧服：一件简单蓝色的束腰外衣和长裤。在屋子墙角的一个袋子里，张女士说她看到了母亲沾满血迹、被扯破的衣服，还有沾着污迹的内衣。她的小腿瘀黑，背上有六英寸长的鞭痕，牙齿裂开，耳朵肿大青紫。张女士昏了过去，她的兄弟哭着扶住她。
当天，医院出了一份报告，报告说陈女士是自然死亡。该医院拒绝对此事评论。张女士说，她质问官员们她看到的母亲衣服是怎么回事，他们说她母亲心脏病发作后行动不便，所以弄脏了衣服。
张女士和她兄弟试图提出诉讼，但是没有律师受理他们的案子。同时，她的母亲遗体冻在冰柜里，直到这桩恐怖的诉讼获得解决。
到了三月十七日，张女士收到这家医院的一封信，说当天尸体要火化。张女士打电话给医院试图阻止，但她说，医院的职员没有给她一个明确的答复，说会给她回电话，但是他们根本没有再和她联系。从此张女士再也看不到她母亲的遗体了。
英文原文:
| A Deadly Exercise: Practicing Falun Gong Was A Right, Ms. Chen Said, up to Her Last Day |
| The day before Chen Zixiu died, her captors again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after repeated jolts from a cattle prod, the 58-year-old stubbornly shook her head. |
April 20, 2000 |
By Ian Johnson Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal |
WEIFANG, China -- The day before Chen Zixiu died, her captors again demanded that she renounce her faith in Falun Dafa. Barely conscious after repeated jolts from a cattle prod, the 58-year-old stubbornly shook her head.
Enraged, the local officials ordered Ms. Chen to run barefoot in the snow. Two days of torture had left her legs bruised and her short black hair matted with pus and blood, said cellmates and other prisoners who witnessed the incident. She crawled outside, vomited and collapsed. She never regained consciousness, and died on Feb. 21.
A year ago, few outside of China had heard of Falun Dafa and its regimen of practices, known as Falun Gong, which include breathing exercises, meditation and readings from the moralistic, and sometimes unusual, works of group founder Li Hongzhi.
Although popular among millions of Chinese, Falun Gong didn't jump to international prominence until April 25 last year, when 10,000 of its believers converged on Beijing, surrounding the government's leadership compound in the Forbidden City and demanding an end to state press reports that portrayed them as a superstitious cult. The crowd cut an odd sight: Mostly middle-age, working-class people, they simply meditated quietly for the better part of a day before leaving the center of town to return to their homes across the country.
But to a government that doesn't much tolerate open challenges to its power, the protest was an unforgivable provocation. The government arrested hundreds of Falun Gong organizers and discovered that some were officials in the central government, the police and even the military. Worried that a cancerous religion was infecting its atheist state, Beijing declared Falun Gong an "evil cult" last July and formally banned it.
Confronted with the full weight of China's security apparatus, Falun Gong should have died a quick death. But unlike the dissidents who occasionally challenge the Communist Party, Falun Gong activists haven't been stopped, despite mass arrests, beatings and even killings. Instead, a hard core continues to protest, with several dozen arrested every day in downtown Beijing when they try to unfurl banners calling for their group's legalization. A year on, Falun Gong faithful have mustered what is arguably the most sustained challenge to authority in 50 years of Communist rule.
Pyrrhic Victory?
Ms. Chen's tale is one of extremes. On one end is the Communist Party, which is so determined to break Falun Gong that it has resorted to public-security measures on a scale not seen since 1989, when an antigovernment movement led by students was crushed in Tiananmen Square. The government's victory in this fight, should it come, may well be Pyrrhic; its heavy-handed approach has disillusioned millions of ordinary people, such as Ms. Chen's daughter, who were apolitical until last year's events. It has also damaged China's international standing just as it needs foreign help on an array of pressing economic issues.
On the other end are people such as Ms. Chen, who in their simple, and perhaps naive, way are at the forefront of a slow trend to demand the freedoms guaranteed by China's laws and constitution. While many Falun Gong practitioners have compromised - by practicing secretly at home, for example - thousands have insisted openly on their right to freedom of belief and assembly. "We're good people," Ms. Chen's friends recall her telling officials from the Weifang city government who interrogated her in her barren concrete cell two days before she died. "Why shouldn't we practice what we want?"
The story of Ms. Chen's last days is reconstructed from interviews with family, friends and prisoners, as well as two accounts written by cellmates and smuggled out of jail in recent weeks. Originals of these accounts were examined and shown to the authors' friends and relatives, who verified the documents as having been written by their loved ones.
Allegations of mistreatment also are backed by more than two dozen separate interviews with Falun Gong adherents in other cities, who independently said they too were beaten with clubs and electric batons, chained to bars and made to disavow their faith.
Local officials rejected efforts to interview them for this story, while Beijing's official position on all allegations of prison abuse is that no Falun Gong practitioner has been mistreated in custody. It says 35,000 adherents came to Beijing but were sent back safely, with only three dying accidentally when they tried to escape. International human-rights groups say it is likely that at least seven more deaths like Ms. Chen's occurred through mistreatment in prison.
"All she had to do was say she renounced Falun Gong and they would have let her go," said Zhang Xueling, Ms. Chen's 32-year-old daughter. "But she refused."
Three years ago, Ms. Chen hardly imagined that she would be risking her life by practicing Falun Gong. She was 55 and had taken early retirement from a state-run truck-repair garage where she had worked for 30 years making auto parts. One day while out walking in the neighborhood near her family's one-story brick bungalow, Ms. Chen noticed some practitioners of Falun Gong. A widow for 20 years whose her children grown, Ms. Chen had little to do during the day, so she started attending the exercise sessions regularly.
"My mother was never anyone who believed in superstitious things," said Ms. Zhang, who doesn't practice Falun Gong herself. "Frankly, she had a bad temper because she felt she was getting old and had sacrificed so much to raise us alone. When she joined Falun Gong her temper improved a lot and she became a better person. We really supported her."
Enthusiastic Follower
Over the next two years, Ms. Chen became an enthusiastic participant, rising at 4:30 a.m. to exercise for 90 minutes in a small dirt lot with half a dozen other practitioners. After a day running errands for her children and grandchildren, Ms. Chen spent evenings reading the works of Mr. Li, the group's founder, and discussing his ideas with fellow members. Those beliefs incorporate traditional morality - do good works, speak honestly, never be evasive - as well as some idiosyncratic notions, such as the existence of extraterrestrial life and separate-but-equal heavens for people of different races.
Gradually, Falun Gong gained adherents in her neighborhood, Xu Family Hamlet, which is located in an industrial suburb of Weifang, a city of 1.3 million in eastern China's Shandong province. The hamlet is a dusty maze of poplar-lined dirt roads and bungalows surrounded by crumbling brown brick walls - a typical village being swallowed up by its urban neighbor. By last year, her local group had doubled in size to a dozen regular members - hardly a giant organization, but a regular presence in the community.
For Ms. Chen, China's decision to ban Falun Gong last July came out of the blue. She hadn't noticed the articles and television shows that had attacked the group, and she paid little attention a year ago when members surrounded the Communist Party's leadership compound in Beijing. The day the government ban was announced "was the bitterest of her life," said her daughter, Ms. Zhang. "She couldn't accept that they were criticizing Falun Gong and calling it an evil cult."
Practicing at Home
Although barely literate and never before interested in politics, Ms. Chen resisted the ban. She invited group members to practice at her home and refused to deny her affiliation with the group or her love for Mr. Li, whom she respectfully called "Master Li."
Then, last November, several top organizers of Falun Gong were given long prison sentences. Shocked, Ms. Chen joined thousands of fellow practitioners by traveling to Beijing with the vague idea of protesting against the government. Since the ban in July, many had gone to Tiananmen Square and sat cross-legged with their arms stretched in an arc over their heads - the classic starting pose for Falun Gong exercises.
Ms. Chen never made it that far. On Dec. 4, the day after she arrived in Beijing, she was walking through the Temple of Heaven park when a plain-clothes security agent asked if she was a member. She answered truthfully and was arrested, her daughter said.
She was taken to the Weifang municipal government's Beijing representative office, a sort of lobbying bureau-cum-dormitory that scores of Chinese cities and provinces have set up in the capital to house local officials visiting Beijing.
The next day, Ms. Zhang and three local officials made the seven-hour drive to Beijing to pick up Ms. Chen, a humiliation for the officials, who were criticized for not keeping better control of their people. Ms. Zhang paid the equivalent of a $60 fine - a month's wages - and returned home with her mother, who complained that police had confiscated the $75 in cash she had brought with her.
'Administrative Detention'
As punishment, officials from the Chengguan Street Committee (street committees are the lowest level in China's system of government) confined Ms. Chen to their offices, just 200 yards from her home. She stayed there for two weeks, in a form of "administrative detention" that the state can impose almost indefinitely. Ms. Zhang had to pay another $45 for her mother's room and board.
On Jan. 3, Ms. Chen celebrated her 58th birthday. Despite being under day-and-night observation, she was in great spirits, Ms. Zhang said. "She knew she was right. All she wanted was to make the government not make a criminal out of her because she knew she wasn't a criminal."
Then, on Chinese New Year, which this year fell on Feb. 4, hundreds of Falun Gong protesters were arrested and beaten in Beijing. (Though no longer under surveillance, Ms. Chen wasn't a protester.) Officials in the capital were stunned by the outbreak. On Feb. 16, the local district chief came to see Ms. Chen and told her that Beijing wanted to make sure no other Falun Gong adherents went to Beijing, especially since China's annual session of parliament was due to begin in a few days. He asked Ms. Chen to promise she wouldn't leave home.
"My mother told them very clearly that she wouldn't guarantee that she wouldn't go anywhere. She said she had the right to go where she pleased," Ms. Zhang said. The officials left in a huff.
Taken Into Custody
Two days later, Ms. Zhang came home to find half a dozen officials in her living room. They said her mother had been spotted outside by a special squad of informants who roamed the neighborhood looking for Falun Gong participants who dared to leave home.
Ms. Chen was taken into custody and never seen by her daughter again. She was held for a day in the Chengguan Street Committee offices, but then during the night she managed to escape -- exactly how isn't clear, officials told Ms. Zhang. Ms. Chen was arrested the next day, Feb. 17, heading for the train station, apparently hoping to go to Beijing to plead her case before the Petitions and Appeals Office, a last resort for people who feel they have been wronged.
This time, officials from the local district Communist Party office sent Ms. Chen to a small, unofficial prison run by the street committee, described to practitioners as the Falun Gong Education Study Class.
People who have been held there describe it as more of a torture chamber. The building is two stories with a yard in the middle. In the corner of the yard is a squat one-story building with two rooms. This is where beatings took place, according to four detainees who described the building in separate accounts.
Another Fine
While Ms. Chen was transferred to the detention center, officials called Ms. Zhang and said her mother would be released if she would pay a $241 fine. Ms. Zhang was fed up with the government's "fines" and, she said, her mother's insistence on standing up for her rights. She told the officials that their fines were illegal and that she would complain to the local procurator's office if they didn't release her mother. She rejected another call on Feb. 18 and again threatened legal action, though she didn't follow through.
Meanwhile, Ms. Chen spent a night in the jail, listening to screams emanating from the squat building, according to two of her cellmates. Before she was led in, she was allowed another phone call. She called her daughter later on the 18th and asked her to bring the money. Irritated by the troubles brought on by her mother's uncompromising attitude, Ms. Zhang argued with her. Give in and come home, the daughter pleaded. Her mother quietly refused.
Ms. Chen's ordeal began that night. Wrote an adherent who was in the next room of the squat building: "We heard her screaming. Our hearts were tortured and our spirits almost collapsed." Officials from the Chengguan Street Committee used plastic truncheons on her calves, feet and lower back, as well as a cattle prod on her head and neck, according to witnesses. They shouted at her repeatedly to give up Falun Gong and to curse Mr. Li, according to her cellmates. Each time, Ms. Chen refused.
A Mother's Plea
The next day, the 19th, Ms. Zhang got another call. Bring the money, she was told. Ms. Zhang hesitated. Her mother came on the line. Her voice, usually so strong and confident, was soft and pained. She pleaded with her daughter to bring the money. The caller came back on the phone. Bring the money, she said.
Ms. Zhang got a sick feeling and rushed over with the money and some clothes. But the building was surrounded by agents who wouldn't let her see her mother. Suspicious that this was a ruse to get more money from her -- and that her mother wasn't really in the building at all -- she returned home. An hour later, a practitioner came to see Ms. Zhang. Falun Gong adherents were being beaten in the center, she was told.
Ms. Zhang raced back with her brother, carrying fruit as a small bribe for the police. She was refused entrance and her money was refused as well. She noticed an old woman in a room and shouted up to her: "Is my mother being beaten?" The old woman waved her hand to signify "no," although Ms. Zhang wondered whether she might have been trying to wave her away from the prison, fearing she, too, would be arrested. Ms. Zhang and her brother went home for a fitful, sleepless night.
Carte Blanche
That night, Ms. Chen was taken back into the room. After again refusing to give up Falun Gong, she was beaten and jolted with the stun stick, according to two prisoners who heard the incident and one who caught glimpses of it through a door. Her cellmates heard her curse the officials, saying the central government would punish them once they were exposed. But in an answer that Falun Gong adherents say they heard repeatedly in different parts of the country, the Weifang officials told Ms. Chen that they had been told by the central government that "no measures are too excessive" to wipe out Falun Gong. The beatings continued and would stop only when Ms. Chen changed her thinking, according to two prisoners who say they overheard the incident.
Two hours after she went in, Ms. Chen was pushed back into her cell on the second story of the main building, an unheated room with only a sheet of steel for a bed. Her three cellmates tended to her wounds, but she fell into a delirium. One of the cellmates remembers her moaning "mommy, mommy."
The next morning, the 20th, she was ordered out to jog. "I saw from the window that she crawled out with difficulty," wrote a cellmate in a letter smuggled out by her husband. Ms. Chen collapsed and was dragged back into the cell.
Denied Treatment
"I was a medical major. When I saw her dying, I suggested moving her into another [heated] room," the cellmate wrote in her letter. Instead, local government officials gave her "sanqi," herbal pills for light internal bleeding. "But she couldn't swallow and spat them out." Cellmates implored the officials to send Ms. Chen to a hospital, but the officials -- who often criticize Falun Gong practitioners for forgoing modern medical treatment in favor of a superstitious belief in their exercises -- refused, her cellmates said. Eventually they brought in a doctor, who pronounced her healthy.
But, wrote the cellmate: "She wasn't conscious and didn't talk, and only spat dark-colored sticky liquid. We guessed it was blood. Only the next morning did they confirm that she's dying." An employee of the local Public Security Bureau, Liu Guangming, "tried her pulse and his face froze." Ms. Chen was dead.
That evening, officials went over to Ms. Zhang's house and said her mother was ill, according to Ms. Zhang and her brother. The two piled into a car and were driven to a hotel about a mile from the detention center. The hotel was surrounded by police. The local party secretary told them Ms. Chen had died of a heart attack, but they wouldn't allow them to see her body. After hours of arguing, the officials finally said they could see the body, but only the next day, and insisted they spend the night in the heavily guarded hotel. The siblings refused and finally were allowed to go home.
A Bag of Clothes
On the 22nd, Ms. Zhang and her brother were taken to the local hospital, which was also ringed by police. Their mother, they recalled, was laid out on a table in traditional mourning garb: a simple blue cotton tunic over pants. In a bag tossed in the corner of the room, Ms. Zhang said she spotted her mother's torn and bloodied clothes, the underwear badly soiled. Her calves were black. Six-inch welts streaked along her back. Her teeth were broken. Her ear was swollen and blue. Ms. Zhang fainted, and her brother, weeping, caught her.
That day, the hospital issued a report on Ms. Chen. It said the cause of death was natural. The hospital declines to comment on the matter. Ms. Zhang said she challenged officials about the clothing she had seen, but they told her her mother had become incontinent after the heart attack and that was why her clothes were soiled.
Ms. Zhang and her brother tried filing a lawsuit, but no lawyer would accept the case. Meantime, her mother's body lay in refrigeration, until the threatened litigation was resolved.
Then, on March 17, Ms. Zhang received a letter from the hospital saying the body would be cremated that day. Ms. Zhang called the hospital to try to prevent it, but she said officials didn't give her a clear answer and said they would have to call her back. They didn't. Ms. Zhang never saw her mother's body again.
For more on Ian Johson’s Pultizer-Prize winning articles about Falun Gong, please visit: http://www.dowjones.com/index_pulitzer.html |
Categories: China's Leaders and Police, Personal and Eyewitness Accounts, Reports About China's Suppression of Falun Gong. |
