Mr. Chairman and all committee members, as an oppressed Falun Gong practitioner...first of all, I would like to thank you, Mr. Chairman, and all other members who offered us help, for your efforts to offer us assistance in order to change the environment in China to assist Falun Gong practitioners.
Mingli is my name. In July 1997 I started practising Falun Gong to cure myself of my illnesses. A short period after I started practising I started feeling much healthier. I can say Falun Gong gave me a new life.
The Chinese First Secretary, Jiang Zemin at the time, started to denounce Falun Gong. As a result, I was kidnapped four times by the Chinese police. In 2000 I was detained for a month just for my practice. The next time was in January 2001, when I was forced to enter a workshop to be brainwashed. The third time was in April 2001, when I was put in a labour camp for two years. The fourth time was in October 2005, when I was sentenced to six years in prison, and this is the most unforgettable one.
The government had no reason to kidnap me, and they used an excuse for being a psychiatric patient to imprison me for six years. In the beginning, I was forced to sit on a little wooden container from morning to evening. I had to sit straight and couldn't move my feet, and I had to put my arms behind my back for more than 10 hours. If I moved, I would have been beaten. Physically, this is unbearable for a human being. If I moved, they would kick my face and my head. All my teeth were kicked out. They kicked me with leather boots. As a result, I had to replace all my teeth, which were knocked out.
In January 2009 I was forced to write a report declaring that I disagreed with Falun Gong discipline. I said Falun Gong's essence is truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. They said, “What is this BS? You have to write it.” Then they stripped me naked. They forced me to sit on the concrete floor and poured cold water over me and used bamboo strips to hit my face, my head, and my body, and I started bleeding.
Because I did not write this repentant letter report, they would not let me sleep. During the day they used a large ghetto blaster to blast me with propaganda. As a result, every day I wasn't in my right mind, because I couldn't sleep. I could not distinguish between daytime and nighttime. They would not let me go to the bathroom. They said I had to do it on the spot.
They would tie me on the bed. They used a big wire and pushed it into my stomach; when it reached the bottom of my stomach they would pull it out. They did it repeatedly. They broke my pipe for food. They pulled out the wire and of course blood came out. My mouth was full of blood. Under such circumstances, I couldn't bear it anymore. I lost consciousness. They saw the blood everywhere and they called the medical personnel. They looked at me and said, “You have to send him to the hospital.” Because I was on a famine protest and I was bleeding, they said, “He will die.” So they sent me to the hospital, to the emergency. They gave me an IV at the hospital.