I am a Falun Gong practitioner from Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province. Because I have remained faithful to my belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance since 1999, I have been sentenced twice to forced labour and locked up at the Shuanghe Forced Labour Camp in Qiqihar City. In addition, I was incarcerated for almost four years in the Harbin City Women's Prison, where I was made to do hard labour and subjected to various ruthless tortures. Among other things, I was hung up in the air and swung from side to side, and I was stripped naked and beaten.

In September 2002, police once again arrested my husband and sent him to Gongjiawan brainwashing centre. During that time the director of the facility brutally persecuted my husband. They handcuffed him for about one week. They forced my husband to tell them about my whereabouts. I was hoemless to avoid persecution. They released him after persecuting him for over 15 months. During that time, my 11-year old son lived alone and barely had enough food to eat. He spent every night in fear.

In August 2001, I was sent to Deyang Prison, and forced to sleep on an iron bed without a mattress. It was difficult to sleep on such a bed, so I got up to practise the Falun Gong exercises. I did them only for more than ten minutes, and was discovered by a patrolling inmate surnamed Long. He, along with five other inmates, dragged me down from the bed and beat me. Later, I was forced to stand in a military posture. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I heard a guard shout at me viciously. Before I could react to him, he slapped me on both sides of my face continuously until he felt pain on his hand. Prisoner Wang gave him a table tennis paddle, and the guard chopped at my face with the paddle.

Ms. Li Ling was arrested twice for distributing leaflets exposing the persecution and telling the Jinzhou City Political and Legal Committee Party Secretary the facts about Falun Gong and that Falun Gong teaches people to follow the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance. She was sentenced to four years in prison. One day after work, she cried out, "Falun Gong is good!" They confined her to an isolated cell, and the prison guards ordered prisoner Zhang Chun'e to guard her. Zhang was in her 20's, and she was very cruel. She often tied Ms. Li to the bed, taped her mouth shut, slapped her face with a shoe or sat on her stomach. Ms. Li eventually died due to the torture.

On April 17th, 2008, police officers arrested me at home. I shouted, "Falun Gong is good!" to let people hear the truth. Afraid of drawing attention to the unjust arrest, those evildoers took off a coat and used it to cover my mouth to stop my shouting. I almost lost consciousness. They took me to Beicheng Police Station where they subjected me to a body search. They searched my backpack and stole over 2,000 yuan in cash. They got a key from my bag and took it to search my home. They made a big mess while ransacking the house. That evening they took me to a detention centre. I staged a protest hunger strikeOn the sixth day they force-fed me. I suffered badly during each brutal force-feeding procedure.

My name is Lin Hong, and I am 50 years old. I am from Lianjiang City, Guangdong Province. I previously worked at the Lianjiang Water Supply Company. I started practising Falun Gong in Haikou City on Hainan Island in May 1997. I have been practising for eleven years now. During the past nine years, I have been constantly harassed by the police. My home was searched, and I was arrested and sent to a forced labour camp. On September 29th, 2007, I was forced to leave home and live in destitution in order to avoid persecution. It's been nine months now. In June 2008, the officials of Lianjiang City went to my home looking for me, and they harassed my husband.

At the end of December 2000, I went to Beijing to peacefully appeal for Falun Gong. I was arrested before reaching Tiananmen Square. As soon as I entered the door of a local police station, the police forcibly and thoroughly searched me. My escort took me to a small room, and another person immediately began beating me. He didn't stop until he became exhausted from hitting me. Later on, they forced me to stand up straight for a long time. The following day, Dai Wenyong, the Secretary of the local CCP, forced me to stand up in the middle of the courtyard. He asked me whether I would stop practising Falun Gong. I said that I would never stop. Then he slapped me in the face. He told me to take off my shoes and stand barefoot on the cold floor. He also ordered me to take off my sweaters so that I would freeze in the cold weather. I was forced to stand there for over three weeks.

In the autumn of 2003, four police officers led by the head of police - Zhao - broke into our home again, with no justification, and they took me and another two practitioners to Chifeng brainwashing centre. From 2003 to 2008, as a result of persecution, I had to move at least 10 times. To this day, I still cannot have a permanent residence. I have also suffered a lot financially. I can only support myself by doing hard labour, which provides very low pay. My family members also suffered as well. They lost contact with me. When my son got married, he could not find his father; my father-in-law passed away amidst missing his son and daughter-in-law, and his daughter-in-law (me) had no clue that her father-in-law passed away already, so she couldn't hold any ceremony for him.

On July 20th, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) media suddenly started to defame Falun Gong, and the CCP forbade people to practise. Even though I heard slander everywhere, I knew in my heart that Falun Gong is good and wanted to continue my practice. I could not be scared away by the persecution. Later, some government leaders came to my home and tried to persuade my mother to write a statement renouncing Falun Gong. Many people came, and they talked until very late at night. Those leaders were acquaintances and friends of my parents, but in the persecution, they chose to execute the CCP's orders.

I spent two years at the Zhuhai Detention Centre. During my detention, I produced all kinds of plastic flowers. Some had an electronic device for playing music. In addition, I made colourful lamp strings, and pearl strings, for desk lamps and other uses. All products were exported. As a matter of fact, the prison benefits more from producing items for export, therefore the quotas were continually increased. After I came to the United States, I saw many of these plastic flowers and colourful lamp strings with the label "Made in China" in supermarkets.

In 2001 I was arrested by police because I practise Falun Gong. In the detention centre, the guards forced us to perform hard labour daily. We had to meet a high quota. We hand crafted flowers for funerals. We were forbidden to do the Falun Gong exercises. I did the exercises anyway, so the guards beat me. The guards treated me brutally. They handcuffed me to an iron bed, and chained my feet to it. When the guards gave me an intravenous injection, they claimed that they were trying to find the blood vessel. They hit my wrists heavily. My hands hurt a lot from these beatings. The guards used the thickest feeding tube they could find to force-feed me. They took pleasure in making me feel pain.

During nine years of persecution of Falun Gong in China, Zhang Jinbo has been cruelly tortured, and unable to marry or to live a normal life. Due to an extended forced labour term, her mental and physical health drastically declined. Her body incurred great harm from torture, and many diseases surfaced. Her residency registration was withheld, and would only be restored if she gave up her belief. It was forbidden for her to go abroad to work. She had to live a poverty-ridden existence in exile.

I am a Falun Gong practitioner from Yanji City, Jilin Province. The police arrested me in October 2000 and took me to Tiebei Prison in Changchun. I was tortured there beginning in the spring of 2002. On January 10th, 2003, a group of six male criminal inmates was ordered to torture me. First, they drew a circle on the floor and made me stand in the middle. If I moved, they would beat me. Then, although it was wintertime, they made me stand outside in the cold for an entire day and night. On the second night, they beat me again without let up for an hour and a half. They broke one of my ribs in the process, but they still did not stop. An inmate hit me brutally all over with a bricklayer's hammer wrapped in rubber. They hit me so much that I almost died. Because of this torture, the muscles in my feet have atrophied, and it is extremely difficult for me to walk. I still have not recovered; I am almost paralysed.

In the detention centre, if your family paid out money, then you might be given a used toothbrush. If not, then you had to share a toothbrush with 10-20 prisoners, or you wouldn't even have one. Next, everyone must recite the prison regulations. Those with an education and able to read had to memorize them within a week. Those with no education had to recite them in two weeks. If not, the prison guards would deprive you of sleep and force you to recite them all night long. If you refused to recite, the cell head would beat you brutally and sent you to the guards. The guards would put you into a torture position called "riding a motorcycle" (putting you in shackles and then handcuffing you under the shackles). This bends your back at a right angle, and your are unable to straighten up to walk or to sleep. This would last for three to four days, or sometimes even a week or two.

In 2005 I was arrested at my home by the local police and the thugs from the neighbourhood committee. I was sent to the notorious Masanjia Forced Labour Camp where I was detained for three years. I was tied to a "Dead Person's Bed" and they gave me intravenous injections and force-fed me with unknown drugs every day. After the drugs I felt numb in my head and legs. I was tied to the bed day and night. I even had to relieve myself on the bed. I was also force-fed corn flour paste. When the paste had gone bad they still fed it to me. I was not only covered in the smell of excrement, but also had nasal mucus all over my face

First I wish to tell you about the heavy forced labour practitioners have to perform. Every day, practitioners have to work for 17 hours. The labour is generally making handicrafts, with most of the products being artificial flowers. Between August and September, we were forced to cut garlic or peel ginger for more than 10 hours a day. Many practitioners' skin broke open and festered. We made the flowers in our cells, which included spray painting. Most of the sprays are toxic, which affected our breathing. Those doing such work also had headaches, vomited and were fatigued.

My name is Mrs. Wang Jiuchun. I was an assistant professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its head Jiang Zemin began brutally suppressing Falun Gong practitioners. About fifty practitioners at the Falun Gong Assistance Centre in Tsinghua University were arrested and later sentenced to prison or forced labour camp terms. Among them, one practitioner was beaten to death. Other practitioner professors at Tsinghua University were placed on long-term surveillance. I was taken to a brainwashing centre six times, detained at the police department twice, and imprisoned in a forced labour camp for a year and a half. My home was ransacked twice by the police. I was subjected to severe physical and mental tortures. I was ordered to give up my belief in "Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance".

I arrived at Xinhua Forced Labour Camp in Mianyang County that afternoon at 4 p.m. Only then did I realize that I was taken there for a year and half of forced labour. I was tortured in all kinds of ways. Under police orders, the personal "cangues" [monitors who supervise the behaviour of practitioners] made me stand from 6 a.m. till midnight, and they frequently punched me in the chest, often to the point where I couldn't speak or get up from the bed. I would have acute pain once I spoke and sharp chest pains if I moved. The police tied me up eight times during one ten-day period, increased the use of electronic batons from one to four, and beat me with spiked clubs. When I resisted the attempts to smear my face on the toilet floor, the "Personal cangues" and guards pushed my head into the urinals.

I am the wife of Cao Dong, a Falun Gong practitioner from Beijing. On May 21st, 2006, Cao Dong met with Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice-President of the European Parliament, and told him about the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Two hours after the meeting, Cao Dong was arrested by State Security agents. Before the Chinese New Year's Eve, Cao Dong was sentenced to five years in prison. His defence lawyer said that the only "evidence" used to sentence him was a false oral confession.

When the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, I went to Beijing to appeal and was thrown into a detention centre by police. The guards failed to force me to give up Falun Gong. Thus, they turned to their last weapon - saying that I had a mental disease. They sent me to a mental hospital. In the hospital, several persons held me down and forcefully injected me with some kind of drug. Shortly after that, I lost consciousness. After I woke up, I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed that I had motionless eyes, messed up hair, and blood at the corner of my mouth due to the forceful injection! I burst into tears. They had mistreated me into such a miserable state! I repeatedly requested that I be allowed to leave the hospital, and I told them that I was not sick. The reason they treated me violently was because I did not give up practising Falun Gong.

One night in December 2005 National Security officers suddenly surrounded my home and broke in and arrested me. I was eventually sent to Baimalong Women's Forced Labour Camp. This place is notorious, known as a living hell. I was sentenced to one year of forced labour. No matter how much those criminals verbally abused me, I would face them with a smile. Because of my persistence in my faith and non-cooperation with the persecutors' schemes, the criminal inmates gave me a hard time. I would be beaten even if I simply set my cup down, washed a dish or walked a little bit slow. Later on they tortured me by forcing me to squat in an awkward position. I could not hold the position and fell to the floor. They hit and kicked me. They put their knees on my head, mid-section and on my back. I had bruises and injuries everywhere. I was severely tortured, until I was more dead than alive.

On September 28th, 2006, up to six policemen from Xiangyang Police Station broke into my home with the excuse of checking for registered permanent residents. Then they began to search. They took two Falun Gong books, said that I practised Falun Gong, and dragged me into a police car. The police took me to a detention centre. After two days I was taken to a forced labour camp. At the forced labour camp I was given corn buns to eat. All the food there was of poor quality and everyone who ate the buns got diarrhoea. I had to do hard labour everyday. If I did not read the regulations, the guards would beat me. Practitioners could not say they practised Falun Gong. If you said you practised Falun Gong, you would be beaten.

"On August 7th, 2006, a fellow practitioner and I went to distribute Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution. Someone reported us to the police and we were arrested. I was sentenced to forced labour. In the forced labour camp, I met a "transformed" practitioner, but I did not know that she had been "transformed" when we first met. I told her that we should expose the wrongdoings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), so she turned me in. The guard ordered two drug user inmates to search me, and to strip off my clothing and shoes. They stole my cash and watch and forced me to stand for two days and nights without sleep. I could not take it any more and, against my will, wrote a guarantee statement to renounce Falun Gong."

I am the daughter of Falun Gong practitioner Liu Yanchen. Unfortunately, I can no longer see my dear mother, since she was arrested and repeatedly beaten by Communist Party officials because she practised Falun Gong. After her detainment, she could not do the Falun Gong exercises for a long time, and eventually she died from a stroke. Because my father suffered tremendous mental pressure and had several breakdowns my aunt had to adopt me.

I was sentenced to a Shandong Province Forced Labour Camp. Under orders from guards I participated in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Certain other inmates and I used different ways to persecute the practitioners, including having them face a wall for a long time, beating and kicking them, as well as beating them with batons. For doing this, guard Sun Fengjun promised to reduce our terms. So whatever they ordered us to do, we did it. If we did not follow their orders, they would beat us and extend our terms. All the persecution that happened to the Falun Gong practitioners was according to orders from the division leaders. We know that Falun Gong practitioners are good people.

From my own experience, I knew that imprisonment in a forced labour camp was just like entering a demon's den. Besides insolent guards, there were one or two inmates assigned to monitor and torture practitioners. The inmates cooperated with the guards to carry-out brainwashing, involving instilled falsehoods and absurdities, in attempts to force practitioners to "reform." If these measures were counter productive, the guards would strike out by themselves. For example, division head Sun Juan would kick the older practitioners' naked calves with her shoes on. If you asked, "Isn't beating people not allowed here?" She would answer flagrantly, "Is this beating you? What I did was to educate you." She often declared openly and shamelessly, "We often denigrate you practitioners or even beat you. Why don't we do the same thing to passers-by on the street or others but only to you? It is because we love you."

In 1996 I was involved in a traffic accident and became paraplegic. My bedsore healed miraculously soon after I started the practice of Falun Gong. On March 10th, 2005, more than 20 policemen broke into my home. Four young strong policemen cruelly cuffed me and forced me onto a chair; they almost killed me. They also held my wife down in the toilet and cuffed her. They took away personal property worth more than 50,000 yuan. I was taken to Harbin City No.4 Detention Centre. Because there was no nursing personnel to help me, the bedsores on my hips, buttocks and back all festered with running fluid, blood and oozing pus; it smelled terrible. I was sentenced to five years in prison.

My name is Jing Suo. I am a Falun Gong practitioner, and I was arrested for practising Falun Gong and sentenced to four years in prison in 2004. On June 23rd, 2006, a guard drank a lot of alcohol and beat me for no reason. I held a hunger strike to protest the inhuman treatment, but the captors force-fed and tortured me. They inserted a rubber tube into my stomach through my nose, and used lots of napkins trying to stem the blood flow from my nose. The tube damaged my nose, throat, oesophagus and stomach. They put me on a bed, handcuffed me to the corners of the headboard and tied my feet to the corners of the foot-board, and during the heat of summer, they covered me with blankets. They incited the inmates to force-feed me concentrated salt water and slap my face to keep me from closing my eyes.

In 2002, I hung a banner saying "Falun Gong is good" in town and police arrested me. In order to protect other practitioners I refused to give my name and address. Police removed my trousers and brutally beat me with a one-inch-wide plastic tube all over my buttock. Two or three guards pulled my two arms behind my back and tried to handcuff my hands behind my back. Finally they held me down on the ground and someone put his knee on the back of my head. My hands were cuffed behind me. They pulled the handcuffs up, which was extremely painful. Then they suddenly let the handcuff go loose, which made them tighter. They did this repeatedly, which made the handcuffs cut into my flesh and, it seemed like, into the bone. I was in extreme pain and cold sweat ran down my face.

On November 2nd, 2007, a security person from the First Middle School in Yueyang City reported me as I distributed leaflets exposing the persecution around the school. Officers from the Yueyanglou Police Station arrested me and then took me to the police department. They interrogated me for six hours, then sent me to the Yueyang City First Detention Centre. Once there, they searched me, and confiscated my personal belongings, which had a value of 1,600 yuan. While I was being interrogated seven police officers ransacked my home. They confiscated my Falun Gong books and CDs exposing the persecution of Falun Gong, and other items. They told me that this was the "evidence" against me. While I was in the First Detention Centre, the guards instigated inmates to beat me because I didn't cooperate with their "education and reform" policy. They bound me spread-eagle to a wooden board for three nights and two days.

In September 2001, Yi County police arrested and imprisoned me at the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp for two years and four months. I experienced all kinds of excruciating persecution there. In attempts to force me to abandon my Falun Gong practice, they subjected me to many types of abuse. For example, my hands were cuffed behind my back to the radiator water pipe. I could only sit on a very small chair, with my legs protruding. My arms became black and blue, and my legs could hardly support me, and experienced penetrating pain. Later, they removed the small chair and made me sit on the concrete floor. I experienced many other kinds of torture as well.

On July, 7th, 2007, I went to another practitioner's house. I was arrested by a policeman who was there to arrest the other practitioner. We were taken to the Hanbei Police Station. I did not tell the policeman my name. The policeman hit my face when he lost his temper. When night fell, I was not allowed to sleep again and once more I was forced to stand. I still did not cooperate with them, so they beat me some more. Later a group of policemen surrounded me and started to beat me. I later suffered a heart attack and was in a very serious state. The police from the Xinshi District Department then agreed to release me. Originally I had 7,750 yuan in my handbag. When they grabbed my bag to count the cash there was suddenly only 5,550 yuan, 2,000 yuan less.

From September 2001 to March 2003, I was detained in the forced labour camp in Qiqihar, Helongjiang Province. I encountered brutal brainwashing and was forced to do hard labour in a poisonous environment. In order to earn money in a low, base manner, the guards in the labour camp forced us into a one-story building nearby to pour pesticide into containers. The toxicity of some of the pesticides is very bad. After a whole day's work, some criminals had bloody noses, swollen eyes and faces, and chapped skin. People should have gas masks to pour pesticides, but we only had regular respirators. After a day's work, the toxic pesticide chemicals were all over our clothes, inside and out. We don't have hot water, let alone bathing facilities. Before meals, over 100 people had to wash their hands using water from the same basin and it was impossible to wash off all of the pesticide.

Ms. Zhang Lianying has been detained in forced labour camps many times for practising Falun Dafa. She recounts: "I was strangled nine times. Twice the policemen strangled my neck until I fainted and the other seven times they used ropes to strangle me until I fainted. Neither time was I sent to the hospital for emergency treatment. Once I was so severely beaten that both sides of my brain bled profusely. Once I was injected with an unknown drug so that I fell into a coma and my eyesight was blurred."

On October 1st, 2001, I went to a rural village to distribute leaflets exposing the persecution. Someone turned me in to the authorities and I was arrested by police. When they had detained me at the rehabilitation centre for over four months, I started a hunger strike in February 2002. On the fifth day of my hunger strike, Cheng Yeshang, the Chair of the centre, came with a drug addict to force feed me. He told that person to put salt in the powdered soy milk. He then pulled my hair with one hand and used his other hand to force open my mouth with two chopsticks. Then he told that person to pour the food into my mouth. My gums were bleeding, yet he didn't stop. Later, I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I was on an IV. The doctor looked at my eyes and said to Cheng, "She won't die." The next morning I was taken to the Lanzhou Forced Labour Camp.

The photo is of me, Liu Guifu, taken after my release from my second stay in a forced labour camp. My family and friends could no longer recognise me. My weight had dropped from about 10.7 stone to less than 7.9 stone due to the abuse I suffered at the labour camp. My hair turned grey, and much of it fell out. My face is full of wrinkles. I look 20 years older than I am.

"On November 24th, 2006 the police sent me to the Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp in Changchun City, Jilin Province for one year. I was surrounded by collaborators [former practitioners who assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners.] I was forbidden to have any contact with other people. They slandered Dafa and forced me to read books of different religions. They attempted to coerce me to write a so-called "repentance statement", and to have me give up my beliefs. Because I did not cooperate, I was beaten several times. Once, a guard accused me of doing the sitting meditation on the bed. She slapped my face and used an electric baton to shock me. Even though my health was poor, the guards still compelled me to work at the labour camp. I felt pain in my feet, and my torso and legs were numb."

"I was unjustly detained at Gaomi Detention Centre for 28 days. Four police officers, one of whom was called Yu Jihai, then took me to Wangcun Forced Labour Camp. I refused to cooperate during the physical exam, and refused to give a urine sample. I took off my handcuffs to throw them in the toilet. Yu Jihai caught me and took the cuffs. He ordered others to get a tube and take a urine sample by force. I firmly opposed them and their attempt failed. At the time, my face was so swollen from bruises that I could not even see. The forced labour camp authorities did not want to accept me. Yu Jihai and the other police officers had to bribe them to take me."

In 2001 the Jinan City Women's Forced Labour Camp imprisoned over 800 practitioners. The oldest was 62 and the youngest 16. The inmates and practitioners were forced to work more than twelve hours a day. Most of the work was to produce products for export, including gluing flowers, embroidering, sewing quilts, tying ribbons, making medicine boxes and putting the name of Nanjing Pharmaceutical Factory in Jiangsu Province on the boxes. The glue contained a lot of chemicals. Inmates often fainted in the damp and muggy basement. We were also forced to pack pencils and make woven bags. We were held to strict deadlines and given quotas. We often had to work overtime and often until 1:00 a.m. to meet the deadlines.

On May 18th, 2007, I put up eight posters exposing the persecution at public places around the university. Two days later the secretary of the Communist (CCP) Youth League asked me to come and see several leaders of the university and the head of security. I became very scared and hesitated to say anything, especially because I had never come across this kind of situation. After half an hour, the deputy head of the Security Department, Chen, presented a piece of paper and a pile of documents. I was dumbfounded when I saw them. I tried to remain calm and not let them notice my fear. Chen said, "You put these up, right? You'd better tell us all the details and do not try to hide anything. We can severely punish you because of this issue." Later the CCP expelled me from University.

Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, they have instilled lies into people's minds about Falun Gong and didn't even overlook the primary school students. The students treated me as an enemy, threatened me, bullied me, and punched and kicked me. Many times I didn't dare to go to school due to the beatings. I reported this to my teacher but he couldn't effectively prevent them from doing bad things to me. My parents have been detained in brainwashing centres and severely tortured. I was traumatised and lagged behind in my studies as a result.

In September, 2001, I was taken into custody by police officers and sent to the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp for two years. During that period, I was never allowed to sleep on a bed. While in the labour camp, I requested to practise the exercises. As a result, Wang Naimin, the director of the No. 1 Division, strapped me to a chair for about 10 days. Later, I was tied to some hooks that kept my arms outstretched for two months. At the end of 2002, the so-called "helping and education team" came to the labour camp and schemed to "transform" steadfast practitioners. In reality, they were there to cruelly torture practitioners. This time, my hands were hung up with my feet dangling below me. I was hung up for five days, then locked onto the heating pump in the hallway for about a month.

I was taken by police to the Daqing City Detention Centre, because I refused to give up Falun Gong. I was kept on an "iron chair" for two days. Using the enticement of reducing their jail terms, the police instigated criminal inmates to beat me. Seven to eight held me down at a time. Prison doctor Qi Hong, who was very vicious in torturing Falun Gong practitioners, force-fed me through my nose. When the tubes were taken out, there was blood everywhere in my mouth and nose. A male prisoner kicked my lower back until it was difficult for me to breathe. A dozen prisoners kicked my upper body before they sat on my lower back. They pinched me all over, leaving black and blue bruises everywhere. There were bumps on the top of my head, and my feet were beaten purple.

Xu Yushan was arrested when police found Falun Gong books in his possession. He was severely tortured in a forced labour camp. He recounts, "After they confirmed my stance toward Falun Gong the guards said, It seems you are not afraid of death. We will not let you die, but will make you live in a state worse than death. We just want to play with you. When we are tired of playing we will make you completely disabled. Then we let you go home and die at home several days later.'"

On July 20th, 1999, Jiang Zemin's, [former leader of China and instigator of the persecution] regime started its unrestrained persecution of Falun Gong. Over the past eight years, I have been arrested and detained six times for my belief. I was sent to the forced labour camp and had 7350 yuan extorted from me. I was traumatised. My family members, relatives, and friends were also subjected to huge psychological pressures and suffered economic losses.

Ms. Yao Shilan is a 58-year-old practitioner, who has endured persecution at the hands of agents from the Wuqing District 610 Office, Banqiao Women's Forced Labour Camp in Dagang City, and Tianjin City Women's Prison. On April 4th, 2007, police arrested her again. She was placed in a detention centre and in Tianjin Women's Prison, where she was injected with unidentified drugs. Ms. Yao went home on November 23rd, 2007. Currently, she is still extremely weak and unable to take care of herself.

One evening in August 2001, police officers came to my home again. They ransacked my home and arrested me. Two policemen guarded me in the police station that night, even though they knew it was illegal. They brought handcuffs and foot shackles. I asked them, "Are you going to put those on a defenceless lady?" The next day they took me to a detention centre for criminal detention. I held a hunger strike to protest their actions. On the fifth day, they thought that I was about to die, so I was taken to the town hospital for treatment. They read the "decision" to me the following morning: A sentence for two years of forced labour for "disrupting the social order." How could I have disrupted the social order by staying at home?

In Songjiang Women's Prison in Shanghai, I was first forced to do various kinds of work, making trousers, miniature British national flags, knitting sweaters, sewing Korean clothes, doll clothes, coverlets, covers for quilts, small cotton mats, etc. The guards' bonus is directly connected with our production profit, so prisoners become their tools for making a profit. Each prisoner has a production quota and must fulfill it in the stipulated time. If the quota isn't met, the prisoner would be punished by having to copy the rules of the prison all night, put in isolation or forced to do aerobic exercises under the burning sun, prohibited from buying some of the relatively better food items, restricted in buying commodities, not be allowed to take a bath, etc.

I was arrested by police from Fushun Police Station and was detained for five days and nights, during which time I was not allowed to sleep. They severely beat me and tied my hands behind my back with thin ropes for long periods (the scars have remained). A policewoman made up an interrogation record, and tried to force me to answer questions about whether I practised Falun Gong and/or browsed Falun Gong-related websites. A doctor refused to treat me when he saw the bruises and injuries all over my body. Later I learned that the hospital's director was told by the police that it didn't matter if I died. The police handcuffed and shackled me and ordered inmates to beat me and to stop me from doing the sitting meditation. They force- fed me for thirteen days at the custodial station and then I was transferred to another cell and tortured there.

My name is Wang Xiuqing. I live in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. Because I practise Falun Gong, I have been persecuted for eight years and have become disabled. The persecution of Falun Gong by the the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its former secretary Jiang Zemin has not only disrupted my normal life but also brought tremendous pressure and harm to my family. The 610 Office agents have continually harassed my family and me. We have lived under constant fear, which has traumatised us physically and psychologically. During these eight years, I have been detained three times and held in a forced labour camp for a year and a half.

I am a Falun Gong practitioner. In 2005, 610 Office agents forcefully took me to prison and I was released three months ago. In prison, collaborators or former practitioners who have turned against Falun Gong under brainwashing and torture, detained practitioners in their cells and made them sit on a very low, hard stool. We were not allowed to move and were restricted to three toilet visits per day. So from the time we got up at 6:40 a.m., until 11:00 p.m., we sat for nearly 16 hours every day. After a while I developed bedsores on my buttocks. They hurt me so much it was as if I was being stabbed with needles. Once a collaborator slapped me and cursed me because I leaned over a little bit. I was not allowed to move my eyes around at all; I could only stare at what was in front of me.

I am an elderly Falun Gong practitioner in my 70s . When I distributed leaflets exposing the persecution in Beijing in October 2000, patrol officers arrested me. I was sentenced to one and a half years of forced labour and held in the Dongcheng District No.1 Detention Centre, where I developed high blood pressure, as high as 220. I also developed arrhythmia and high blood sugar of 13.8, and I was close to death. They brutally handcuffed me to a bed, with my hands and feet fixed to the four corners of the bed. The police took me to the Dongcheng Police Hospital. I did not get treatment there, but was tortured instead.

In 2001, China successfully landed the right to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Chinese officials promised better human rights as a condition for the bid, and then turned around to use it as a tool for justifying its persecution and suppression. I was imprisoned in Tuanhe Forced Labour Camp. Guard Yue Qingjin shouted at me, "You are against the bid for the Olympics. You don't love your country and resist transformation. Even if we kill you, we'll claim that you committed suicide." Several guards put me on a cotton quilt and tied my four limbs down with strips of fabric. They yanked the strips in four different directions, which caused terrible pain. They shocked me with electric batons, shouted at me and ordered me to give up my belief. When they saw that I was about to faint, they stopped and force-fed me with some water.