Ordeal of a Sixteen-Year-old High School Student :Where Can I Study in Peace?

I am a 16-year-old high school student and I have practised Falun Gong for more than six years. On April 25, 1999, my mother and I went to Zhongnanhai to appeal for Dafa. After that, I also practised Falun Gong outdoors. Since then, the personnel from my local residence office and the police station have been harassing me at my school and at home. But I haven't given up practising Falun Gong since I haven't done anything wrong. However it hurts me to be separated from my family. My parents have been illegally detained many times. My mother has had to leave home in order to avoid the persecution and I am not able to see her, although I miss her very much.

Once, when my parents were detained, the police came to my school and took me to the principal's office. They surrounded me and scolded me. They told me that if I asked my parents to give up practising Falun Gong, they would let me visit them; otherwise I could never see them. I firmly refused. Then they started to threaten me in turn. After that they came to my school several more times.

On April 31, 2001, I agreed to let the police take me to visit my mother. They said I could "Take a look at your mother and stay there for two days." They took me to Hulufa in the Fangshan District. I heard later from a policeman that this place had once held 1000 or more Falun Dafa practitioners as detainees. I arrived only to find out that they had deceived me. The police tried to force me to write a statement of my intention to give up Falun Gong. They said, "You can't leave without writing this statement." They pointed to a man who was running constantly in the courtyard as an example.

At that time, I felt it was very confusing and was angry because I could not understand why they would take away my personal freedom for no reason. I had not violated any law! I realised that I had been deceived.

One evening, just before going to sleep, I discovered many awful black and blue bruises on my mother's back, shoulders, and arms. I immediately burst into tears. I asked my mum what had happened. She told me that she had fallen. At the time I did not understand why she said that, since the bruises were clearly from being beaten. Those bruises had not healed even after six months. I later learned about the torture that my mum had received in this brainwashing centre. First, they took turns in brainwashing and threatening her and did not allow her to sleep for several days. They punished her by various means, including making her stand facing the wall, kicking her, punching her, and forcing her to run around the courtyard for six hours. They even threatened to let a dog bite her. My mum was finally forced to give in.

During those days, I was not able to think clearly. Their various lies made me muddleheaded. Some people who had been brainwashed and deceived, took some of Teacher Li's new articles and interpreted the meaning in a distorted way. By that time, I was on the edge of mental collapse and was exhausted from reasoning with them. I was forced to write a statement of renunciation of Dafa.

But the evil people still did not leave me alone. On one evening in September 2002, some women from my local residence office and some police from the local police station took my father and me to Hulufa again. All of our neighbours were shocked by this news. The police forced me to give them my fingerprints. On the way to Hulufa, I was telling myself that I would not stay there for a long time and would not be brainwashed again. However, under the enormous pressure, I was compelled to take up the pen again. Although I told myself that I should not curse our Teacher or Dafa, the evil people forced me step by step and made me write as many as eight pages. Here I solemnly declare that none of words were mine. These words were not my true thoughts and the entire thing was what the evil people forced upon me. Therefore I do not acknowledge a bit of it. I was forced to do it.

The next day, the Bureau of Education instructed the leaders at my school to assign a teacher to accompany me every day to the brainwashing centre in order to "influence" me. Every day, I felt depressed or even that it was too painful to live. I often felt that my mind was on the verge of collapse. Every day, those people who had been brainwashed by the persecutors and the police constantly instilled evil thoughts into my head and the teacher from my school kept deceiving me. I doubted that I could last much longer. I tried my best to expel those evil words and lies. I lived every minute of every day there.

At the brainwashing centre, I found out that they wanted me to assist in the arrest of my mum. My mum freed her mind from the brainwashing, decided to follow Falun Dafa in a noble way again and left home in order to avoid the persecution. Her life, although unsettled and difficult, is no longer one of humiliation. The evildoers were using this kind of despicable trick to persecute Falun Gong! This might even have been the main reason that they arrested us this time.

I was finally released at the beginning of October. But I felt enormous pain in my heart since I had written that statement. Since I came to know Dafa in 1996, I always felt fortunate that I had obtained it. However, again and again under the pressure of the vicious persecution, I said that Dafa was not good against my heart and slandered the great Way ['Dafa' literally translated means "Great Way"] that taught people to be kind.

In order to persist in my belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" and to avoid harassment and being sent to the brainwashing centre, which could literally drive a person insane, I was forced to leave the school that I liked so much and leave home just like my mum. I can't go back home. Where is there a place for me to study in peace?

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/12/15/29770.html