(Clearwisdom.net) I started practicing Falun Gong in June of 1999. After obtaining the Fa, I learned from fellow practitioners that as long as I studied the Falun Dafa teachings, I would be able to quit smoking. Sure enough, within one month after I learned to practice Falun Dafa, although I only read 7 chapters of the book Zhuan Falun, I finally quit smoking, after 37 years as a serious smoker. This made me become a firm believer in Dafa. After this, I experienced the marvel and power of Dafa.

In July 1999, the Party head Jiang Zemin led the legal and judicial systems in China and the "610 office"* to launch the persecution against Falun Gong. As I'm was too poor and too old to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, I kept practicing and cultivating myself at home. In less than 2 years, the local officials (Chen Zhan, Wu Jiale) began harassing and threatening me, putting me into the detention center on six occasions.

For the first time on March 7, 2000, I was detained with dozens of other practitioners. On that day, local officials from Chengguan Town illegally broke into my home and brought me to the brainwashing center. For days, Zhu attempted to force us to give up our belief in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." After that they asked everybody to pay a fine of 300 yuan [500 Yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China]. Since I didn't have money, the brainwashing center detained me until after midnight after the session was over for that day. After that, they searched my home to confiscate my property, but still got nothing valuable. They decided to detain me again.

The second time was on May 17, 2000. Zhu, Wu Jiale, and their driver broke into my home. I was reading the Falun Dafa book, Zhuan Falun. They snatched my book and intended to burn it. I protected the book with my hands and body. After that, the authorities detained me for 35 days.

The 3^rd time I was detained was in June 2000. Zhu along with 2 more local officials broke into my home again, stole my Falun Gong books, confiscated my properties, and then detained me for over a month.

The fourth time was in September 2000. Chen Zhan and Wu Jiale along with 4 others broke into my home, confiscating the book Zhuan Falun, and detained me for over 20 days.

Through all these hardships, I lost weight and became ill. My daughter realized that I was not able to take care of myself anymore. She brought me to her home and has taken good care of me. But Chen Zhan and Wu Jiale still did not want to give up and continued to threaten and harass me. On November 22, 2000 they came to my daughter's home and captured me for the fifth time. They detained me for over 50 days.

I felt very bad about bringing trouble to my children's family. I informed the local officials that the persecution and economic difficulty they brought upon me has forced me to decide to leave my hometown. Once they knew this, they broke into my home again and told me that I was not allowed to leave. They detained me again for over 50 days.

2003-10-18