(Clearwisdom.net) One night in the winter of 2000, the sky was a dark red. Shortly thereafter three booms of thunder rang out. After several days, this incident was reported in a local newspaper. An 80-year-old woman said that she had seen nothing like it in her entire lifetime. Clearheaded people immediately saw that the local people who unlawfully persecuted Falun Gong had caused this. This was a warning to people. Moreover, two small earthquakes occurred that year. One was in summer, the other in winter. The winter of 2001 was very cold, with temperature dropping to almost minus 30 degree F each day.

There were three years of continuous drought in that small town. In some villages at harvest-time, no grain was to be had. So far this winter, the situation has continued to worsen. Not only was the temperature bitterly cold, but another earthquake also occurred.

Before the 16^th People's Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, the lawless henchmen here 'sentenced' a group of Falun Gong practitioners very heavily. The longest sentence was 14 years' imprisonment. Many were sentenced to over 10 years' imprisonment, and all work units were threatened to force any practitioners employed there to attend a so-called "study class", where they would surely face persecution and forced brainwashing.

In the past three years in the small town, the TV station and newspaper often repeated defamatory reports on Falun Gong from the CCTV and the People's Daily. In January 2003, every day a caption on the TV continually stated "Notice from the Police Station: people who capture or turn in Falun Gong practitioners who post flyers, hang banners, or write statements on walls, will be rewarded one thousand Yuan [Note: an average of two months' salary in China]."

Every police station and the police on front lines have quotas. Every police officer should arrest at least one Falun Gong practitioner a year. Each officer should give 500 Yuan to his department, and once he/she has arrested the 'one Falun Gong practitioner', the 500 Yuan will be returned to him/her, plus the 1000 Yuan reward.

As long as a policeman arrests one Falun Gong practitioner, he will be rewarded 1000 Yuan. Even the police said they could not arrest all Falun Gong practitioners in even eight or ten years, as there were so many of them. The more they arrested, the more practitioners stepped forward. In the summer of 2002, every day there were hues and cries in the newspaper and on TV. Six practitioners were "wanted." Anyone providing any clues leading to arrest would be rewarded 5000 Yuan.

In 2002, 3 to 4 truth-clarifying materials production sites were destroyed by policemen. Dafa disciples were unlawfully heavily sentenced (as mentioned above; several fellow practitioners were sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment). A female fellow practitioner had a toothpick nailed into her hand by a police officer, and was later persecuted to death. Several fellow practitioners were forcibly taken away. They were beaten to the point that their teeth were loosened, and their fingers did not work properly anymore. They also had 50 -60 thousand Yuan extorted from them. In a small town where the average monthly salary of a worker was about 300 to 400 Yuan, that amount of extorted money could pay for one person's living expenses for nearly 20 years. Some practitioners had nothing but several steamed buns and a bowl of poorly made soup each day in the detention center, but they were asked to pay 20 Yuan per day as "meal expenses" [Note: 20 Yuan can buy far more than a few steamed buns and a bowl of soup]. They were interrogated by torture and cruelly beaten. In the detention center, there were all kinds of tortures used. One of the really bad ones was the 'tiger bench', whereon practitioners' hands tied behind their backs or sometimes placed on their knees, they are forced to sit straight up and look straight ahead. They are not allowed to turn their heads, close their eyes, talk to anyone or move at all. Some practitioners were beaten top the point so as to be deformed. Even hardened criminals burst into tears when they saw them.

A police station had a shortfall in filling its quota, so they hurried to arrest Falun Gong practitioners to make the quota. Some said that they arrested over 100 people, whereas others said they had arrested over 160 people. There were monitors in every Internet cafe in the small town. They forbade people to talk about Dafa and prevented people from accessing Dafa websites.

There was an old couple who were both section supervisors. Their salary was withheld since they practice Falun Gong. Later on in prison, they did not give up practicing although they suffered all kinds of tortures. Everyone was moved by their determination. A teacher in the Party School was illegally sentenced to 4 years in a forced-labor camp, was dismissed from his teaching position, and his Party membership was revoked, just because he practices Falun Gong and refused to give up cultivation.

In the beginning of the winter of 2003, every TV station asked folks to sparingly use the water. A that time, there was only drinking water once a day. Now there is only water once in every three days. It is predicted that by April of this year, there will no longer be any drinking water left in this town.

Whenever we see kind-hearted people being rewarded with good fortune for listening to their consciences and being fair to Dafa or protecting Falun Dafa practitioners, we always feel so grateful and are even happier than they are. Whenever we see people awaken and correct their wrongdoings after they have gone astray or have gone down a wrong path and received karmic retribution, we feel so happy for them, and wish them our sincere blessings. Whenever we see people who are deceived by the lies commit wrongdoings against Dafa practitioners, disregarding the warnings from the heavens and going down an unjust path from which they might never return, we feel very saddened by this. In order to eliminate their hatred and misunderstanding, we are willing to sacrifice more so that all the sentient beings will have a happy, peaceful, and beautiful future.

2003-2-8