(Clearwisdom.net)
A fellow practitioner told me her experience when she was being held in a detention center:
When she was sent into a detention center, the prisoners fiercely asked her why she was detained, she answered with a smile, "Because I practice Falun Gong." Upon hearing that, all the prisoners pleasantly and surprisingly said, "Oh! You are also a Falun Gong practitioner." Then they pointed at a lady who appeared to be in her thirties and very kind (she later discovered that the woman was actually over 40-years-old), "She is also a Falun Gong practitioner!" From that moment, those prisoners started to protect them all the time: the police of the detention center viciously asked Wang, the head of the cell to search Dafa practitioner's clothes. As Wang loudly ordered her to take off her clothes for inspection, at the same time said to her with a low voice: "Don't be afraid. I am just pretending. You don't need to take off your clothes!" At night, the practitioner did not have anywhere to sleep, so the prisoners voluntarily squeezed together to leave a place for the practitioner. They did not show such consideration for the regular prisoners who came afterwards. That night, Wang said to Dafa practitioners: "If you were not Falun Gong practitioners, we would really mess you up." Another female prisoner who was under 20 years old said: "Actually, we should have known that she is a Falun Gong practitioner. She was smiling when she arrived. Only Falun Gong practitioners could come here with a smile!"
Later, Wang told other prisoners more than once, "I don't know what Falun Gong teaches, but I believe Falun Gong is good, because all the practitioners are good people. Not only are they good people, but everyone who practices is also healthy and happy. Falun Gong is really mysterious!"
Then she told the fellow practitioners how she learned about Falun Gong: "When I first came here, I didn't understand Falun Gong, as all my knowledge had come from television. Then an over 50-year-old Falun Gong practitioner came to our cell. In the beginning, I didn't talk to her, but just critically watched her. Gradually I found she was absolutely different from what the television claimed; she is a really good person! Because the things here are very expensive, other prisoners would hide their purchased necessities, and not let others use them. They even sneakily use other's daily necessities when no one is around, so they could save their own. However, she is not like this. Because she practices Falun Gong, her family members do not understand her and her children do not come to see her either. She spent all the money she had with her to buy daily necessities and left them out, allowing anyone to use them. When there was nothing left, she would rather not use it than take from others. Once, a Falun Gong practitioner came to see her and gave her 50 Yuan [500 Yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China]. She spent it all on daily necessities again and left them out for public use. She never needs to be asked to do cleaning. According to the rules in the cell, newcomers need to do cleaning and washing. Since the first day she came she never stopped doing it, whether or not she was on duty. She never complained from the beginning to the end. At that time, I just felt she was great. Later, Falun Gong practitioners came one by one and everyone of them behaved so well. This made me believe that Falun Gong is really good!"
"Falun Gong is really mysterious! Before you came, there was an elder sister named Yang who was over 50 years old. She conducted a hunger strike from the first day she came in. On the 18th day of her hunger strike, she took a shower and changed her clothes. In the beginning, we were very worried and offered to help her, but she insisted on taking care of herself. On the 22nd day we began to worry for her safety, so we told the police that she could not move and then they agreed to release her. On the day she was released, we urged her to pretend she had no strength to avoid further detention by the police, but she walked out like a normal healthy person. This was the most mysterious thing I had witnessed in all my life: a 50-year-old woman walking out of jail in such a strong condition after conducting a hunger strike for 22 days!"
Wang pointed at prisoner Gu and said, "When she first came here, she had a nightmare every night and screamed loudly in her dreams. Since Dafa practitioners arrived, she gradually stopped having those nightmares."
Because these prisoners have a very positive understanding of Dafa, therefore they were able to accept it when fellow practitioners explained the truth to them. Guo was detained for selling fake cigarettes and alcohol. When a fellow practitioner told her the principles of Falun Gong, she regretfully said: "If I had known this earlier, I wouldn't have done so. When I get out, I will conduct fair business. I won't do illegal things any more. In the past, I saw a person reading Zhuan Falun [The main book of Falun Gong] near my home, I did not know what it was at the time. When I get out, I will go find him; I want to learn Falun Gong too!" In the days following, she even started learning the exercises from the fellow practitioner.
Gu was detained for fighting. She told a Dafa practitioner that she often does irrational things when she becomes angry. For example, once she quarreled with her husband, so she grabbed a kitchen knife and slashed her own head, causing profuse bleeding. When a Dafa practitioner told her the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance, and told her to treat others and herself with kindness, she said, "I understand now. I won't do these things again!"
A few days later, two Dafa practitioners started a hunger strike to protest the illegal persecution. From the 2nd day, they did not let Dafa practitioners do any work. Sometimes Dafa practitioners did the cleaning, but when Wang saw this, she asked others to do the work and even blamed them for letting the practitioners do it in the first place.
On the morning of the 4th day of the hunger strike, a prisoner accidentally discovered that the comforter that the Dafa practitioners were using was very cold. She said loudly, "They slept for a whole night and this comforter is still as cold as ice." All the prisoners discussed it among themselves and finally decided to ask the police to release the Falun Gong practitioners. They also asked that they allow prisoners to sleep with practitioners so they could warm them up with their body temperature.
On that day, they also told the police that Dafa practitioners had not eaten nor had they drunk anything for a week, thus their bodies were ice cold. The detention center did not respond. The next morning, they went to see the police again and were badly scolded by the police. They continued in the afternoon, and still could not move the police. But they did not give up and discussed at night and concluded, "We will continue to ask tomorrow." On the 3rd day, they started to call out for the police, and made it known throughout the whole building that two Dafa practitioners were on a hunger strike for more than 10 days and could not move. At 5 p.m. that day the two Dafa practitioners were released.