(Clearwisdom.net)
Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp is the "Masanja" of Hebei Province. (Note: Masanja Forced Labor Camp, located in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, is notorious for its brutality.) The tactics that Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp uses to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners are extremely brutal. As a result, several other forced labor camps, such as Tangshan, Baoding, Shijiazhuang, and Handan, have transferred all of their steadfast practitioners to Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp for more severe persecution. Some elderly and weak practitioners from Beijing were also sent to Gaoyang Labor Camp for more torture.
When the persecution of practitioners was most rampant, some practitioners that did not study the Fa well could not endure the brutal torture and wrote the so-called guarantee statement declaring that they would not practice Dafa any more. However, our merciful Master did not give up on them and eventually guided them back to practicing Falun Dafa again.
Sometime before this, practitioners imprisoned in this forced labor camp started to study the Fa and shared Master's new lectures with each other by different routes to avoid the guards' close surveillance. Almost every practitioner at that time studied the Fa or memorized the Fa. Through Fa study, the practitioners upgraded themselves a great deal. Our merciful Master witnessed the practitioners' improvement and therefore arranged for them to return to cultivation practice anew.
At one time the guards made a survey of practitioners by questionnaire. The results of the survey were totally the opposite of what they guards the expected. Through studying the Fa, practitioners had upgraded themselves, and 99 percent of them answered the questionnaire according to the standard of a Dafa practitioner. The questionnaire totally negated the "transformation" attempted by the camp officials. The guards then inflicted further persecution upon the practitioners.
Master and Dafa were both strengthening practitioners. During the persecution, when every single practitioner imprisoned there had to go through a checkpoint, the questionnaire in this case, most practitioners persisted firmly with their righteous thoughts, showed that their answers were correct, and refused to answer any more surveys.
However, a few practitioners still had attachments of fear and therefore left loopholes for the evil to use against them. By torturing them brutally, the guards tried vigorously to "transform" these practitioners.
However, when these practitioners were dragged away to be tortured, all the other practitioners sent forth righteous thoughts to form a powerful field. As long as the practitioners who were taken away for torture did not return, the practitioners would not stop sending forth righteous thoughts. During those days, all the practitioners sent forth righteous thoughts very intensely in order to eliminate all the evil factors that controlled Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp and thereby end the practitioners' persecution. Under this powerful righteous field that practitioners formed together to eliminate the evil and to strengthen the practitioners who were suffering brutal torture, those practitioners who had fear conquered their fear and came through their suffering. All the plots that the evil had planned were in vain in the end.
The guards then changed their tactics to persecute the practitioners by restricting their every movement, including the time to pick up food, to bathe, and to use the bathroom. Some practitioners enlightened that as Dafa practitioners, they should not be restricted in the time to visit the bathroom. They then decided to negate all cooperation with the evil. They started hunger strikes and other means to eliminate the persecution. In the face of practitioners' righteous thoughts, those in charge failed again.
Another time, when practitioners were making napkins and towels for export trade companies, hotels, and commercial airlines, they inserted "truth-clarifying" notes into the napkins and towels as they packed them, with the intention of taking this special opportunity to clarify the truth of Dafa to the world. All of the practitioners but one did this without being caught. The guards were very mad and desperate. They took all the criminal inmates away from the production floor and had them search for truth-clarifying notes in the already-packaged products that had not yet been shipped. Those inmates found a large number of notes. The guards therefore spread the word that they would severely punish the practitioners after this batch of products was finished. The guards extended the work hours from six o'clock in the morning to one o'clock the next morning, with only a half-hour lunch break. Realizing that this was unjust persecution inflicted on them by the guards, the practitioners staged a hunger strike and they all fasted together to protest the persecution.
The guards took all the practitioners into a meeting hall and brutally beat them at random. The practitioners who were being beaten yelled loudly to the guards and other practitioners that all they had done was to clarify the truth and save sentient beings. Many practitioners stood up to disclose all the torture and other illegal actions that this forced labor camp had committed against the practitioners. The righteous field the practitioners formed eliminated the vicious factors in other dimensions and therefore stopped the persecution. Several female guards were so shocked that they burst into tears.
Hearing the practitioners' righteous words, the guards had no choice but to promise that they would never brutally beat the practitioners again.
The camp flagpole displayed the blood-red CCP (Chinese Communist Party) flag. Several practitioners enlightened that the flag should not fly there anymore. The practitioners then sent forth righteous thoughts toward the flag in order to eliminate the vicious factors behind it. One morning the flag suddenly slipped halfway down the pole. The guards tried all day until it was dark to raise the flag again but failed. They finally lowered the flag all the way. From that day on, the flag never flew from the flagpole.
It has been three years since all of these events occurred. Whenever I recall them, I always appreciate the mercy of our Master and the greatness of a Buddha's benevolence.