Surviving Hell: Hearts That Never Surrender

On July 20, 1999, millions of people in China became targets overnight. The reason? Practicing Falun Gong, a belief rooted in truthfulness, compassion and forbearance. July 20th marks the 25th anniversary of the start of the crackdown on Falun Gong, the Chinese spiritual group that by Beijing's count had 70 to 100 million practitioners in 1999. Hundreds of thousands of practitioners were arrested and sent to labor camps. Falun Gong practitioners comprised between a third to a half of the labor camp population, according to the State Department. Some were tortured to death with cattle prods, merciless beatings and other methods. Inside these labor camps and prisons, Falun Gong practitioners faced unbearable suffering. Many were shackled, forced to walk barefoot in the snow and burned with boiling water. Brutal beatings were routine. They were shocked with electric batons, sexually abused and subjected to endless forms of physical and psychological torture. Many were deprived of sleep for days on end. A practitioner who survived the infamous Ma Sanjia labor camp recalls the horror she endured. I was incarcerated in Ma Sanjia labor camp. I was arrested twice, four and a half years in total. I was practically on the verge of death. The persecution in that part of China is very, very serious. Because I don't want to compromise, there is nothing wrong with practicing Falun Gong. This experience was very... Every time I talk about it, I can't help but cry. I personally have a friend whose mother was submersed in a cage. They put her in a little cage. They put her into sewer water in complete darkness for days. These are the different methods they're using on Falun Gong practitioners around the country, trying to transform them. Every morning after I woke up, I was taken to a room and forced to sit about one meter away from the TV set and forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong. This kind of brainwashing did not work. So they changed to another approach, which was intensive slave labor. President Jiang Zemin ordered Falun Gong to be eliminated, set up a bureaucratic infrastructure to ruthlessly carry this out, and eventually officially demonized it as an evil cult. In 2001, the Chinese government staged a self-immolation at Tiananmen Square, falsely blaming Falun Gong to justify the crackdown. Investigators later proved it was a setup, revealing the extent of the government's deceit. One victim, Liu Chunlin, was seen collapsing from what appeared to be a blow to the head, not fire injuries. Additionally, plastic bottles supposedly filled with gasoline remained intact despite the intense flames, and survivors were interviewed despite suffering severe burns, an impossibility according to medical experts. Falun Gong's teachings of non-violence and peace strongly contradict the idea that its practitioners would engage in self-harm. Investigations by independent groups, including the Washington Post, found that none of the self-immolators had ever practiced Falun Gong, further discrediting the government's narrative. In addition to these inhumane methods, the Chinese Communist Party used another sinister tactic. Days before the scheduled release, Falun Gong practitioners were secretly poisoned or injected with forced medications. These drugs stripped them of their will, their minds, and their ability to function independently, leaving them in a state worse than death. The purpose of this was something beyond anyone's imagination. Beijing developed a multi-billion dollar transplant industry in Falun Gong's case, now the world's second largest, in which human organs benefit patients who are commonly those from the upper ranks of the CCP and profiting the health sector, many of whose hospitals are military ones. Simultaneously, Beijing is achieving or is working to carry out its political goal, the physical elimination of Falun Gong and its other perceived religious enemies. Yet despite the repression, Falun Gong isn't just a belief. For Ken and countless others, Falun Gong offers healing, clarity, and purpose, all without a price tag. After I read the book, and then I found out later on there were some exercises, so I started doing those too. And I actually felt like huge improvements in my legs. So it was like, probably like 95% like healed. I was never a very spiritual person. As I found Falun Gong, it was like, wow, there's a whole different world. And it's just been an incredible journey of finding things in myself that I'm not happy with, and having a method to actually change them. It's just amazing. And so rewarding. And I think not just for me, but for my entire family. Yeah. As the persecution in China rages on, the world is taking notice. Over 430 million people have withdrawn their support from the Communist Party. And in 2024, the US House passed the Falun Gong Protection Act. I'm so grateful the US House representative passed the Falun Gong Protection Act. It means so much to the victim. And it brings hope for the children. Now, this persecution extends from China to American soil right now. So we have together, we have to unite together to stop this. And now, at the moment, the positive thing we can do is to let the Senate pass this Falun Gong Protection Act.