A Chinese woman is accusing the Chinese government of arresting her because of her belief in Falun Gong, and of detaining, force-feeding and brainwashing her during an illegal 8-month detention.

Li Huagui, 59, who now lives in the United States with her oldest son, recently recounted her experiences in the Shenzhen City detention center and Sanshui Women’s Labor Camp, charging the Chinese government with illegal arrest and detention, extortion and inhumane practices because she endeavored to expose fellow citizens to the benefits of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong.

Li said that before practicing the five simple exercises and meditation of Falun Gong in 1998, her general health was poor, she was a 20-year sufferer of insomnia and she had a very quick temper. Her health gradually improved with the exercises, however, and by following the main principles of Falun Gong – Truthfulness, Benevolence and Forbearance – she has gained self-control over her temper and become more compassionate and tolerant. It was the great changes in her own health and character that made her want to share the practice with others, and so she would distribute literature to the doorsteps of fellow citizens.

The decision to do that in May 2001, however, ran afoul of the Chinese government, which, under former President Jiang Zemin, had outlawed Falun Gong in July 1999, claiming it was harmful to the populace and a dangerous “cult.” The information she was distributing also was intended to expose the state persecution of Falun Gong.

Li was arrested on May 14, 2001, for distributing flyers in spite of provisions in the Chinese constitution that allow such public appeal.

She said that the police interrogated her youngest son, with whom she lived, and ransacked their home at the time of the arrest. The police attempted to extort money from her son, but did not succeed, she said. An officer concluded the episode by grabbing her throat and taking her to the detention center of Futian District, Shenzhen City. “I was arrested because I was a Falun Gong practitioner,” she said in Chinese. “There was no legal procedure; they put me in the detention center.”

At the detention center, she was placed in a 40-square-meter cell with 30 inmates, including drug dealers, murderers and prostitutes, she said. The conditions were so cramped, there was barely room to sleep. Each night during her two-and-a-half-month stay (Chinese law dictates the maximum stay in a detention center as 15 days, she said) she was to serve two hours of night duty and daily cleaned the toilet, floor and plates, and performed other physical labor. Kept under constant surveillance, she was prevented from performing the Falun Gong exercises or reading Falun Gong literature.

To protest the extended detention, she began a hunger strike, and the center administrators responded by using four male inmates to force feed her by inserting a tube into her stomach through her nose, causing her so much pain that her body went into spasms.

Li was eventually transferred from the detention center to the women’s labor camp to serve a one-year sentence. This was done without following appropriate legal procedures, she said.

There she was forced to produce sweaters, toys and ornaments with U.S. flags on them.

Besides the long hours of work seven days a week, she said she was subjected to months of extensive brainwashing, including sessions of classes under the constant pressure of a group of people. She was constantly monitored, whether eating, bathing or using the toilet. Posters of bloody scenes were displayed throughout the camp with phrases defaming Falun Gong.

The goal of the brainwashing, she said, was to make her and other Falun Gong practitioners renounce their faith by signing a “repentance letter.” Failing to do so, she was told, would result in sentences being extended. This, she said, was more cruel than the physical labor. “At the labor camp, the brainwashing was very intense. It aimed to destroy people’s willpower and drive you crazy.”

In the midst of this, her son and husband were feeling the pressure of her tribulations. When she learned of her husband’s collapse and hospitalization, and out of fear for her own ability to bear up under the brainwashing, she signed the repentance letter, against her conscience. She calls it the most painful and remorseful experience of the ordeal.

The government released her after eight months at the labor camp. Rather than risk certain future persecution, she left China and moved to the United States to live with her oldest son and his wife. She is free to practice Falun Gong in the United States.

“Falun Gong helps people to be good by following Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Jiang Zemin is persecuting good people, and all that attacks goodness is definitely evil,” she said.

The United Nations, U.S. State Department, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented many cases similar to Li’s. Her experience is not the worst, however. Arrests by the thousands, brutal torture and murder at the hands of the government against Falun Gong practitioners have been documented since the practice was outlawed in China in 1999.