Practitioners from Michigan Respectfully Wish Revered Master Happy Chinese New Year!

Practitioners in Singapore Respectfully Wish Revered Master a Happy Chinese New Year!

Practitioners from Sweden Respectfully Wish Revered Master Happy Chinese New Year!

(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Li Yinju, 56, was born in Henan Province. She moved to Shenyang City because her husband works in the Shenyang Army Compound. She was employed as a nursery school teacher in the Shenyang City Welding Strip Factory. She suffered a severe case of arthritis when she gave birth to her child in 1981. She became very bad-tempered because she was in unbearable pain. After learning the practice of Falun Gong, she recovered quickly. She followed Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and treated others with kindness. People around her noticed how nice Falun Dafa practitioners are and witnessed her physical changes, so many were inspired to learn Falun Gong themselves.

Ms. Li Yinju

Ms. Li Yinju often validated Falun Dafa by telling her own story. She went to Beijing to testify to the goodness of Falun Dafa, but she was arrested at the Shenyang City Train Station. Once, she went to the Liaoning Province CCP Committee to clarify the truth, and she was taken by the police and dropped off at Sujiatun, a suburban area of Shenyang City. The police forced her to walk the long way home.

At the beginning of July 2006, Ms. Li went back to her hometown in Henan Province. She was arrested on the street while she was clarifying the truth to some elementary school students on July 30, 2006. She was sentenced to one year of forced labor, which she served in the Shibalihe Women's Labor Camp in Henan Province. The guards tried to force her to give up her faith, conducted long-term brainwashing sessions by not allowing her to sleep, beating her, and locking her in a small cell (1). She had to sleep on the floor inside the small cell. The warden's name is Jia Meili (female).

Ms. Li was tortured both mentally and physically. Her hair fell out, and the doctor found that she had developed breast cancer. She was released in January 2007. The labor camp continued to harass her and her family in Henan Province, threatening to report her situation, and announced they would arrest and take her back to Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. She died at home in the early morning on December 18, 2008. She is survived by her husband and child.

(1) Small Cell: The detainee is locked up in a very small cell in isolation. The guards handcuff practitioners on their back in a fixed position, in which the practitioners can neither move nor lie down. The small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. Detainees have to urinate and defecate in the cell.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Some mouthwashes can contribute to oral cancer and should only be available on prescription, researchers have claimed.

They claimed there was now "sufficient evidence" that mouthwashes containing alcohol contribute to an increased risk of the disease that they should be taken off supermarket shelves and labelled with health warnings.

In a review of the latest studies, the scientists found evidence that the ethanol in mouthwash was allowing cancer-causing substances to permeate the lining of the mouth more easily and therefore cause harm.

Professor Michael McCulloch, chairman of the Australian Dental Association's therapeutics committee and associate professor of oral medicine at Melbourne University, said the alcohol in mouthwashes "increases the permeability of the mucosa" to carcinogens like nicotine.He added that a toxic breakdown product of alcohol called acetaldehyde that may accumulate in the oral cavity when swished around the mouth is also a carcinogen.Prof McCullough said: "We see people with oral cancer who have no other risk factors than the use of alcohol-containing mouthwash, so what we've done in this study is review all the evidence that's out there."We believe there should be warnings. If it was a facial cream that had the effect of reducing acne but had a four-to-five-fold increased risk of skin cancer, no one would be recommending it."Some mouthwash can contain as much as 26 per cent alcohol.

The findings, published in the Dental Journal of Australia, said the most popular mouthwashes contained higher concentrations of alcohol than drinks such as wine or beer.

Prof McCullough said: "If you have a glass of wine, you tend to swallow it. With mouthwash you have a higher level of alcohol and spend longer swishing it around your mouth. The alcohol present in your mouth is turned into acetaldehyde."He said regular alcohol consumption was a cancer risk - but usually did not involve swishing it around the mouth.Eating while drinking increased salivation which lowered the risks, he said.Oral cancer is a mutilating disease that afflicts thousands of people each year and kills half of them within five years of being diagnosed.

Smoking and alcohol consumption are well-established risk factors, but the use of mouthwash containing alcohol is more controversial.

Prof McCullough and co-author Dr Camile Farah, director of research at the University of Queensland's School of Dentistry, recommended mouthwash be restricted to "short-term" medical use or replaced by alcohol-free versions.Dr Neil Hewson, of the Australian Dental Association, said: "It hasn't actually been established there is a direct relationship between mouthwashes with alcohol and oral cancer."He said if people floss their teeth, brush properly and have a good diet they should not need mouthwash at all.

Last week's jailing for six years of veteran dissident Wang Rongqing for "subversion of state power" was more than just another unpleasant instance of official vindictiveness, supporters and human rights groups say. China is facing a turbulent year of deepening economic hardship, social unrest, and tense anniversaries. The authorities are running scared. And so they made an example of Wang.

The diagnosis seems to apply to other prominent dissidents, also feeling the heat as economic boom times fade and political jitters increase. Liu Xiaobo, a noted literary scholar, has been held without charge since 8 December. His apparent offence was supporting a new campaign for political and legal reform known as Charter 08.

According to Amnesty International, Liu's family does not know where he is, he has no access to a lawyer, and he has yet to be charged or brought before a court. "The use of such detention ... is arbitrary and in violation of international human rights standards, including the rights to liberty, security of person, and fair trial," said Amnesty's Roseann Rife.

Charter 08 was signed by 303 Chinese scholars, lawyers and officials, many of whom have reportedly since been harassed or placed under surveillance. China expert James Pringle says the campaign, modelled on Vaclav Havel's Charter 77 in cold war Czechoslovakia, "is the first real opposition to the Communist leadership since Tiananmen Square" and is widely seen as "a threat to the party's monopoly on power".

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Havel said more than 5,000 people had since defied official hostility and added their names to the charter. He warned China against making the same mistake as the Czechoslovak authorities in choosing repression over the chartists' offer of "engagement, dialogue and debate".

Another leading dissident, environment and human rights activist Hu Jia, meanwhile remains incarcerated after being jailed last year for "inciting subversion". The European parliament awarded him the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought last month. But concerns expressed to China's president, Hu Jintao, by Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights about Jia's health and treatment in prison have gone unheeded.

Hardening attitudes to dissent aside, rising official anxiety about challenges to Communist control also appear to form the subtext to a recent crackdown on internet websites. The reimposition of censorship of foreign sites, such as the New York Times, has been followed by the closure of 91 sites and threats against search engines such as Google and Baidu. While the authorities' stated aim is to curb pornography and other "vulgar" content, online political criticism also seems to be a target. One blogger, Luo Yonghao, said his site had been shut because the government said it contained "political harmful information".

Analysts link these developments to a string of potentially disturbing anniversaries this year. They include the 50th anniversary on 10 March of the Tibetan uprising, the 20th anniversary on 4 June of the suppression of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, the 10th anniversary on 22 July of the banning of the Falun Gong movement, and the 60th anniversary on 1 October of the founding of the People's Republic.

All these events are controversial in their own way and all could become magnets for trouble. In normal times, that might not matter quite so much. But social conditions inside China are anything but normal as the global recession bites.

Official figures indicate up to 10 million rural migrants have already lost their jobs as southern factories close, annual growth falls, and exports decline for the first time in nearly a decade. In July, 7 million new graduates will place additional pressure on a contracting jobs market. Add to this standing grievances about party corruption, misgovernance, and the widening wealth gap between rich and poor, and commentators say the risk of widespread social unrest becomes significant.

"In 2009 Chinese society may face even more conflicts and clashes that will test the governing abilities of all levels of party and government," Xinhua news agency reporter Huang Huo told the officially-sanctioned Outlook magazine this month. "Without doubt we are now entering a peak period for mass incidents" (meaning protests ands riots). And these "incidents", the magazine suggested, were becoming increasingly politicised.

Speaking on the record, Chinese spokesmen play down the prospect of spreading unrest. "We have the ability and the confidence to ensure the economy's relatively fast growth and to ensure social stability," said the foreign ministry's Qin Gang. All the same, Outlook magazine's unusually candid, public warning is seen as an alarm call directed at governing cadres.

The (uncensored) message: in a difficult year, persecuting dissidents and closing websites may not be enough to save China's rulers from a painful reckoning with China's over-pressured and under-represented masses.

http://waronyou.com

As the disappearance of honeybees continues, researchers are trying desperately to discover the cause of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). General concensus at this point is that there is more than one cause and the latest culprit may be genetically modified crops. This is one area of research being neglected as mainstream scientists insist GM crops are safe.

For the last 100 years, beekeepers have experienced colony losses from bacteria, (foulbrood), mites (varroa and tracheal) and other pathogens. These problems are dealt with by using antibiotics, miticides and and other methods of pest management. Losses are slow and expected and beekeepers know how to limit the destruction. This new mass die-off is different in that it is virtually instantaneous with no warning of the impending collapse.

John McDonald, a bee keeper in Pennsyvania with a background in biology, speculated that genetically modified crops could play a role in CCD. Although the government constantly reassures us that these genetic manipulations are safe for both humans and the environment, his hope is that looking more closely at these issues might raise questions about those assumptions.

The common bacterium, bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) supplies the most commonly used segment of transgenic DNA. Bt has been used for decades by farmers and gardeners to control crop damage from butterfy larvae. Now, instead of spraying this bacterium directly on the crops, where it is eaten only by the target insects, the genes containing the insecticidal traits are incorporated into the genome of the plant itself. As the genetically modified plant grows, these Bt genes are replicated in every cell of the plant, including pollen. Therefore, every cell of each GM plant contains its own poison aimed to kill the target insect. The target insects consume some portion of the plant, then once ingested, the toxin produced by the Bt genes causes crystallization in the guts of boring larvae and thus death. The primary toxin is a protein called Cry1Ab. In the case of field corn, the targeted insects are stem and root-borers and butterfly larvae.

Although scientists “assure” us that bees (hymenopterans) are not affected, there are Bt variants available that target beetles, flies and mosquitoes. There is indisputable proof that Cry1Ab is present in beehives. Beekeepers spray Bt under hive lids to control the wax moth because the larvae cause messy webs on the honey. Canadian beekeepers have noted the disappearance of this moth even in untreated hives, apparently the result of bees ingesting Cry1Ab while foraging in GM canola plants.

Bees forage heavily on corn flowers to obtain pollen for the rearing of young bees. These pollen grains also contain the Bt genes of the parent plant, because they are present in the cells from which pollen forms. Mr. McDonald believes it may be possible that while Cry1Ab has no direct lethal effect on young bees, there may be some sub-lethal effect, such as immune suppression, acting as a slow killer.

Tens of millions of acres of genetically modified crops are allowing the Bt genes to move off crop fields and contaminate other flowers from which bees gather flowers. “Given that nearly every bite of food that we eat has a pollinator, the seriousness of this emerging problem could dwarf all previous food disruptions”.(John McDonald) He proposed an experiment to compare colony losses of bees from regions where there are no GM crops to losses of colonies where they are exposed. He wanted to put test hives where GM crops are so distant from the hives that the foraging worker bees would have no exposure to GM crops. Researches readily dismissed his ideas and no one followed through with such an experiment.

At this point, he decided to do his own investigation at his own expense. He established 8 colonies in new wooden hives to ensure no possible disease transfer from old hives. The bees were fed continuously with sugar syrup until the hives were placed at the selected locations.

(Clearwisdom.net) In July 2008, before the Beijing Summer Olympic Games, the Falun Gong practitioners who were illegally detained in Deyang Prison, Sichuan Province, were forced to participate in a so-called "study" session. Those who had refused to write the three statements were specifically targeted. The "study" session was just a name. The session was actually used to torture the practitioners in a variety of insidious and demonic ways. Here we will expose what really happened in the prison during the period between July and December 2008.

The prison authorities appointed some inmates as so-called "messengers," who were fully in charge of the so-called "transformation" of Falun Gong practitioners. They were rewarded if they could make practitioners write or acknowledge the three statements, verified by the prison authorities. Such a policy indicated that these "messengers" could do anything to the practitioners in order to get their rewards.

1. Deprivation of basic human rights. The practitioners who refused to be "transformed" were not allowed to speak to others. Without the permission from the "messengers," the practitioners were not allowed to use the restroom, shave, wash or sleep. Sometimes the practitioners were deprived of sleep for four days and nights.

2. Punishment of standing upright for long hours. Sometimes such treatment could progress all day, and until 4:00 a.m. or 5:00 a.m. the following morning. The location for such a punishment was carefully chosen, in the storage room on the first floor, so it was concealed from other people. Such punishment has continued for more than five months.

3. Beatings by the inmate "messengers." These messengers privately beat the practitioners with all kinds of tools, including small bamboo strips, bamboo flakes, tape to seal the mouth, clothes, needles, cigarette butts, broom handles, plastic shoes, sleepers, and their fists and feet. One practitioner's inner thighs were injured by a hostile beating, and the backs of a practitioner's hands, as well as the legs, nose and face were swollen, purple and covered with blood.

4. Here are some specific methods of brutality used: Beating the hands with bamboo strips, mouth beaten with bamboo flake, sealing the mouth with tape, binding hands with cloth strips, choking of the neck, pinching legs, burning hands with cigarette butts, beating the face with broom handle and plastic shoe, beating the soles of the feet with broom handle, covering the head with the practitioner's pants, covering the practitioner's head with the pants from the "messenger," beating with fists. In July, there were three inmate "messengers" who beat the practitioners on 25 occasions. In August, there were twenty incidents of beatings by two inmates; in September, there were ten incidents of beatings by two "messengers"; in October, there were eight incidents of beatings by two "messengers"; in November, there were six incidents of beatings by two "messengers"; and in December, there was one incident. The total number of beatings was 70.

5. The inmate "messengers" were unimaginably indecent and immoral to the extreme. They took off the practitioners' pants to rape and sodomize them.

6. The inmate "messengers" treated the practitioners like slaves - forcing them to do everything for them, including washing tea cups, preparing water and towels for bathing, preparing cigarettes and food, drying shoes outside, preparing the beds, rubbing the messengers' backs during showers, doing all the cleaning, beating and scolding the practitioners at will, and so on. A 22-year-old "messenger" treated a practitioner older than his father like a slave.

7. The inmate "messengers" often threatened the practitioners with vicious words such as "I will choke you to death if you don't write the three statements," "I will fabricate documents to extend your prison term and not allow you to return home," "I would have killed you if we were not in prison. I have broken other's limbs and buried someone alive outside. I would like to see how strong you are," "I will pour chili water or white wine into your throat. I will beat you till you are disabled. I will soak you in freezing-cold water for two hours."

The above is the true situation in Deyang Prison regarding the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners. This treatment takes place secretly. The prison guards and the evil inmate "messengers" strictly prevent the practitioners from contacting others, so their crimes are not exposed publicly.

(Clearwisdom.net) I was lucky to learn Falun Dafa in August 1997. The principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance rectified my deviant path of life. I have come to know many Falun Dafa practitioners ever since, and I can see the wonderfulness of Falun Dafa through them.

On July 20, 1999, Jiang's regime initiated a persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners. As a benefited practitioner, I am responsible for clarifying the truth. Facing unreasonable suppression, I went to appeal many times, but I was beaten, arrested, detained, placed under house arrest, and finally, sentenced to forced labor in July 2000. Later, I was transferred from the Weifang City Labor Camp to the Wangcun (Shandong Province) Labor Camp.

In order to try to force me to give up cultivating Falun Dafa, the guards used all sorts of torture means. They handcuffed me as soon as I entered the camp, and I remained cuffed 24 hours per day for 141 days, until December 2000. I was detained in a 40-square-foot cell with a coffin-shaped bed. I was cuffed onto the metal gate and forced to stand holding the gate for 79 days. They did not allow me to sleep for the first ten days. If I closed my eyes, the guards would punch me, beat me, or curse me. By the tenth day, I could not bear such inhuman torture and protested. I requested that they let me sleep during the night. Just because I dared to raise such a basic request, the guards in the tenth ward took me to a room where more than a dozen guards surrounded me, each holding an electric baton, and shocked me for the whole morning. That was the darkest morning of my life. The scars resulting from the shocks took two years to fade. I was tortured to the degree of unconsciousness. Then they let me sleep for several hours per night, but they still handcuffed me to the bed.

The room in which the guards shocked me is one floor directly below my cell. I could almost hear the noise of the electric baton shocks every day, practitioners' screaming, and guards cursing. The air was filled with the smell of burnt flesh. Guards constantly maliciously laughed. They were devoid of kindness, and they had forgotten that the people paid them, they are among the people, and they should serve the people, and therefore they should not torture kind Falun Dafa practitioners who follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance.

Mr. Hua Yuliang (an employee of the Weifang City Construction Bank), Mr. Zhang Zhao (an employee of the Weifang Diesel Engine Factory), Mr. Li Xinjian (an employee of the Weifang City Senior Citizen Center), and many other practitioners have also endured the same cruel torture that I did. Twenty-eight-year-old Mr. Zou Sontao, an educated man with a Master's degree from the Qingdao City Oceanography University, was tortured to death there on November 3, 2000.

The torture I went through in the forced labor camp is almost too painful to think about. I did not expect to walk out of there alive. My parents cried every day. My family was not allowed to visit me because I refused to accept the brainwashing. They tried with all their might to find out if I was still alive in the camp, and they were severely mentally traumatized. Upon being released from the forced labor camp, my wife cried and told me, "While you were serving in the camp, we were under the same pressure outside the camp. Do you know how hard it was for us to survive these miserable years? It was too much suffering!"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk

Despite the colour's gloomy connotations, exposure to blue light can increase confidence and boost happiness levels, research suggests.

By Jon Swaine
Last Updated: 9:49AM GMT 06 Jan 2009

Researchers exposed a group of volunteers to a range of colours and lights. They found that blue and green made male subjects feel happier, while blue, purple and orange did the same for women.Blue and red improved confidence levels among men, while blue and purple were best in this respect for women, the researchers found.The study, which was carried out by The Mind Lab, a group of scientific researchers, for the chemists Boots, found that exposure to bright colours in general held benefits.Subjects exposed to colours completed mental tests up to 25 per cent quicker. Reaction times were up to 12 per cent faster, while hand-eye co-ordination and the ability to recall a list of words were also found to be improved.

The strength of the volunteers' grip was also found to be greater among those bathed in bright colours.

Dr David Lewis, a founder of the Mind Lab, told the Daily Mail: "Dreary winter days can have a seriously negative effect on the psyche."The greyer the weather, the greater the risk of it leaving us down in the dumps."This study has shown that simply by introducing more colour into our lives at this time of the year, we could help banish the winter blues."

(Clearwisdom.net) The Wangcun Forced Labor Camp, also called the Shandong Province Second Forced Labor Camp, is located in Wangcun Town, Zhoucun District in Zibo City, Shandong Province. It is the biggest forced labor camp in Shandong Province, and there are around 2,000 Falun Dafa practitioners detained there.

Since July 2000, a large number of practitioners have been sentenced to forced labor in Shandong Province, and they have been served the most severe terms in the nation. Normally, forced labor terms are 1-3 years long, but 900f detained Falun Dafa practitioners in Shandong Province have been sentenced to three years of forced labor.

The Shandong Province's evil party officials have conducted a brainwashing "research" project, beginning in July 2000, in Wangcun Labor Camp. First, they used physical torture and forced brainwashing by showing slanderous videos. The "strict control cell" chief guard Xu Shouyi revealed that many practitioners would be dragged out of the "strict control cell," then dragged back, causing much of their skin to tear, and their body would be covered with electric baton shock marks or wounds from beating. The "strict control cell" was very crowded, and practitioners slept with their handcuffs on and could not turn.

Mr. Hua Yuliang from Weifang City spoke with the guards rationally, and the guards could not say anything, but they still applied an electric baton into his mouth and burnt his mouth until it was covered in blisters and he could not drink or eat. Finally, the guards used a very cruel method and had ten collaborators take turns talking to him with their deviated understandings 24 hours per day; they did not let Mr. Hua sleep at all.

All firm Falun Dafa practitioners detained in Shandong Province have been transferred to the Wangcun Labor Camp to be brainwashed. In September 2000, more than thirty practitioners were transferred from the Licun Labor Camp in Qingdao City to the Wangcun Labor Camp. Among them, Mr. Zou Songtao, an educated man with a Master's degree from the Oceanography University in Qingdao City, was tortured to death with a dozen high voltage electric batons shocking him (see http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/7/26/24522.html). Mr. Jiang Mingzhai is still being tortured in the Wangcun Labor Camp. There were also 18 practitioners transferred to the Wangcun Labor Camp from the Jinan City Labor Camp. In order to force them to give up their faith, guards locked them in a water dungeon (1) around the clock and ran a low electricity current in the water to shock them.

In the beginning of 2001, the guards changed their torture means and deprived practitioners their right to sleep unless they accepted the brainwashing. Guards in Shandong Province labor camps were widely using such methods. They had collaborators take turns brainwashing steadfast practitioners with their deviated understandings at all times. They call the method "Stew the Eagles" (2).Under such cruel brainwashing, some practitioners could not bear the sleepiness, turned away from Falun Dafa, became collaborators, and in turn, started brainwashing other firm practitioners.

Those practitioners that still did not accept the brainwashing after enduring the torture would be beaten by guards. Those forced to accept the brainwashing would go through "Legal Education," followed by overtime heavy labor. From 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. every night, they still had to watch CCTV news and "Focus Forum," writing their "understandings" every day. There is also a weekly "Criticizing (Falun Gong) meeting." Guards believe that "Stew the eagles" plus slave labor, repeatedly viewing brainwashing materials, and brutal beatings will lead to successful brainwashing. But coercion cannot change people's hearts, and most practitioners who accepted the brainwashing once became clear-minded later, and declared the brainwashing null. The guards extended those collaborators' terms and threatened them to prevent them from becoming clear-headed.

The Shandong Province 610 Office holds a brainwashing session working together with the Wangcun Labor Camp. There are two Shandong Province Level brainwashing sessions, one is in Zibo City (Wangcun Town, close to the camp), the other is in Jinan City. Each practitioner taken to the Wangcun location, from all over the province, has to pay 5,000 yuan. There were 19 practitioners arrested together in 2001 in Longkou City, fined 100,000 yuan, and sent to be brainwashed in the (Wangcun) Zibo City brainwashing center. They were all bused to Wangcun Labor Camp and forced to go through collaborators' brainwashing. One female practitioner among them was deprived her right to sleep for a week while collaborators were brainwashing her. She was forced to sit on a small stool, and her lower body became swollen. Practitioners on hunger strikes were force-fed. The guards would pull the tube back and forth, causing stomach bleeding. Some practitioners' stomachs were severely damaged. The guards also took very solid practitioners to a mental hospital. According to incomplete statistics, there were nearly 1,000 practitioners arrested from the province and forced to go through brainwashing in the Wangcun Labor Camp right after they arrived at the province's Zibo City brainwashing center.

(1) Wearing a cotton coat and pants, some practitioners are forced to sit down beside the cell vent in a very uncomfortable contorted position, unable to stretch or lie down. The water dungeon area is very small and one can't lean against the wall for support. The practitioner is forced to sit on the cold cement floor. The police would then pour water onto the floor, soaking the coat and pants with freezing water. After they repeatedly pour water into the dungeon, one's body will be completely soaked and partially immersed in water. Oftentimes the water can get to be chest deep. Ice-cold water and wind would chill one to the bones. If one does not yield to them, this torture continues indefinitely. See illustration at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/7/5/49890p.html.

(2) Practitioners were forced to stand 24 hours a day continuously for over a month and not allowed to sit down or sleep. The persecutors took turns yelling and screaming at them, fighting and beating them during this time. See case on http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/1/30/44560p.html

(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Xu Chunmei, 55, was a retired teacher from Daqing City's 49^th Middle School. She began practicing Falun Dafa in 1998, and became very healthy. She strictly disciplined herself according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She worked tirelessly without complaint, and never fought with others over personal interests. She was deeply loved by her students, the students' parents, and her colleagues. She was awarded an "Excellent Teacher" prize many times.

Ever since the Chinese Communist Party began persecuting Falun Gong in 1999, countless practitioners have been detained, sent to forced labor camps, imprisoned, and even tortured to disability or death. Ms. Xu feared being mistreated, and gave up her cultivation for a while. She retired, and discovered she had a minor illness in 2005. She came back to cultivation, and clarified the truth to people.

On June 24, 2008, she went to clarify the truth with fellow practitioners at Firestone Mountain in Anda City. A large group of officers from the Firestone Police Station arrested and detained them in the Anda City Detention Center. More than a dozen practitioners were detained in one room, with no water to drink, and very little food to eat. They had to sleep on the damp, cold floor. Ms. Xu became very weak, and started to pass blood in her urine. Her body was swollen and her face was very pale. The guards ignored her condition, and the 610 Office agents kept interrogating her. She endured extreme mental pressure and physical mistreatment.

On July 25, 2008, Ms. Xu was released, together with several other practitioners, but they were each fined 10,000 yuan. The center's administration ordered them to report to the Detention Center monthly. Ms. Xu quickly recovered through studying the Fa and doing the exercises upon her return home.

On August 24, 2008, the Anda City Detention Center brought her back to report on her situation. The guards wrote down a report, and then forced her to sign her name. Many practitioners were arrested during the Olympic season and sentenced to imprisonment. She saw fellow practitioners being tortured until they could not walk, and had to be helped by others to walk to the court. She could not bear the painful experience, and passed out several times.

The Anda City Detention Center kept calling her to come in and report her situation. She was very worried of being brutally mistreated again. She could not eat or sleep, her head was swollen, and she had difficulty breathing. She again developed blood in her urine, and her heart, lungs, and kidneys were all failing. She died at 7:30 a.m. on December 7, 2008. The administrations of the Firestone Police Station, Anda City Detention Center, and 610 Office are responsible for her death.