The Neighbors Helped Me Escape

(Minghui.org) I live in a provincial capital city in southern China. I am in my 60s and worked as an accountant. I started to practice Falun Dafa in June 1997. On July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched the nation-wide persecution of Falun Dafa.

For more than 20 years of persecution, family members and neighbors who knew the facts repeatedly extended a helping hand despite the pressure. I’d like to tell you how my neighbors helped me escape when the police were after me.

In the second half of 2006, I was filmed by the police as I was standing near the entrance of the court building to support a fellow practitioner who was on trial. They wanted to kidnap me and send me to a brainwashing centre for persecution.

One afternoon, I received a phone call and was told to go to the gate of the community where I lived. When I got there, I noticed that numerous people from the Political and Legal Affairs Committee, the 610 Office, the police station, and the neighborhood administration were there.

They tried to drag me into a small car. I flatly refused, and asked loudly, “Did I do anything illegal? Did I break the law by going to the gate of the court? I advise you not to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners. The former deputy director of your police station participated in the persecution in 1999 and suddenly died.”

These people did not give up, and tried to force me into the car. I hurriedly turned around and walked quickly towards the crowd that had gathered. I greeted everyone and said loudly as I walked, “Neighbors, the CCP harvests organs from Falun Dafa practitioners. They want to kidnap me today.” One man was indignant and said, “The Communist Party are thugs!” Another neighbor hurriedly said, “Don’t pay attention to them! Go home quickly.”

I hurried upstairs and entered my home on the top floor. Looking downstairs from the window, the group of people followed me and almost surrounded the entire building, and the police in uniforms were rushing towards my unit. In desperation, I stepped through the window and climbed to the roof of the building, but found that there was no way to escape. When I was at a loss and helpless, I heard a familiar voice—a female neighbor from the top window of a unit in the middle of the building called out, “Quickly come down. Please come to my home.”

As soon as I climbed into her apartment through the window, I heard a man knocking on the door, “Open the door quickly and see if so-and-so (me) is hiding in your home!” The neighbor refused to open the door and replied loudly, “There are no strangers here. Why should I open the door to let you in?!” I was afraid of implicating the neighbor and wanted to climb up to the roof again through the window. The neighbor pulled me down from the window and said something I will never forget, “Let me do something for Falun Dafa!”

It was getting dark, and the police were still searching from house to house. At this time, her husband returned home with their school-age child. As soon as he saw me, her husband said nervously, “I’m going out to find out what’s happening.” After a while, her husband called her, “Some people said that police searched behind the curtains and inside the wardrobes. You should quickly hide her!” At this moment, there was another heavy knock on the door. The neighbor quickly lifted up the wooden bed board in the bedroom, and told me to hide underneath. She then put it down, covered it with a sheet, told her son to lie on the bed and covered him with a quilt.

After everything was ready, the neighbor opened the door and loudly asked the police, “Why are you knocking on the door so hard? My son is sick. Don’t scare him. You can see clearly that there are no strangers in my house.” The police officers came in, looked around briefly, and then left.

I stayed at my neighbor’s house all night, and the police also waited all night. The next morning, the director of the neighborhood administrative office (a relative of the female neighbor) in the next neighborhood community called to ask what happened. We also noticed that a surveillance camera was installed overnight on the roof of the opposite building. All the neighbors in the building discussed how to help me escape.

Most of the police left to have lunch at noon. Some neighbors helped me change into another set of clothes, and others booked a taxi in advance and waited outside the community. An apartment on the ground floor of the building was rented out for a contractor to store second-hand air-conditioners. A neighbor called the contractor to dispatch the vehicle that often goes in and out of the community to load and unload second-hand air conditioners. In this way, I mixed in with the people loading and unloading the air conditioners, hid in their vehicle, and left through the community gate.

The neighbor who was waiting in the taxi outside the community stepped out as soon as she saw the vehicle loading and unloading the air conditioners. She beckoned me to get out quickly, then opened the trunk of the taxi, and I climbed in and lay down. She then turned around and said solemnly to the taxi driver, “Please drive fast. The Communist Party wants to arrest her.” The taxi driver started the engine and said, “Don’t worry. They can’t catch up.” In the end, I managed to escape.

Just a few days before I wrote this article, I made a special trip to the home of the female neighbor who helped me hide back then, to express my gratitude. The neighbor said another touching sentence, “I am very honored that I have made a contribution to Falun Dafa!”

 

Background: What Is Falun Dafa and Why Is the CCP Persecuting It?

Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) was first introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China, in 1992. The spiritual discipline is now practiced in over 100 countries and regions worldwide.

Millions of people who have embraced the teachings, which are based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and have learned the five exercises, have experienced improved health and well-being.

Jiang Zemin, former head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), perceived the spiritual discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to the CCP’s atheistic ideology, and on July 20, 1999, he issued an order to eradicate the practice.

Under Jiang’s personal direction, the CCP established the 610 Office, an extralegal security organisation with the power to override the police and judicial systems, and whose sole function is to carry out the persecution of Falun Dafa.

Minghui.org has confirmed the deaths of thousands of practitioners as a result of the persecution over the past 24 years. The actual number is believed to be much higher. Countless practitioners have been imprisoned and tortured for their faith.

There is concrete evidence that the CCP sanctions the harvesting of organs from detained practitioners, who are murdered to supply China’s organ transplant industry.