Zhao Shuxue

My brother Mr. Zhao Shuxue died as a result of persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on January 20, 2004. He was only 40 years old when he died.

My brother started to practice Falun Gong in 1994. At that time, he was on a business trip in Guangzhou and was fortunate enough to attend Master Li Hongzhi's lectures there. When he returned home in 1995, he became the assistant at our local practice site. Guided by my brother, I also started to practice Falun Gong at the end of 1995.

On July 20, 1999, the CCP started to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. My brother was one of the practitioners who suffered from the persecution at the very beginning. He appealed to the city government with other assistants and clarified the facts about Falun Gong. Officials from the Harbin City Police Department arrested him on August 2, 1999, and detained him for 20 days. Moreover, the Steam Turbine Plant in Harbin City, the company my brother worked in, fired him on August 23.

One evening in the summer of 1999, my brother was studying the Fa with five other practitioners at his shop. Several policemen in plainclothes broke in and arrested them. The police took my brother and three other male practitioners to the detention center in the Xiangfang Police Department; two female practitioners were taken to the No. 2 Detention Center in Harbin City (also called the Yaziquan Detention Center).

After my brother was detained, he was never brought to trial, but a police officer called us one day to tell us that my brother had already been given five years in prison. Later, after we asked others for help, we found out that my brother was detained at the No. 3 Prison in Harbin City, but we were not allowed to visit him.

It was not until December 26, 2003 that a police officer called us to inform us that they had agreed to release my brother for medical treatment. My sister and her husband went to pick him up. As they waited outside the prison, they overheard one officer saying, "This person has already been harmed so badly. It's hard to say whether he can survive after returning home." Later, a stretcher was carried out, bearing an ill-smelling person, wearing rags for clothes and with a big swollen belly. After careful examination, my sister and her husband realized that it was my brother. They at once understood what the officer meant and hurried to take my brother to a hospital.

While my brother was in the hospital, I went to visit him. Although I had heard about his condition from my sister in advance, I still could not recognize him. Lying on the hospital bed, my brother was as thin as a stick; his belly was so turgid that it looked like a big ball; his legs and lower back were covered with festering sores; his face was ashen; and his eyes appeared to be especially large due to his extreme emaciation. However, he was still lucid.

Facing death, my brother had already prepared himself well in his heart. He said that he wanted to use his life to tell sentient beings that he did not hate anybody, but only hoped that kind people who had a predestined relationship with him would treasure the truth of life. As a Dafa disciple, his life was for Dafa and the truth, and he was willing to uphold Dafa with his life. My brother also told me to firmly believe in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. He believed that finally, one day, we would no longer be persecuted and we would be able to do the exercises in parks and study the Fa in groups. At the same time, he asked me to grow up and not to be frightened into submission by this temporary, mad persecution.

On the evening of January 19, 2004, my brother started vomiting blood. Nobody was able to do anything to save him, and he passed away early in the morning on the next day.