Witnessing history

"In 1997, Zheng (Jennifer) Zeng was a graduate in science of prestigious Beijing University, the Harvard of China. She was a young wife and mother, and had been admitted to the Communist Party, as an honor. But when she began to follow a spiritual practice known as Falun Gong, her comfortable existence was shattered by a widespread government crackdown. For adhering to the practice's simple tenets of Truth, Compassion, and Forbearance, she was sentenced without trial to re-education through forced labor for an indefinite term. Incarcerated with prostitutes, dope peddlers, and other petty criminals who enforced the rules, she suffered deprivation and torture. Her "enlightenment" took the form of beatings, the application of electric prods, starvation, sleep deprivation, and being forced to work both at arduous outdoor tasks and at the production of goods for sale in the U.S. market. She was compelled to knit for days at a time, around the clock, with bleeding hands. As Zeng was considered an intellectual, the prison administration took particular interest in obtaining her recantation of her beliefs. After enduring for months, she rationalized that a forced retraction would have no validity, but after she was released, she realized that by giving in she had betrayed herself and her principles. As soon as she could, Zeng began to write her story to bear witness to her suffering and that of so many others."--Dust jacket flap.