Deyang Prison, a Concentration Camp for Persecuting Dafa Practitioners

Deyang Prison, located in Huangxu Town, Deyang, Sichuan Province, is a concentration camp for persecuting Dafa practitioners. Local officials have established a 610 Office¹ specifically to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong in the area. For several years, the persecution at Deyang Prison has been ceaseless. Several Dafa practitioners were tortured to death. Numerous practitioners were severely injured and/or disabled from torture.

Since the persecution has continued for many years, the officials at Deyan Prison have established a thoroughly evil system of persecuting Dafa practitioners. When practitioners arrive at the prison, the first thing that the 610 Office personnel do is threaten them. Next they confiscate all of their books, pens and other belongings. After that, committee supervisor Wan Ling forces prisoners to register and tells them that they must follow Article 300 of the Criminal Law Code to recite the prison rules and wear prison uniforms. If practitioners do not follow the rules, they will incite the prisoners to torture the practitioners in the TV room on the first floor. Almost half of the practitioners were persecuted in this way.

The prison authorities put the practitioners who are not "obedient" into the Strict Disciplinary Division on the second floor and segregate other practitioners on the third floor. They find excuses to abuse the Dafa practitioners, for example, when practitioners refuse to recite the prison rules or don't follow unreasonable orders to mistreat other practitioners. Practitioners are punished through a variety of means, including being forced to stand in the "Army Corps" posture, being forbidden from buying daily necessities [from the camp commissary], being prevented from sending letters, and being forbidden to meet with their family members. The practitioners who are in the Strict Disciplinary Division are permitted only small amounts of food. The camp guards say, "We can't let them have enough to eat. If they are full, it's going to be even harder to change them." It snowed on February 19th, 2005, and the guards forced Dafa practitioners to sit in the snow.

In March of 2005, following prison warden Ma Aijun's orders, they sent the Dafa practitioners from the Second Prison Ward, as well as the practitioners who were new to the prison, to a secretly-built brainwashing class. The practitioners were forced to watch Dafa-defaming VCDs for a long time (almost 8 to 10 hours per day). Practitioners were forced to stand in the "Army Corps" posture until 1:00 a.m. If the guards were not happy with them, they would torture and beat practitioners. They didn't even spare the elderly Chen Liqing and Chai Dengwen. Dafa practitioner Hu Kaiguo was beaten on the face, causing extensive bruising.

The guards used the excuse of Dafa practitioners not reporting and not reciting the prison rules to abuse and mistreat them. They carried out their despicable acts on Dafa practitioners on the first floor. However, the strict discipline and segregation still couldn't shake these practitioners' firm belief in Dafa.

The guards then established a so-called study room on the second floor, for the purpose of covert abuse and torture. They formed a so-called "Beat Die-Hard Team" or "Serious Crime Team" to torture practitioners. This team was led by Wu Keming. They beat the practitioners savagely. If the practitioners shouted out, they taped their mouths shut. The criminals followed the evil commands from the guards. Guard Li Runming installed a high-volume sound system and played loud tapes (recorded by the evildoing person Liu Dequan) to defame Dafa and mentally torment the practitioners.

The practitioners did not cooperate with the prison's unreasonable demands and were beaten. The perpetrators shouted at them if practitioners didn't follow their orders. They have been known to push practitioners out the third floor window and then announce to the world that the practitioner "committed suicide." They also said that they would stage a scene there and invite the TV reporters to report it. They even said, "China's population is too large anyway, so if you die it does not matter." They said that if they beat the practitioners to death, the earth would continue to turn. The perpetrators also claimed that they were murderers in society anyway. Here in the prison, these thugs were supported by the guards, and the murder of Dafa practitioners would not be punished.

With support from the guards, the criminals tortured practitioners cruelly. The abuse and gross mistreatment they encountered was unimaginable. On May 23rd, Dafa practitioner Wang Guohua was burned on the lips. They also pushed chopsticks into Wang Guohua's mouth. They took turns to choke him and kick him in the head, wrists, hips, arms, feet and legs, causing severe injuries to Wang Guohua's body. He couldn't swallow anything and couldn't walk.

Dafa practitioner Yang Kelin was also severely beaten and had injuries and bruises all over his body. The evildoing people threatened Yang Kelin, telling him that if anybody asked about his bruises, he had to say that they were his "birthmarks." If he told the truth, they would torture him even more. Dafa practitioners Gong Guanlei and Deng Weijian from the Second Prison Ward were steadfast in their belief in Dafa. Even after going through previous brainwashing classes several times, they never gave up their belief. But this time, the persecution was so severe that they wrote the three statements. Afterwards, they regretted their actions tremendously. Under the arrangements of team head Wang Jinsong, several criminals were assigned to be watchdogs. They forbid the practitioners to talk with each other. They strictly limited the practitioners' freedom. They retaliated brutally against those practitioners who declared their three statements invalid. There are currently more than 20 practitioners in the third-floor "study room."

Following the commands of the former Chinese leader, Jiang Zemin's faction, Zeng Qinghong and Luo Gan successively convened secret Falun gong persecution conferences in Xi'an and Harbin and planned further persecution nationwide. At present, the police are extremely aggressive. The transformation quota set by the Sichuan Prison Administration Bureau for the Deyang Prison is at least 75%. If the quota is not reached, the prison supervisors stand to lose their jobs. Police officers Wan Aijun and Shi Junhua attempted to beat the quota. They instigated 610 Office policemen Cui Weigang, Ma Chengde, Li Runmin, Yang Jianbin, Zhang Jun and others to ruthlessly torture Dafa practitioners. Policeman Li Runmin even boasted about their work, repeating the phrase, "This is a life and death struggle."

On September 1st, the guards transferred the "uncooperative" practitioners to the Third Prison Ward. The practitioners were forced to work until 1:00 a.m. every day. Under personal orders from prison warden Ma Aijun and deputy wardens Shi Junhua, Yan Dengyao, and Zhang Yaoshan (chief and deputy chief of the Political Section), the steadfast practitioners from other prison wards were all sent for brainwashing in the brainwashing class in the Second Prison Ward. When Dafa practitioners didn't follow their instructions, the evildoing people used blankets to cover the practitioners to torture them.

Those practitioners who weren't "reformed²," even when their terms were up, were not released. Instead, they were sent to the local 610 Offices for continued imprisonment. There is no justice or rule of law for Falun Dafa practitioners in China, and even their basic human rights are denied.

At present, the situation for Dafa practitioners is still extremely difficult. We hope that all kind people in the world might take action to rescue all the illegally-detained and persecuted Dafa practitioners in Chinese prisons.

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

2. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/11/4/113752.html