A Practitioner Exposes Cruel Acts of Persecution at Harbin Women's Jail in Heilongjiang Province

[Note: The following is a Dafa practitioner's true story. The whole story was written on two small pieces of cloth and smuggled out by another practitioner, who was released, in order expose these vicious crimes to the public. The woman is still in Harbin Women's Jail. She has been "illegally detained¹" for three years.]

On the afternoon of the second day of the lunar Chinese New Year in 2003, I visited a fellow practitioner. However I was arrested by a police officer who was hiding in the area. Once the police were sure that I was a Falun Gong practitioner, I was handcuffed with icy cold handcuffs. Later they pushed me into the police car and put a black hood over my head and face to secretly take me to 1 Hongxia Street in the Daoli District of Harbin City. I had no idea what this dark place was before, but quickly learned that it is a place for interrogating and torturing Falun Gong practitioners.

I was taken to a room on the second floor. Once in the room, they chained me on the iron chair². They used many means to torture me, first punching my head, temples, etc., and repeatedly slapping my face. Later they used an electric baton to shock my hands and body, to the point that my hands were swollen and numb with steam-like burns. Later they took my coat off and tied me up on the iron chair with a rope that was so tight it almost suffocated me, causing my heart to race. I could hardly breathe. Then they held up my shirt, exposing my whole upper body, and used the electric baton to shock me until lines of blood appeared on my chest and back. They tortured me with electric shocks until midnight. They put the black hood on me again, afraid that if I saw where this was taking place, I would expose the whole thing later. By this point I had fallen unconscious from the torture. I was taken to the first floor hall where seven or eight strong young policemen were sitting there waiting for me. They tied me up on the iron chair, cursing me all the while. They first used the electric baton to shock me, then pulled my hair and poured hot mustard oil into my nose. The burning sensation almost caused me to pass out, but at the same time they kept pouring cold water on me, so from time to time I was awake, then passed out again. I was soaking wet, shivering and convulsing. On and off I heard them say to each other, "It's about two o'clock, let's go to sleep." Only then did they stop beating me.

I had to wear the wet clothes for a day and night. I changed into dry clothes in that dark evil place where I underwent inhuman torture. I tremble whenever I recall it. On the second night I was sent to the second division of the detention centre in Harbin City.

In order to resist this persecution, I started a hunger strike to protest. It lasted for seven months (208 days). They used every tactic to torture me. (Practitioner Ms. Liu Limei was tortured the same way, but because she choked on the mustard oil, it got into her lungs, causing her lungs to gradually deteriorate. She died in June 2003).

For the first several days, they did not let me have my possessions, and I was only allowed to sleep on the ice-cold bed board. I was also not allowed to use a blanket and could only cover myself with a jacket. Another prisoner saw that I was too cold to sleep and gave me a blanket, but the jail assistant Zhao Fengxia saw it. She cursed this kind-hearted prisoner and told her to take the blanket away. I slept on the cold bed board for many days until my family members sent a care package and then I could sleep with a blanket.

Even though I had bedding, sleep became more cruel than the previous three months of torture. To sleep, each of us only had a space on the board about the size of a fist, so we could only sleep on our sides. There was no space between us: head to head, one person's chest touched the next person's back, one arm under the body, the whole body stiff--just like a corpse, and no one can turn over. One blanket covered five people. We were only allowed to turn one or two times, all at once. I was right in the middle. I could not move or breathe, and I was sweating all over, wet from head to toe. This kind of sleep is even more painful than sitting and there is no way to fall asleep. I was too weak to withstand this pain, and it has caused a great deal of suffering.

Under the command of the jail police officer Zhao Fengxia, criminal inmates always curse and beat me. Even when I was very weak, they still forced me to squat on my heels until I was faint. They also forced me to lay in the toilet on the ice-cold concrete with my face on the dirty toilet floor.

I never cooperated during forced feedings. I always threw up, which made them very angry, and they tried to prevent me from vomiting. One time Zhang Ke used a container to catch the vomit, then force fed me with it. It was so vicious. Another time they tried to feed me with urine, but they were afraid that urine would poison me, so they did not do it. Sometimes I became extremely dehydrated, had no blood pressure, and went in and out of consciousness. I was given an intravenous drip, but I wasn't allowed to go to the toilet during the procedure. It took five to six hours to finish three to four bottles of liquid. Several times I could not hold it, and my trousers were soaking wet with urine. I was not allowed to change and had to sleep in my wet trousers.

Because of the long hunger strike, my physical condition was really bad. I often had heart problems and my heart beat sped up. They force fed me some medicine, completely damaging my teeth. My lower back and legs were also injured seriously. This led to other painful symptoms, including sciatica and lower back pain.

Harbin City 610 Office County protection special case team members: Zhu Kai, Fan Jiayuan, Zhang Jun (or Li Jun) etc.

Note

1. Illegally arrested: Contrary to what former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution, and the Chinese Communist Party would like the world to believe, practising Falun Gong is NOT illegal in China. Although the Public Security Department issued an unconstitutional set of restraints on the practice at the onset of the persecution in 1999, no laws have been passed by the only legislative body in China, the People's Congress, banning Falun Gong or granting the police the authority to arrest Falun Gong practitioners for practising the exercises or distributing flyers. For a more complete discussion of the illegality of the persecution of Falun Gong, please refer to the article "The Ban on Falun Gong—A Dictator's Whim, Not the Rule of Law". (Variation: "illegally sentenced")

2. Iron Chair: The "Iron chair" is made of iron pipes. Victims are restrained on the iron chairs with both arms and legs tied for a long period of time, see illustration at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/1/9/17577.html

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/11/20/142856.html