Ms. Chen Fengxian, Disabled, Abused in Beijing Prison for Women

Name: Chen Fengxian
Gender: Female
Age: Early 60s
Address: Jingsong, the Chaoyang District, Beijing
Occupation: Interpreter
Date of Most Recent Arrest: Unknown
Most Recent Place of Detention: Beijing Prison for Women
City: Beijing
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, brainwashing, beatings, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, interrogation, detention, denial of toilet use
Key Persecutors: Ms. Zhang Haina, head of Prison Ward No. 8

During June and July of 2009, Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Chen Fengxian was imprisoned in Ward No. 8 of the Beijing Prison for Women. Ms. Chen believed in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and refused to be “transformed” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] and would not acknowledge herself as a criminal. Zhang Haina, head of Ward No. 8, instructed prison guards and prisoners to abuse Ms. Chen.

One of Ms. Chen's legs is disabled and she has difficulty walking. One night when a prison guard was calling out the prisoners' names, Ms. Chen did not answer when her name was called. Guard Zhang Haina took her to a conference room. In the middle of the night, Ms. Chen's cellmates were called to the conference room to keep her company. They saw her sitting on the floor and her chair was off to one side. After this incident, Ms. Chen was often taken from her cell at night and then brought back after midnight.

Ms. Chen was not allowed to contact her family, and the guards confiscated letters from her family. Ms. Chen was not permitted to purchase daily necessities such as toilet paper. Inmates working for the guards monitored her daily.

Prison guards incited the inmates to abuse Ms. Chen. To protest the detention, Ms. Chen refused to answer to the guards' roll calls. The guards then refused to let her use the toilet and she had to relieve herself in her cell. Ms. Chen used her wash pan, but the inmates threw her wash pan away. She then used her food container, but they threw that away, too. At mealtime, because she did not have a food container, she was not given anything to eat. There was a period of time where she was given only a bite of bread or a mouthful of rice with some broth, which was just enough to keep her alive. The guards forced Ms. Chen to say, “Sir, I want to eat.” If she did not say this, they would not give her anything to eat.

In the winter Ms. Chen was not given a winter coat to wear; she wore only a shirt. She was locked in a room by herself. The windows were purposely opened to make the room cold. Because she never had enough to eat, she would sit on the floor every day and shiver.

Ward No. 8 was later relocated. Every cell in the new ward had its own toilet, but the toilets did not have a video camera. After everyone went to sleep at night, as instructed by the prison guards, some of the inmates would take Ms. Chen into the toilet. Cellmates often heard the inmates beating her in the toilet.

Zhang Haina, the head of Ward No. 8, received numerous awards for actively persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. She often travelled to Wuhan and Sichuan Provinces to share her “transformation” experiences with others involved in the persecution.

June 14th, 2011

Related articles:

http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2011/4/22/124566.html

http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/3/31/115783.html

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/6/16/37004.html

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/6/14/242409.html