A Survivor's Testimony: Another Vicious Scene in the Masanjia Labour Camp

By a Falun Dafa Practitioner from China

In October 1999, I was in one of the first groups of practitioners to be sent to the Second Brigade of the Second Women's Division of the Masanjia Labour Camp. The term for the so-called labour education was one year. Because I practised Falun Gong exercises in the camp, the guards intensified their persecution of me. I was forced to do very heavy manual labour (working on an assembly line sewing cotton padded clothes for the army), and I was not allowed to have proper rest. At the time, the weather was very cold and I was not given enough to eat. However, with "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance" in my heart, I managed to survive this unexpected difficult period in my life.

One evening, an auntie [a form of address for a woman of one's parents generation] was screaming and yelling in the corridor. She was said to have a mental disorder. Practitioners who were held together with her said that she was a normal healthy woman when she first arrived there. Later on she said she missed her family very much and wanted to go home. A normal healthy woman like her was abused until she suffered a mental breakdown. When I went to the toilet, I saw her lying on the ice-cold cement floor in the corridor, tied up with rope. It was in between autumn and winter at the time. Prisoners who were serving their labour education terms guarded her. After May 2000 when I was transferred to the First Brigade of the Second Women's Division, I did not hear anything more about this auntie.

During my stay in the Second Brigade, I was forced to attend brainwashing sessions, where I was attacked from all sides and beaten with electric batons. The labour camp resorted to the tactic of having several people take turns to torture me. Under the severe pressure I yielded to the evil persecutors, but at the same time I felt very disappointed with myself. One day, by chance, I met Su Juzhen, a Falun Dafa practitioner that I knew. She told me that we should under no circumstances turn against our Teacher and Falun Dafa. I knew that she had suffered from severe electric shocks and other forms of corporal punishment. I felt ashamed for my cowardice, so I finally gathered up my courage and wrote a statement declaring everything I did under pressure that ran counter to Falun Dafa was null and void. Therefore, the evil Brigade Leader reprimanded me every day, and asked me to curse our Teacher, openly reproached me, forbade others to talk to me and ordered everyone to keep watch over me.

At that time I really felt that a single day seemed like a year. I was forced to stand for long periods of time in a position called "riding the horse" [a position where the person has to squat down with legs wide apart as in riding a horse. The position quickly exhausts a person when held for long periods of time], my clothes were soaked with sweat and whenever I fell down I was forced to get up and do it again. When other people were having a break, the officers forced me to "study" political ideology. The Brigade Leader had also threatened to send me to the solitary confinement cell. Finally, my term in the labour camp was arbitrarily extended for another three months. However, a good thing was that I was able to read our Teacher's new articles. Under great pressure, I was able to maintain a pure and calm heart.

One day the Brigade Leader asked me to visit Su Juzhen. I found that she could not smile and could not speak. She wore no expression at all, her eyes were staring without any movement and her pupils were round with no reaction whatsoever. I greeted her and there was no answer. I touched her but she did not respond. It seemed that she did not know me. Her whole body was very feeble and traces of blood were visible on her face. There were black and red dots on the backs of her hands, which were the scars from electric shocks. I knew Auntie Su was a mentally healthy person, so the Brigade Leader must have forced her to take some kind of drugs. I recalled that it was early in the morning, and I was still in bed when I heard Su Juzhen's blood-curdling scream. I did not know how long she had not had any sleep because of the corporal punishment and torture. I could not stop tears welling up in my eyes. I remembered that she seemed to be crippled from the way she walked. Apparently she was hurt somewhere in her legs. It was confirmed later that the beatings and long-time squatting caused her serious injury. One day Su Juzhen smiled at me when we met, and it was such a bright smile. I knew that she had overcome the evil, so I felt happy for her. After she was transferred to Dabei Prison in Shenyang City, I lost touch with her.

When my sentence extension of three months was over, the labour camp declared that my term would be extended indefinitely for still not giving up my beliefs! I would be either kept in the labour camp for further observation or transferred to Dabei Prison or Northwest China. My heart was not moved because no matter where I ended up, I would be a noble and righteous Falun Dafa practitioner. At that time the 2001 Chinese New Year was just around the corner. One day the Brigade Leader said he wanted to talk to me, but when I went downstairs I was put into a car where there were already three other practitioners. The four of us were driven to a hospital and taken to the psychiatric department. A doctor asked me a few questions and then said, "You refuse to be reformed, and you are different from others." I was then maliciously declared as having schizophrenia and the drugs prescribed for me cost me 489 Yuan (about a month's salary for a worker). I repeatedly explained to the doctor that I had no illness and refused to buy or take the prescribed drugs, but it was to no avail. This was because we were denied all of our rights, and I did not even have the right to arrange for money to be sent in by my family. Once I wanted to give my money to a practitioner who had financial difficulties but the request was refused. In other cases, Falun Dafa practitioners were falsely diagnosed as having melancholia or as being manic-depressive.

The prisoners serving in the labour camp forced me to take medicine. When I was reasoning with them, they said they were simply carrying out orders from the Brigade Leader. The Brigade Leader ordered these prisoners to watch me to ensure that I take it. When I refused, two prisoners forced me to lie on my back. Then one of them stopped my nose with his fingers and the other poured the medicine down my throat. Sometimes when I spat out the medicine, it would be all over my hair and clothes. Every time they finished pouring the medicine down my throat, they would force me to stay in bed for half an hour. That was twice daily, once in the morning and once in the evening. They said that they would continue to do this until I had some "good sense."

While taking that medicine I lost the desire to eat and did not feel hungry. Also, I was easily startled. Whenever someone called my name, I would feel my heart jump and start racing. I always felt very tired, unsteady and could not concentrate. However, I had a very sober mind and good memory. At the end of the year after going through all kinds of channels, my mother finally managed to come and see me. She said she went to see a lot of officials and even went on her knees in front of one leader before she was granted the chance to see me. One day in the fourth month of my extended term, I was informed that my parents came to pick me up to receive medical treatment.

Later on I learned that among those fellow women practitioners who served their terms together with me, the staunchest ones were sent to Dabei Prison, some had been confined in special cells and still others had their terms extended. The male division was dismantled, and male Falun Dafa practitioners were transferred to other places. Some officials denied that the labour camp ever held male practitioners. Fellow practitioner Zou Guirong, after being transferred from place to place, was finally tortured to death in a prison in Fushun City [see the report at http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200205/4519.html]. Fellow practitioner Jiang Wei suffered a mental collapse from the extreme pressure and torture [see the report at http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200201/2762.html]. Some other practitioners walked out of the labour camp nobly and righteously.

Kind-hearted people all over the world, please help the Falun Dafa practitioners who are being persecuted so harshly. Let justice be upheld and the evil have no place to hide. Let the world have more peace and truthfulness, less terror and lies!

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/9/29/27027.html