"I Still Tremble When I Think About It - I Was Locked Up In a Men's Cell at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp” (Part 2)

Continued from Part 1:

“I Still Tremble When I Think About It – I Was Locked Up In a Men’s Cell at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp”

5. Prisoners Angered by the Terrible Actions of the Guards

I was sent to the Shenyang Prisoners’ Hospital after being tortured. After all the abuse, I looked so terrible that I frightened the prisoners.

Due to previous brutal force-feeding, my nose, mouth, throat, oesophagus, and stomach no longer functioned. I could not eat anything. Ms. Wang, the housekeeper, fed me bit by bit with her own share of soy milk after she made it. Swallowing was extremely painful. I gradually became able to sit up.

The guards called the housekeepers a week later and told them to watch us, to make sure we didn't do any Falun Gong exercises. They were told to report to the guards if they saw us trying to do the exercises. I told Ms. Wang, "I've been detained for more than a year and a half, and I have been tortured. I do the exercises to heal my injured body. They neither allow us to do exercises nor give us medical treatment. Isn’t it obvious that they want us to die?"

Afterwards, whenever she saw me doing the exercises, Ms. Wang always lay down on her bed and got under the blanket. She told the others, “I'm going to take a nap now, so I didn't see anything. Do you understand?” When she said this, the others went to bed, too.

In the other cell, however, the housekeepers followed the guards' instructions. They wanted to demonstrate that they were following orders, and also earn bonuses. They did not allow practitioners to do the exercises. They took turns watching practitioners around the clock. Yang Shu knocked down Ms. Zou Guirong while she was doing the sitting meditation. Ms. Zou’s head hit a metal pipe, and she lost consciousness for five minutes. The guards then handcuffed her to the bed in the hallway.

The next time I saw Ms. Zou, her face was red and swollen, as though she had a fever. She was drooling out of the side of her mouth. She was semi-conscious and unaable to eat.

We Falun Gong practitioners asked the prison hospital to check on Ms. Zou, but the hospital did not want to take the responsibility. They called four guards from Shenxin Prison. The guards dragged Ms. Zou out. Soon we heard Ms. Zou’s tragic cries, "The police are beating me! The police are beating me!” Female inmates came over and got angry. They all shouted, "The police are beating people. The police violate the law. What those TV programmes said against Falun Gong are all lies."

Ms. Zou was brutally beaten, sustaining injuries on her mouth, neck, and face. Blood ran down her body, but the hospital did nothing.

We submitted reports to the hospital several times, but never got a response. We decided to fight for our rights with a hunger strike.

After one week on the hunger strike, Ms. Li Suzhen, who was nearly 70 years old, suddenly felt unwell. She was taken away by her company, and I heard that she was released.

Ms. Lu Guoqing was also taken away by her employer, so only four of us remained: Ms. Wang Jie, Ms. Zou Guirong, Ms. Zhou Yanbo, and me. After being on the hunger strike for several days, Ms. Zhou was found to have an abnormal heartbeat and pulse and Ms. Wang became very thin. They both were treated with I.V. infusions. Ms. Zou became unconscious from the hunger strike and the injuries from torture.

The female inmates in my room protected me. Although I was severely dehydrated, and my organs were shutting down, my mind was clear.

After nine days of our hunger strike, Ms. Zou was pressured to have an I.V.

When Ms. Zou did not cooperate, a man fastened her feet to the sides of the bed with fetters, and her hands were shackled in a fixed position so she could not move. She was beaten when she resisted. This terrified the female prisoners, because they had never seen someone so cruelly abused and tortured.

6. Gaining Freedom through a Hunger Strike

After I saw Ms. Zou’s suffering, and Ms. Wang Jie and Ms. Zhou Yanbo lose consciousness, I asked Ms. Wang for a pen and paper. I wrote a long letter to the hospital leaders.

The guard delivered the letter to the prison officer and told him that it was addressed to all hospital leaders, and that it was better to send it to the head of the hospital.

The next morning, a middle-aged female officer came to my bed, I tried to sit up and say hello. Since I was very weak, she told me to lie down. She asked if I wrote the letter, I said I did.

She said, “This is a prison hospital. You are not allowed to do the Falun Gong exercises, and we'll force-feed you if you hold a hunger strike.”

On the thirteenth day of my hunger strike, I was dragged into the force-feeding room by five people. I was held down, and could not move. I almost suffocated. A pair of hands held my head tightly, and a tube was inserted into my nose. I did not know what they were feeding me. My stomach was filled with dirty water, and I kept vomiting.

On the morning of the fourteenth day of my hunger strike, they came to force-feed me again. As soon as they entered my room, they scared one of the patients out of her wits. The hospital staff then decided to move all the patients with high blood pressure and heart disease to another room before I was force-fed.

Ms. Zou suddenly began vomiting a large amount of blood, started breathing heavily, and then lost consciousness. The doctor prescribed some medicine, and a man handcuffed Ms. Zou again.

Ms. Wang Jie lapsed into a coma and she was carried out.

I pulled the I.V. needle from my vein, and the medicine and blood dripped onto the floor. The hospital head immediately called someone to move me out. This time, the head was afraid.

I then lost consciousness. I vaguely heard a prisoner saying in my ear, "Hospital head Yang told me to tell you that all three of you Falun Gong practitioners would go home today."

They secured my arms with handcuffs, stuck the I.V. in again, and gave me two bottles of infusion as quickly as they could. It felt like my chest was burning and on fire. Ms. Wang kept rubbing my body with cold water. I felt better afterwards.

Hospital head Yang told the three of us to collect our personal belongings. When Ms. Wang washed my face and hands, she noticed that only two of my fingers still had fingernails on them. The fingers without nails only had a thin layer of transparent skin. My teeth were all loose, and my hair had turned completely white. I was just skin and bones. After 14 days without food or drink, I was still alive. News of this miracle spread throughout the hospital.

After two hours, at around 10:00 p.m., I was sent home. Deputy hospital head Yang Deng told my family to pay for the hospital expenses. My mother said, “My daughter used to weigh 160kg (353 pounds), and now after you tortured her she is little more than skin and bones. I'm telling you that I will take you to court if she dies.” Yang Deng left after she saw that she could not get any money from my mother.

(to be continued)