Crimes at Chinese Labour Camps Must Be Fully Exposed and Accounted For (Part 1)

This article presents some gruesome statistics compiled from Minghui sources regarding the number of practitioners who died as a direct result of the torture and abuse they received in China's forced labour camp system over the last almost 15 years of the persecution of Falun Gong, along with details of numerous well documented specific cases.

The National People's Congress (a legislative body controlled by the Chinese Communist Party) released its decision to abolish the law that had allowed China's forced labour camp system to exist on December 28th, 2013. The forced labour camp system is officially called "re-education through labour," or "RTL," in an attempt to disguise the atrocities that are carried out there. The statement read, “While the RTL decisions before the abolition of the RTL system were effective; after the abolition of the RTL system, the remaining terms will not be executed.”

Is the Party expecting that the inhumane crimes that have been perpetrated for years at these labour camps will be suddenly discarded with a brief notice?

Falun Gong practitioners in China have been risking their lives to expose the torture, killing and other crimes against humanity in labour camps. Much of this is done so right here on the pages of the Minghui website. According to Minghui statistics, the number of practitioners detained in labour camps peaked during 2000 and 2006.

The Mirror or Fazhi Wanbao (Legal Evening Paper) in China published an article titled “Labour Camps Detained 300,000 at Its Peak” on November 16th, 2013. The report stated that the number of detainees at labour camps increased each year since 1990. The peak was 300,000 each year. Starting in 2006, the number decreased. There were still 90,000 detained in labour camps in 2012.

The peak times of labour camps as outlined in this article coincide with the peak of the persecution of Falun Gong: 2000 – 2006. If there were about 300,000 detainees in labour camps each year during 2000 and 2006, the total number of detentions during those years was about 2.1 million.

The “2008 Report on International Religious Freedom” to the U.S. Congress stated that at least half of the inmates in China's labour camps were Falun Gong practitioners. This means that there were at least 1.05 million detentions of practitioners during 2000 and 2006. Millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been detained and tortured in labour camps over the past 14 years.

How can such a large-scale persecution that involves horrendous torture of innocent people be casually brushed aside with a such brief notice stating that “the RTL decisions were effective?”

Over the past 14 years, the number of articles published on the Minghui website describing torture perpetrated in the notorious Masanjia Labour Camp has reached 8,472. The number articles reporting on the Wanjia Labour Camp in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province totals at 2,324.

The WOIPFG (World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong) issued a report on February 12th, 2003. The report stated that at least 100,000 Falun Gong practitioners had been detained in labour camps between July 1999, the inception of the persecution, and February 2003. It also released 136 death cases directly caused by 69 labour camps.

Minghui published a report on the CCP's torture and killing of Falun Gong practitioners in December 2013. The report identifies 546 death cases as a direct result of torture and killing in labour camps, out of the total 2,383 death cases resulted from imprisonments.

The report also took a sample size of 346 and concludes that about 34% of the death cases were due to multiple tortures. About 16% of the death cases were due to force-feeding or severe beatings. 12% were a result of torture with harmful drugs.

We are listing several death cases below to present a partial picture of the brutality in labour camps.

Part 1 contains the following cases:

Liu Xuguo (刘绪国): the first confirmed death case in a labour camp

Gao Rongrong (高蓉蓉): disfigured before murdered

Wang Yunjie (王云洁): died with festered breasts as a result of electric shocks

Li Zaiji (李再亟): subjected to organ harvesting

Wang Bin (王斌): beaten to death, his organs harvested

Su Juzhen (苏菊珍): died of drug torture

Yang Suhong (杨苏红): a disabled person tortured to death in a labour camp

Zhang Chagnming (张长明): died of severe beatings and injuries on the feet

Yao Sanzhong (姚三忠)

Li Zetao (李泽涛): killed with knife in the anus

Li Deshan (李德善): died of psychiatric torture

Part 2 contains these cases:

Xue Xia (薛霞)

Zhang Quanfu (张全福) and Zhang Qifa (张启发): father and son killed by the same labour camp

Zhou Jingsen (周景森)

Na Zhenxian (那振贤)

Guo Shijun (郭士军)

Jiang Xiqing (江锡清): his defence attorney was also tortured

Sun Shuxiang (孙淑香): killed after she was interviewed by attorney Gao Zhisheng

Liu Xuguo

Minghui reported the death case of Mr. Liu Xuguo on January 21st, 2000. He was a volunteer assistant in Zoucheng City, Shandong Province. He died at the age of 29, as a result of force-feeding. This was the first confirmed death case in labour camps in the persecution of Falun Gong.

Mr. Liu was tortured to death simply because he went to Beijing in October 1999 to peacefully appeal for Falun Gong. In order to cover up the death, the Chinese regime sent Mr. Liu's wife, Man Li, also a Falun Gong practitioner, to the Jining Labour Camp for two years.

Mr. Liu's parents were grief-stricken and passed away. The persecution caused three deaths in a single family.

Mr. Liu's case and the cause of death being force-feeding was reported by Agence France-Presse, Associated Press and the World Journal. The annual investigation report of the United Nations Human Rights Commission included Mr. Liu's case.

How can this tragedy be forgotten just because of the closure of the Jining Labour Camp? The 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) in Jining City and Shandong Province, the Jining Labour Camp, and Wu Guanzheng, the Party Secretary of Shandong Province are all accountable for these deaths and damage to Mr. Liu's family.

Gao Rongrong

Ms. Gao Rongrong was disfigured due to electric shocks at the Longshan Labour Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province.

Ms. Gao Rongrong, an accountant at the Luxun Fine Arts College in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, was arrested and taken to Longshan Labour Camp in July 2003 because of her belief in Falun Gong.

Mr. Gao's beautiful face was disfigured on May 7th, 2004 due to continuous electric shocks at the Longshan Labour Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. She was only 36 and was in critical condition. She managed to escape from the hospital afterwards.

Theo van Boven, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture, issued an urgent request to related agencies and staff at the United Nations on August 30th, 2004.

Luo Gan, then Chinese Communist Party (CCP) politburo member, ordered the arrest of Ms. Gao to cover up the scandal. The Public Security Bureau identified Ms. Gao's case as a No. 26 major case. All Falun Gong practitioners who helped with Ms. Gao's escape were hunted down and brutally persecuted.

Ms. Gao was captured again in March 2005 and sent to the Masanjia Labour Camp in Liaoning Province. She died on June 16th, 2005. Zhang Sukun, Ms. Gao's mum, over 75 years old, petitioned for justice for Ms. Gao's death and encountered a lot of difficulties and threats. She died five years later.

Wang Yunjie

At the Masanjia Labour Camp in 2002, Ms. Wang Yunjie was exposed to the scorching sun in the clothes-drying field outside for nearly 20 days, followed by more than 30 days of detention in a dark and damp restroom, from 4:30 a.m. until past midnight each day. She was also forced to stand and squat. She was then locked in the boiler room, a triangular storeroom, and a basement for nearly four months.

The guards barbarically tortured her, which resulted in ulceration of her breasts. She died in July 2006.

Li Zaiji

Mr. Li Zaiji suffered tremendously at the hands of the Huanxiling Labour Camp guards and detainees in 1999 and 2000. He once told his wife that the labour camp was not a place for human beings.

He died on July 8th, 2000. Mr. Li’s wife saw his body on the night of July 9th, 2000. Even though the guards soon dragged her away before she could take a careful look, she still saw that his back was black and purple, and his left temple was sunken in. One of his eyeballs appeared to have been pushed back into its socket. To secure the eyeball, gauze had been stuck into the corner of his eye, although a piece of it was visible outside the eye.

After an autopsy was conducted without the family's consent, the coroners removed all of Li Zaiji’s internal organs. Guard Zhao bought many rolls of bath tissue. When questioned by the family, he said they were needed to stuff Li Zaiji’s abdomen. The family indeed saw the cavity filled with bath tissue. When the guards carried the body out, it was dripping blood.

The family asked to keep the organs, but guard Zhao said they needed to use them for specimens, when, in fact, they later sold the organs for their own profit. The family wasn't able to intervene. The guards didn’t even let them put clothes on the body before hurriedly cremating it.

Wang Bin

Mr. Wang Bin, around 47, worked as a computer engineer at the Institute of Design, Bureau of Petroleum Control, Daqing City, and was the winner of a second class award in science and technology.

He was sent to the Daqing Labour Camp in May 2000 after going to Beijing to peacefully appeal for Falun Gong. In the labour camp, he was beaten many times for refusing to write the “Guarantee Statement" to give up practising Falun Gong.

On September 27th, 2000, under the supervision of Feng Xi, the director of the second brigade in Daqing Labour Camp, four criminals beat him ruthlessly for nearly an hour in front of over 40 people in the prison. This healthy intellectual was senselessly bashed to death.

The major blood vessels of his neck were ruptured, and as a result his neck was swollen due to excess bleeding. He had several fractured bones. The back of his hands showed signs of burning by cigarettes and subsequent infection. His nostrils showed burning marks likely caused by cigarettes. His body was black and blue in many places.

Mr. Wang's organs were taken after he was beaten to death. How can this crime go unpunished?

Su Juzhen

At 8:30 a.m., on April 8th, 2006, Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Su Juzhen passed away after she suffered a mental collapse resulting from brutal torture at the Masanjia Labour Camp.

On the morning of April 9th, when her body was cremated at the Qiansuo Crematory in Suizhong County, it was found that her skull, shins and ribs were black and could not be cremated. According to an expert, this is the result of drug poisoning.

Several witnesses have confirmed that Ms. Su was subject to drug torture at the Masanjia Labour Camp. Many colleagues, family members and friends saw the black bones at the cremation.

Yang Suhong

Police from Xishan District in Kunming City arrested Ms. Yang Suhong from Yunnan Province, and took her to the Yunnan Provincial Women's Forced Labour Camp in November 2004. After enduring enormous mental and physical torture, the innocent 24-year-old woman passed away on June 11th, 2005.

Ms. Yang was a disabled person. She was 3'11”. However, she was forced to do the same level of forced labour as others simply because she refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong. She was released in May 2005 after severe torture at the labour camp. She died in a little over a month.

Zhang Chagnming

Mr. Zhang Changming, about 50 years old, worked at the Xinjian coalmine in Qitaihe city, Heilongjiang province. He went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in July 1999. He was arrested and sentenced to three years at the Jiamusi Labour Camp in Heilongjiang Province.

The forced labour camp notified his family members to bring 1000 yuan [500 yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China] in exchange for a visit on February 15th, 2003. However, their visit was denied after his family members handed in all they could gather, only 200 yuan.

On March 1st, 2003, his family members received a notice from the detention centre telling them that Zhang Changming was sick and that they should come and pick him up. What actually happened was that Yang Chunming, the supervisor, and Yang Wenbing, a police officer, brutally stabbed his head and body with screwdrivers repeatedly. When they stopped, Zhang Changming's head was severely injured, with large bruises and internal bleeding, and he frequently vomited blood. Seeing that he was already on the verge of death, even the hospital refused to accept him, not wanting responsibility for his death.

At about 3:30 pm on March 2nd, 2003, the detention centre took Zhang Changming home and tried to extort 500 Yuan from his family, however the family did not have money to give. Zhang Changming continued vomiting blood and kept bleeding from his many wounds after arriving home. Seeing that Mr. Zhang was virtually dying, the hospital refused to admit him. Unable to eat or speak, he died at 7:30 p.m. the same day.

Yao Sanzhong

Yao Sanzhong, male, 34 years old, was a teacher at the School of Art in Luohe City, Henan Province. He was sentenced to three years of forced labour by the Luohe City 610 Office and sent to the Xuchang Forced Labour Camp in Henan Province. He called out “Falun Gong is good” at the labour camp during a meeting that was held by the authorities to slander Falun Gong. His term was extended by 10 months.

As he firmly refused to give up his belief in Falun Gong, he was brutally tortured by the police there until he was on the verge of death. In order to avoid responsibility, at the end of December 2002, the labour camp had some people carry him away and dump him on the side of a road in another city.

Later, his family heard of this and took him to a hospital for emergency treatment for about a month, at the cost of several thousand Yuan. However, Mr. Yao still passed away in mid January of 2003 in spite of the rescue efforts.

Li Zetao

Mr. Li Zetao was about 24 years old. He was an employee of the Zongsheng Motorcycle Parts Factory of Chongqing City. He was arrested by the Jiulongpo District Police in Chongqing City in 2000.

He was later sent to the Xishanping Labour Camp in Chongqing City. Starting from Mary 29th, 2001, Mr. Li was forced to do heavy labour during the day and was tortured at night.

The guards tied his arms to a stick and hung two buckets of human excrement on each arm. They put a broom in his clothes behind his neck and wrote slanderous words on his chest. Then the guards tried to force him to badmouth Falun Gong and its founder Master Li. They also tried to force him to smoke cigarettes, which is against the teachings of Falun Gong, and tried to force him to abandon his belief in Falun Gong.

Mr. Li didn't comply. The police then ordered the inmates to rotate a knife in his anus. On June 2nd, 2001, Mr. Li was tortured to death.

Mr. Li Deshan

Mr. Li Deshan, a teacher in Dezhou, Shandong Province, was severely tortured in Wangcun Labour Camp. The tortures he suffered include sleep deprivation, beatings, being hung up, being force-fed water and alcohol, and mental abuse.

The guards forced him to read slanderous texts after he had been deprived of sleep for a long time and was not in his right mind. Then the guards recorded him and played the recordings back to Mr. Li in front of the others. When Mr. Li said he wouldn't have said that consciously, they repeated the torture and humiliation.

Mr. Li suffered a nervous breakdown from the torture and brainwashing, which led to his death in August 2002.