Woman Dafa Practitioner Recounts Cruel Persecution in the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp

My name is Gu Changqin. I am a 46 year old female Dafa Practitioner and a dentist from the Gangyaoling Township Clinic in Huludao City, Liaoning Province. On October 13, 1999, I went to Beijing to appeal for Dafa, and suffered abuse at the hands of the police. They cuffed me together with another practitioner and sent us back to a local detention centre. Because I started a hunger strike to protest, I was transferred to the local police station, where I was put in foot shackles and locked onto a two-metre long and one-foot wide wooden board, to be force-fed for three days. Three days later, I was illegally sentenced to three years of forced labour.

On the afternoon of October 30, 1999 I was escorted to the No. 1 Division of the No. 2 Women's Camp in the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp. In my heart, I absolutely did not acknowledge this kind of forced labour. With other practitioners, I persisted in studying the teachings of Falun Dafa and practising the exercises. I suffered brutal persecution from Su Jing, the head of the No. 2 Women's Camp, and also from a group of male and female police. Su Jing and a female officer blocked the door with electric batons, while the male police tortured us inside the room. They pulled our hair and clothes, and beat, kicked and shocked us with electric batons. They then separated us in different rooms for further persecution. The more they beat us, the more we would recite Teacher's lectures to resist the evil persecution.

In the first half of November 1999, we wrote an appeal letter to the heads of the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp, requesting the letter be forwarded to the provincial and central governments, but we did not hear any response. Afterwards we practised the exercises and studied the Fa [teachings of Falun Dafa] in the hallway, and requested to talk to the camp heads. When we recited "Lun Yu," the foreword of Zhuan Falun [the main text], Li Fenglian, a criminal female inmate assigned as security assistant, hit us viciously one by one from both front and the back. She had been sentenced to forced labour for violent behaviour, yet this type of aggression was encouraged by the guards. She particularly punched people's chests, necks, and heads. I was hit so hard that I spit out a lot of blood.

In December 1999, I was transferred to the No. 2 Division of the No. 1 Women's Camp to do hard physical labour. Everyday I had to work for 16 hours or longer. One evening, instead of working, they asked me to recite "Inmates Rules." I refused. Li Fenqing, the female criminal inmate assigned as security assistant, took two other practitioners, Yang Hong, Li Hongshu and me to an empty room. She forced us to touch the ground with our hands, with our legs held straight, and started brutally beating us until she was exhausted. At midnight, chief guard Liu Suwen was on duty. When she saw me practising Falun Gong, she fiercely slapped my face. When I was forced to do the "body-folding"[1] as punishment for practising Falun Gong, Zhang Xiaofang kept elbowing me in the back.

We did not have any freedom at the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp. For 24 hours a day we were strictly monitored. We were not allowed to talk to anyone without permission. Family visits were also prohibited. Originally, two inmates monitored me. Because I was persistent in explaining the truth to them, one of them started to practise Falun Gong. After the chief guard learned this, she assigned another inmate to monitor me. They would report us to the team leader and the division chief at any time. The hostile environment and physical tortures caused my menstruation to stop for eight-and-a-half months. At the end of October 2000, I started to have difficulty speaking. Later I had to write down what I wanted to say. Political chief Li Shuhuan ordered four to five people to carry me to the hospital. The preliminary x-ray that I had at Shenyang City Medical College showed that I had thyroiditis. Later, my physical condition continued to worsen. Sometimes I could not even lie on my back to sleep. I had difficulty breathing, and I could not freely move my neck. My cheeks and face were swollen. I could only take liquid food. The labour camp was afraid of being responsible for my death, so they sent me back home on November 1, 2000.

After I came home, the evildoers did not stop persecuting me. During the morning of November 7, 2000, Hao Shushan, the chief officer from Gangyaoling Township Police Station in Nanpiao District, along with 4 to 5 other officers, broke into my house and took away all my Dafa books, cassettes, my Falun badge and Teacher Li's photos. They abducted me to the detention centre. While I was there, I did not drink any water. After three days, the detention centre officials called the local police station personnel to take me back. On the same day, they sent me to the district hospital. The chief of Gangyaoling Township Police Station filed a false report on my physical condition to the police department chief, thus I was again sent to the labour camp on November 11, 2000.

Going back to the labour camp for the second time, my situation was even worse. One evening, the labour camp officials invited a so-called "medical expert" to check my health. The labour camp deputy head, Sun Fengwu and the No. 1 Women's Camp head, Zhou Jian were in the team office also. After asking my age, the "expert" touched my neck for a second and said, "It's a nervous disorder; it does not mean anything." At that time I could not freely move my neck. He also told the camp heads, "You can do whatever you want to do." Sun claimed that I was faking the poor state of my health and proposed to extend the term of my imprisonment. The team leaders prohibited others to give me pen and paper to write down my opinion. About six to seven collaborators [former Falun Dafa practitioners who have stopped practising under the intense pressure and torture and now assist in the persecution of Falun Gong] took turns to brainwash me day and night. They tried to force me to give up practising Falun Dafa and force-fed me. I had additional symptoms such as headache, back pain and abdominal pain. Later I underwent another x-ray at the Masanjia Labour Camp hospital. The diagnosis revealed that I had cancer. On May 30, 2001, the labour camp officials sent me back home again.

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Postscript: Officers from the local police station still harassed this practitioner at home. On December 28, 2001, local police took her to the police station and threatened if she continued practising Falun Gong they would detain her again. She found a chance to escape and was forced to leave home in order to avoid being illegally arrested. On May 31, 2002, police again kidnapped her. She was imprisoned in Jinzhou City No. 2 Detention Centre. There she suffered all kinds of brutal tortures and became extremely weak. In January 2003, she was sent to Shenyang City Dabei Prison and has been jailed there since then.

[1] Body-folding: this torture refers to standing with two legs straight and closed, bending the head down as far as it will go toward the feet, in front of the knees. The fingers point to the ground, the head is upside down, making the body to form a 90-degree angle. The victim is forced to keep this position for 17 to 18 hours a day except when eating, sleeping and using the toilet.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/3/18/46672.html