Falun Dafa Practitioners Endure Brutal Acts in Hehuakeng Forced Labour Camp

I am a female Dafa practitioner. In November 2000, I was arrested because I went to Tiananmen Square to clarify the facts to people about the persecution of Falun Gong. The police attempted to send me back to my hometown but I managed to escape, and later my company fired me.

Because I continued to clarify the truth to the public, in June 2001, the police ransacked my home and took me away without a warrant. The policemen confiscated my personal belongings, including: 10,350 Yuan in cash [Chinese currency, the monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500 Yuan]; desk and chairs, a bed, a TV, electric shower heating equipment, cooking utensils and other day-to-day items.

In June 2001, at the police station, they tried to force me to tell them about other practitioners and the source of the truth clarification material. The policemen struck my genital area with a mop handle and also beat the arches of my feet; grabbed my hair, slapped my face, poured water on me, shocked me with electric batons, and handcuffed me to a "tiger bench" [an instrument of torture, one is forced to sit on a small iron bench with knees are tightly tied on the bench and hands tied on the back. Usually some hard objects are inserted underneath the lower legs to make it even harder to bear the pain]. Since July, I have been detained at the city detention centre, labouring over 10 hours a day. The police beat me by if I do not complete my work quota.

In 2002, the police station charged me with "disturbing social order" and sentenced me to three years in a forced labour camp. I refused to sign the sentencing documents, and they signed it on my behalf, in order to execute it against my will. They detained me in Tangshan City's Hehuakeng Forced Labour Camp, where Falun Gong practitioners received further persecution. Falun Gong practitioners are persecuted in many ways if they do not give up cultivation. Some examples are as follows:

1. Family members are not allowed to visit.

2. Long-term detention at "restricted supervision group." Newly sentenced practitioners are first tortured here. They have to sit on a stool, 10 hours a day for about a month; even though their buttocks become festered and painful, they are not allowed to move, otherwise they are beaten. Practitioners are forced to sleep with 2 or 3 people on an 80 centimetre-wide bed, lying with one person's head next to the feet of another person.

3. Forced brainwashing: The forced labour camp often set up many "focus groups" in order to torture Falun Gong practitioners by brainwashing. They had practitioners get up at 5:30 am, and not let them go to bed until 2 or 3 am the next morning.

4. As for those female Falun Gong practitioners who firmly insisted upon their belief, refusing to write "criticism" and "guarantee" letters, the authorities threw them into the guardroom. Inside the practitioners had their four limbs handcuffed to a bed, and criminals are incited to beat Falun Gong practitioners, twisting their hands, choking them with cigarette smoke, burning them with cigarettes, stepping on their chests, and sexually assaulting them with wooden sticks.

5. When practitioners go on hunger strikes to protest the persecution, the police officers twist their arms and handcuff their four limbs in a fixed position. I was handcuffed like that twice. Many practitioners were severely injured by this torture, and it takes months to recover.

6. When faced with steadfast Dafa practitioners, police would send two to four criminals to abuse each practitioner. They are not allowed to talk to any other Falun Gong practitioners, read Teacher's articles, or practise the exercises.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/4/19/48646.html