Vicious Abuse of Falun Dafa Practitioners at Kaiping District Forced Labour Camp

The First Labour Camp of the Hebei Province, also known as the Kaiping District Labour Camp located in Tangshan City tortures Falun Dafa practitioners daily and their means are extremely brutal. The following is an account of some of the methods used against two female practitioners that I knew: Song Guixian and Hui Zhiyi.

Song Guixian, 39 years of age, is a farmer from Qinglong County, Hebei Province. Song was arrested in June 2002, and in order to appeal against the unlawful arrest and persecution she was undergoing she went on a hunger strike. In response to her actions the labour camp officers force-fed her. Because she did not cooperate with them, they beat and kicked her, as well as deprived her of sleep. One day after she had been on the hunger strike for over 90 days, because she called out "Falun Dafa is Good," a group of police and criminals pulled her outside and tied her up to a tree. It was winter time. The middle team leader Jia Hongmei also called over a further 6 male police officers to beat her in a frenzy for over 2 hours.

When Song had been on a hunger strike for over 100 days, she was again beaten virtually to death simply because she refused to cooperate with the head of the medical office who wished to check her blood pressure. After that beating, the camp police thought that she would not survive the incident and thus she was sent to a hospital where she was allowed to recover from the beatings. However, after she had recovered a little, the authorities then sent her to the labour camp again in order to subject her to further brainwashing sessions aimed at forcing her to give up her belief. They forced her to watch films, videos and books defaming Falun Gong and the police then ordered regular criminals to torture and beat her. At this point it should be noted that if any criminal refused to carry out these actions, the police officers summarily extended their sentences and likewise any criminals who tortured her brutally enough were then promised a reduction in their sentences. The methods used by the criminals to torture Song are as follows:

Some criminals would pinch her face with their sharp nails, scraping her face to the point where she would sometimes bleed; sometimes the criminals would carry her to where the police guard dogs were penned in order to frighten her into renouncing her belief in Falun Dafa. Moreover, the criminals would tie her on a bed and beat her up; they would scrape her ankle with the hairbrush, and use broken glass to scratch her anklebones. They also used dirty and smelly rags to cover her mouth, tying it tightly around her head and pulling Song's hair painfully. The criminals would fold up her legs, tie them up to her arms and force Song to sit on the concrete floor for hours at a time. When I last saw her, she had already been on a hunger strike for over 4 months, without drinking any water, and her current situation is unknown.

Hui Zhiyi, 60 years of age, a university degree holder, lives in Qinhuangdao City in Hebei Province. Hui was arrested in July 2002. She also went on a hunger strike in order to appeal against the persecution. The police asked her: "why are you on hunger strike?" she said: "I did not break the law, and this place has no right to hold me here. Release me so I can eat at my own home. I am upright in the things I do. I was arrested for believing in 'Zhen-Shan-Ren (Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance).' this is persecution against me. It is the evil people who have abused their power and the law. I am making a silent appeal. We were force fed, then forced to go to the hospital. You think about it, who is persecuting the good people in the great land of China? Who is breaking up millions of happy families? Who has used foreign investments to build labour camps, detention centres and brainwashing centres, and then used them exclusively to persecute good people?!" The police could not answer her at all. The Female Team's leader Zhou ordered many former practitioners who have given up their belief in Dafa under pressure to try and change Hui's beliefs. They would not allow her to to sleep and instead forced her to stand up overnight. Such mental and physical persecution lasted over a month, and Hui lost at least 25 Kg of weight. The police thought that she could not stand it any more and therefore allowed her to sleep for a few hours after midnight. Hui's family visited her twice and brought her food, she shared it with others, including regular criminals. When I parted with her, she was already on hunger strike for over 110 days and her current condition is unknown.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/4/22/48835.html