Chongqing Women's Forced Labour Camp: 17 Hours of Daily Torture Results in Deaths and Leaves Others Permanently Injured

The vicious police in the Maojiashan Women's Labour Camp in Chongqing City brutally tortured Falun Gong practitioners physically and mentally. Some practitioners were forced to squat for 10 hours daily for over 3 months. Some practitioners were even forced to stand still for 17 hours daily for more than 4 months. Some practitioners were tortured with sleep deprivation for 5 days until practitioners outside the camp exposed the persecution. Some practitioners were kept from taking showers for over a month in the hot and humid summer. One practitioner was handcuffed and hung up with only her toes touching the ground for 17 hours daily for over 100 days, and was even handcuffed to the bed while sleeping.

Since May 2002, the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners in this women's labour camp has escalated. Some male guards were transferred from the Xishanping Labour Camp to intensify the persecution against Falun Gong practitioners. The jail guards and other prisoners chosen for the task separated practitioners into single cells and beat them badly. Some practitioners had permanent injuries due to the beatings. They also used collaborators [former Falun Gong practitioners who have stopped practising due to brainwashing and torture and now assist in the persecution] to try to mislead practitioners and shake the foundations of their belief.

Practitioner Du Juan's died after her spleen burst due to the beatings. After coming back from the hospital emergency room, she was detained in the labour camp again. The methods of torture this labour camp used against Falun Gong practitioners were far beyond a normal person's endurance. Among those tortured there were even seniors over 60 years old. Currently the practitioners are only allowed 5 hours sleep a day (some of them are allowed as little as 3 hours of sleep a day) so that they could be tortured over 17 hours a day. The tortures applied included not being allowed to sit down, standing in a fixed position on two feet or just one foot, marching, running and squatting, etc. If the guards are not satisfied with the practitioners' standing or squatting position, they beat them. Sometimes the practitioners' meals were reduced by half and the guards throw the food away rather than giving it to the practitioners.

This labour camp also used drug addicts to persecute practitioners. They directed drug addicts to commit bad deeds with the promise of reducing their terms. They used several drug addicts to monitor a single practitioner. Falun Gong practitioners were forbidden to talk to each other and even look at each other since the guards were afraid that practitioners would encourage each other with eyes. Practitioners have every movement strictly controlled and they are not allowed to walk around in the exercise yard. In addition, are not permitted to talk even inside the cell. Wherever a practitioner went, drug addicts were required to follow and monitor them. If a practitioner displayed any kind of physical symptoms resulting from the torture, she would be forcibly "treated," given injections and medicines without any medical diagnosis. Practitioners Zhou Chengyu, an instructor from Yuzhou College of Chongqing City, recently died from such careless medical mistreatment.

This labour camp has persecuted Falun Gong practitioners brutally, yet they claimed to the outside in the media that they adopted a method of "Educate-Reform-Save".

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/4/29/49355.html