Trauma Beyond Description for Falun Gong Practitioners at Beijing Forced Labour Education Personnel Dispatch Centre

On the night of June 28, 2000, police went to my house trying to detain me but I happened to be out at that time. After that, I had to run away from home and was at large, drifting here and there for almost 10 months. Then on April 10, 2001, at around 2 a.m., police broke into my temporary residence, I was startled from sleep and a gang of police offices jumped on me. That began my life of hell in jail.

The following serves as my personal account exposing the crimes of the police at the Beijing forced labour education personnel dispatch centre. After being held in a regular detention centre and before being unlawfully sentenced, those falsely arrested Beijing practitioners are illegally detained in this concentration camp, known as the "Labour Education Personnel Dispatch Centre." Police here commit serious crimes in their persecution of practitioners.

On May 29, 2001, several fellow practitioners and I were sent to this centre located in a Beijing suburb. Upon our arrival, two police teams came out from behind a big iron gate and lectured us with stern words. Then they told us to form two lines, male and female, and keep our heads down. The young lady practitioner in front of me at first stood holding her head high but was forced to yield after being shocked repeatedly with an electric baton. After we had entered the gate, police repeated the order for us to keep our heads down. One policeman shouted at me, "The white haired one in No. 4 keep your head down!" and then a policewoman rushed forward to punch me in the head. They did not scare me.

The police took us along a twisting path to a courtyard in an old torn down gray building. They ordered us to put both hands behind our heads and squat on the ground. Then called us one by one to the office for copying and signing a "Guarantee Letter." The lead policewoman sat in a chair. She had the non-cooperating practitioners squat around her so she could keep kicking them with her pointy-toed boots. She also punished us by forcing us to keep our heads down between our thighs with both feet close together. She forced us to stay out in this painful squatting position all night long and be bitten by swarms of night mosquitoes.

Later we were forced to stand still facing a wall. To torture us, no movement was allowed rain or shine for 24 hours. Some practitioners incurred big blisters on their knees due to long-term exposure to the hot sun. The police also forced Falun Gong practitioners to remove their clothes for a "search" in order to humiliate us. Furthermore, police personnel tore our clothes into ragged pieces.

Only when night arrived, were we dispatched to our education unit. At the unit, the unit police leader lectured and cursed us then forced us to shout out loud "Report to the unit!" and "Yes Sir!" or "Yes Madam!" They declared that from now on we should shout out these words while entering a door. If we were not loud enough, we were to repeat it again and again until we lost our voice.

In the education unit, Dafa practitioners were deprived of all our basic human rights. The unit police leaders arbitrarily jumped on us, cursing and beating us at will.

We had no freedom or privacy at all. They did not leave us alone even to go to the toilet. The authorities would only permit us two minutes for our toilet break after forcing us to go through the humiliating procedure of asking for permission from three levels of authorities stating with the police group leader, unit leader, and team leader. Sometimes they told us to go to the toilet in a group, hands on the backs of our heads, walking bent at a 90-degree angle to the thigh, then stomping each step with a pounding sound. If it were not loud enough, the escorting police officer would hit your head hard. While sitting on the toilet, they had an officer sit across from us to watch us. In this ugly environment, I could only move my bowels a few times a month at best.

Only 5 minutes were allowed for morning teeth-brushing and face-washing (for the group). When the time ran out the police officers would force us to stop and dump out the water. So generally we could not brush our teeth, but only rinsed once in a while and then spit out bloody water.

Ten more practitioners were confined to a small room of 130 square feet with 4 bunk beds. So the remainder of the practitioners slept on the floor under the bed. They had to stick out their heads for the police inspection. The space under the bed was very dirty and full of flies and mosquitoes. At night, the room would be locked after the nightly body search and roll call. A small bucket by our heads served as the toilet. We were under surveillance even in sleep; A few times I was awakened and accused of doing the Falun Gong exercises in my sleep.

We slept little every day and had to work very hard upon waking up. For example, when we were packaging chopsticks we were expected to carry, load or unload bags of 130 pounds or more. If the task were not complete, there would be no shower or sleep and no changing of clothes (in the summer). This centre depended on our slave labour for extra income.

No talk was allowed between Falun Gong practitioners while a non-practitioner detainee was inserted in between two practitioners in order to watch us. The only communication among us practitioners was to glance and smile at each other. Inside the centre, the police kept trying new ways to harass practitioners.

In the camp we not only suffered police tortures but also received insults from other criminals. Besides the usual tortures as mentioned above, there were some more inhuman punishments. Such as "flying an airplane"- squatting for a long time with both hands raised up behind the back with the head bent down; squatting up and down more than 300 times; and more disgusting the police tactic of shocking female practitioners' genitals with electric batons.

After a little more than 30 days detention in the camp, I was tortured to the point where I only weighed 90 some-odd pounds. What I just stated is only a small part of our suffering and the mental trauma is beyond words. Human language is unable to describe it.

Later I was transferred to Beijing's Xinan Labour Education Camp, also known as the Beijing female forced labour camp. Originally it had started with only one division with 100 detainees and later expanded to add 6 more divisions, reserved for Falun Gong practitioners detained illegally. The only purpose of the programme of torture is to damage us physically and mentally so as to cause practitioners to collapse, and then force us to sign the Guarantee Letter renouncing our belief and abandoning Falun Gong, against our will. For this purpose, the evil police use all available methods to harass practitioners who are only following the principle of Truthfulness -- Compassion -- Forbearance in our daily lives. How could we give it up?.

There are practitioners of all walks of life being illegally detained there -- from illiterate farmers, to college professors, from young people to 70-year-old senior citizens. We have one thing in common; we firmly believe in the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in our practise of Falun Gong. Even the camp's police leader admitted, "Never has this happened before that so many senior citizens and women have been put in jail." However, almost none of the Dafa practitioners have renounced their belief. We are able to endure the horrendous suffering and tribulations as well as insults and tortures because nothing is wrong in firmly believing in Truthfulness -- Compassion -- Forbearance. We are right to behave as good people so we are innocent. Dafa is most righteous. We the Dafa practitioners shall never be crushed by the evildoers.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/6/1/51416.html