Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp: A Vile Concentration Camp

The Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp in Hebei Province is another of the Jiang Zemin regime's concentration camps for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. It was named first place in 2002 for torturing and brainwashing practitioners. Hebei Province's TV station and the Central TV station of China have conducted interviews and broadcasts from the camp many times.

The guards in this forced labour camp flaunt the banner of "education, transformation by persuasion, and saving people" while perpetrating deceit, torture, and destruction to reach their goal of forcing Falun Gong practitioners to give up their belief. During the winter, prison guards would strip off the outer clothes of steadfast practitioners and let them freeze outside all night long. In the morning the guards would bring them back to an empty room, and several guards at a time would shock them with electric batons. The guards would forcefully twist practitioners' flesh with pliers; stuff super hot pepper into their mouths, noses, eyes, and ears; put their hands and feet into metal rings and suspend them for up to three days and nights; stuff their mouths with recently used sanitary napkins; and force-feed diluted fresh human excrement to practitioners who went on hunger strikes.

The prison guards took turns attacking the practitioners who remained determined. Each practitioner was assigned to a so-called "helping and educating group" consisting of one male and two female guards, one "regular teacher," and two to three "assistant teachers." First, a collabourator [Former Falun Gong practitioners who have stopped practising due to brainwashing and torture and now assist in the persecution] and the head of the group would try to brainwash the practitioner. If the practitioner didn't give up her belief, harsher means would be adopted. One time, a female practitioner with the last name of Xu was brought to a room that was soon to be demolished. It was the middle of winter. She was cuffed to the metal rings of a bed in a sitting position, unable to move or sleep. The group leader and the regular teachers took turns, day and night, cursing her, punching her, kicking her with their boots, and shocking her with electric batons on her hands, feet, chest, back, and even in her mouth. Her tongue was covered with blisters and her hands and feet were swollen and injured. She was tortured this way for 54 days.

A female practitioner with the last name of Cui (62 years old) was dragged from the third floor everyday either to the outside or to a cold, wet room. Two "regular teachers" stuffed extremely hot peppers into her mouth and nostrils and shocked her body with an electric baton until it was covered with bruises and the smell of burning flesh filled the air. Ms. Cui remained determined in her belief. The prison guards twisted her fingers, toes, and flesh with pliers. Everyday Ms. Cui was tortured until she could not stand up. The guards would not let her go and continued to torture her for more than ten days with all kinds of devices. They always dragged her out in the night and sent her back to her room in the morning. She was forced to bend over to the ground to smell human excrement freshly dug out from the toilet pit.

Some female practitioners' hair was completely shaved off. Some practitioners were tortured until they passed out. They would be awakened with cold water or by someone pinching their philtrum acupuncture point (between the nose and upper lip) and forced to write the so-called "four letters" [a statements promising not to practise, appeal, distribute truth-clarifying material, or associate with Falun Gong practitioners]. If they refused to write the letters, they would be tortured again. A practitioner with the last name of Li in the fifth brigade was tortured for so long that she was on the verge of death. Police then notified her family to come and get her. She passed away soon after. Practitioner Zhang Xiuqin was tortured until two of her ribs were broken.

At the end of last year, 11 practitioners from Chicheng were kidnapped from their homes to the forced labour camp. When they were brought to the fourth floor, many guards beat them simultaneously until their faces were swollen. The guards tried to force them to give up their belief, claiming that if they didn't reform they would be shocked with electric batons, one after the other. These practitioners were all housewives from the countryside. The guards beat them from 7 or 8 o'clock at night until early the next morning. Practitioners on the second and third floors could hear the guards shouting and the chilling sounds of the beatings.

In 2002, due to its so-called "high reform rate," Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp was repeatedly interviewed by journalists from Hebei Provincial and China Central TV stations. Prison guards from all over the country came to this forced labour camp to learn its cruel techniques. Whenever people came to conduct interviews at the camp, the guards would confine the determined practitioners in isolated rooms and watch them closely to prevent anyone else from seeing them. When journalists asked practitioners about their lives in the camp, guards would arrange for the practitioners to be videotaped while carrying food from the camp officer's kitchen. One time, higher authorities requested that a practitioner survey of the camp be conducted. The camp selected scores of practitioners to answer the questions. The education director of the female squadron gave the survey questionnaires to selected practitioners first and told them how to answer the questions. During the actual survey, many guards monitored the practitioners carefully and caught some of them answering the questions truthfully. After the survey group left, the practitioners who exposed the real situation of the forced labour camp were sent to the office one by one to be punished.

The leaders of the prison guards often used various means to force practitioners to do their personal chores, such as making cotton quilts and washing their clothes and blankets. They forced practitioners to do these chores everyday. Moreover, practitioners had to buy the over-priced soap and detergent with their own money. Practitioners were even forced to wash some of the leaders hair.

Whenever delegations of higher authorities came to inspect Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp, hard labour would be cancelled for the day, and practitioners would be forced to sing, dance, perform Chinese folk dances, and play waist drums, pretending that they were very happy. The determined practitioners would be cuffed to their beds and tortured for many days. The detained practitioners were forced to do more than ten hours of hard labour every day. Even practitioners in their 50's and 60's were forced to do intensive hard labour.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/7/21/54356.html