Chilling Account of Violence at Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp

The persecution at the women's labour camp in Heizuizi is recounted here. The writer describes her ordeal and how she overcame all that was done to her until her tormentors finally realised that she would not change. The torture of other practitioners being held at the detention centre is also recorded here.

By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

When two practitioners and I were handing out flyers that clarified the truth of Falun Gong, we were forcibly arrested by the local policemen and taken to the Jilin City Detention Centre.

In the detention centre, the prison authorities used criminals to tightly control and torture the practitioners. One day, an eighteen or nineteen year-old woman was brought into the centre and charged with the crime of being a "Falun Gong thief." Many felt the charge seemed strange and it was later discovered that the police caught her after she stole a mobile phone. During her confession they threatened her: "You will be charged seriously if you don't say that you are a thief for Falun Gong." The policemen's purpose was that they wanted to blame her crime on Falun Gong so that they could get promoted and receive cash awards. After learning the whole story, we clarified the true facts of Falun Gong to her, and also told her why she should strive to be a good person. She totally understood what we said to her and promised us that she would never steal again, and in the future, she would be a good person like Falun Dafa practitioners.

Without any legal procedure, we were taken to the Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp in Jilin Province, and on the same day were brutally tortured by the policemen. For days and nights, we were brainwashed without being allowed to sleep due to the round the clock efforts of collaborators [former Falun Gong practitioners who have gone astray due to brainwashing and torture]. The collaborators took turns trying to force practitioners to give up their cultivation practice. After five days, when I still hadn't changed my attitude of persisting on the path of cultivation, they decided to use the method called "abortion" to torture me on the sixth day. Six people pushed me down on the ground, but I resisted them and stood up, so they tied my feet and my hands with ropes and physically forced my hand to write the "renouncement statement." They fooled the other practitioners by showing them the renouncement statement that they forced me to write. I later wrote a solemn declaration, instead of writing a required progress report, to prevent the fake statement from fooling others. This action infuriated the policemen, so they started a new method of persecuting me. In the beginning, I wasn't allowed to sleep for two days and two nights. Later, I was forced to work in the daytime and only allowed to sleep for a few hours every night for the next three months.

In October 2002, before the 16th People's Congress Meeting began, the policemen started another round of cruel violence to persecute practitioners. For seven days, I was forced to stand in the ward facing a wall. For seven nights, I was forced to stand in a corridor. They still couldn't change my heart and mind. After torturing me in a variety of ways, I still insisted on cultivation practice, and so they had to give up trying to control me.

Because I had terrible experiences in the detention centre for a year, I believed even more firmly in Dafa. It didn't matter how long the police threatened to add penalties onto my sentence, they could never stop me from resolutely walking my path of cultivation. Over the year, the practitioners still did their best to clarify the truth of Dafa, even though the environment in the detention centre was very tough. Some of them went on hunger strikes to protest the persecution; some of them clarified the truth of Dafa in loud and clear voices; some of them exposed the dark schemes and tricks of the policemen through writing. All these methods had the power to shake the evildoers. However, they also suffered terrible torture, such as force-feeding by painfully having a tube crammed down their throat, humiliation, beatings, being shocked by electric batons, and so on.

I remembered Li Cong, a twenty-one year old girl in the First Division. Since she had been taken to the detention centre, she had been cruelly tortured by various violent means. The camp deputies in the First Division called her Yuan Ying. One day, without any reason she was called to the camp deputy's office. As soon as she walked into the room, the camp deputy shocked her with an electric baton. The violence lasted over an hour. Her screaming continuously came out from the office and our hearts trembled for her. The tendon on her left foot then atrophied and her left leg couldn't move any more. Even in such a state, those policemen still humiliated her with abusive words.

Another Dafa practitioner, Li Shuying of the 4th Division (whose husband had been tortured to death), instead of cooperating with the policemen, went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. She was not only force-fed through a tube by guard Wang Jing and the others in the 4th Division, but was also obligated to beg for food from the criminals of the different divisions. Finally, Li Shuying's legs became paralysed due to the repeated torture.

Wang Jing beat whomever he wanted; it didn't mater how old the practitioners were or how bad the practitioners' physical condition was. Shuai Yazhen, a sixty-four year old practitioner was in the 4th Division of the detention centre. One day, she wouldn't violate Dafa and was thus beaten up. Since she resisted the beatings, Wang Jing asked five helpers to drag her to the camp deputy's office. They held her on the ground and beat and shocked her with electric batons. They also put a dirty cloth into her mouth to stop her screaming.

I wouldn't be able to write everything that happened in the Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp during a period of a year of forced labour, because so much violence went on there. The reason for my writing down these particular experiences is because I want people to learn how much Falun Gong practitioners have been suffering in the Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Camp under the control of Jiang Zemin's regime.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/8/5/55174.html