Practitioners who had just arrived were forcibly taken to the labour camp hospital for "assessment." Before then, practitioners were forced to take off all their clothes; no matter how cold it was, practitioners had to wait without clothes on. Following the health assessment, we were taken to the No. 2 Women's Division. There they ordered the drug addicts to forcibly remove all of our clothes for inspection. They degraded the female practitioners. After that, they inspected our luggage and all our personal belongings. They even opened up the cotton-padded quilts to search for Teacher Li's lectures. All of our bedding was confiscated. The prison guards told the drug addicts to tear them into strips, to use as cleaning rags.
The prison guards also instigated the drug addicts to steal all the daily necessities and clothes that practitioners brought. This was one of their techniques to "destroy us financially." Then they locked us in designated rooms so as to prevent us from having any contact with the practitioners who had been imprisoned earlier. Each practitioner in these designated rooms was monitored by two drug addicts, and there were three such people in each room. Practitioners were strictly disciplined and isolated, and our every word and deed was monitored. When washing their faces and going to the toilet, each practitioner was also isolated from other practitioners. Then the prison guards ordered the drug addicts to cut our hair and forced us to wear "the red card of strict discipline." Furthermore, they taught us their way of discipline, and forced us to learn to stand up, squat down, and shout "report" when entering the door. When seeing the prison guards, we were told to stand against the wall. When being ordered to talk, we had to squat and put our hands on our hips. In addition, we were forced to transcribe the "30 articles" that made up the prison regulations as well as the so-called "10 prohibits." If we did not transcribe the prison regulations or fail to remember the regulations within a day, we were not allowed to sleep and forced to continue standing against a wall.
Practitioners basically came together as one body at that time and refused to accept any of those rules. Before going to the dining room, the prison guards would order us to sing several labour camp songs. When the drug addicts sang those songs, we would recite Teacher's lectures. Once, when fellow practitioner Lan Mingxian from Xishui recited the lectures, the guards instigated the drug addicts to grab her head, hit and kick her and beat her face. We immediately went forward to stop them. Many practitioners were hit at that time. None of us hit back. Lan Mingxian's sister Lan Mingzhen was also a practitioner. She opened the window and shouted to the male teams downstairs, "They are beating Dafa practitioners upstairs." The dining room was chaotic during this moment. This event stirred the entire camp.
Fearing that we would influence the male teams, the prison guards moved us to the fourth story, leaving the whole third floor empty. Since then we were no longer allowed to eat in the dining room but got our meals inside the cells. We were only given a steamed bun for breakfast and rarely got any rice porridge. The prison guards instigated the drug addicts to snatch all of practitioners' daily necessities, clothes and food. For a long time the camp only provided us with flavourless boiled cabbage, carrots, and potatoes. We often discovered worms and small clumps of soil in the boiled vegetables.
When the visitors came, they would immediately order us to stop working in the plants. They led us to the television room to watch TV or study in one of the classrooms. The vegetables were also cleaned, and better cuts of meat were put on top of the vegetable container. We would be allowed to eat after the visitors left. Because we had not eaten food with a normal calorie and nutritional value or with oil for such a long time, we would have diarrhoea right after we ate fatty portions of the meat. The drug addicts were allowed to freely use the toilets, but the guards would not allow us to enter them. When we had to go, they forced us to wait in order to inconvenience us. For instance, practitioner Wang Xiangdi from Huangshi City, Wuhan Province had been under "strict monitoring" for a long time because she refused to write the "three statements"[1]. When she needed to use the toilet she was sometimes not allowed to go. This caused her bowel problems and was extremely painful. Guard Luo teased her spitefully, "Don't you Falun Gong practitioners practise 'Forbearance?' If you don't write the 'three statements' you will be treated as such."
Once, we realised that we should not wear "the red cards of strict discipline." We are practitioners, not prisoners. Guard Gao Xumei instigated the drug addicts to physically punish us, forcing us to stand against the wall. A piece of paper was placed between the body and the wall, on our heads and feet, and in our hands. If any of these pieces of paper dropped they kicked and hit us, deprived us of sleep, and forced us to do an excessive load of work. We again came to the conclusion that we should not passively accept this treatment, but should start a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Hence, none of their evil methods worked on us.
The guards then went to the various classes to threaten the drug addicts: if Falun Gong practitioners do not wear the "red cards of strict discipline," the entire class would be deprived of sleep. Some drug addicts forcibly put the red cards on us. We sternly warned the prison guards, "We are good people and are practitioners. The red cards are not something that we should wear." We were then dragged into a dark room, one by one, where four or five 1.8-metre-tall people were waiting with electric batons. All of the practitioners' heads, faces, the lower parts of the bodies, feet and legs were shocked. They did not stop until the red cards were again forcibly put on us. The face of a practitioner from Macheng City, Hubei Province was shocked to the point of being swollen, and she could not eat. Her eyes were so swollen that she could hardly see. Some practitioners became limp, and some practitioners' hands were numb due to the electric shock. For practitioners who held a hunger strike longer than 6 to 12 days, the guards would ruthlessly drag them away to be force-fed. Hu Jianzhen from Macheng City staged a hunger strike for 12 days. Her life was in danger when she was being force-fed. She was sent to the hospital for emergency care.
Afterwards we started practising in the evenings. The guards then instigated the drug addicts to torture and harrass us, promising them a reduction of their terms. Realising that we remained steadfast, they transferred some prison guards from male teams to carry on the persecution. They used methods like military training, forced standing in military postures, and standing against the wall all day long, intending to exhaust us physically. All of their methods were fruitless. Finally, regardless of daytime or evenings, as soon as we had some time, we would practise. Once, team leader Gao Xumei found pactitioner Rao Mianhua from Wuxue meditating. Gao immediately pulled her arms behind her back and then dragged her elsewhere to torture her. The tortures to her feet made her unable to walk. Her feet eventually were deformed and she was sent back to her local area before the term had expired. On another occasion, when practitioner Ding Hongxia from Macheng was going to practise the exercises, her hands were tied onto the bunk bed, and she was hung up, with her feet off the floor.
The guards often came to search our bodies and cells for the purpose of checking if we had Teacher's lectures. No matter how cold it was in winter, they would drive us to the hall and strip off all our clothes, even when we had our menstrual periods, with more than 100 people on site watching us. The younger, unmarried, practitioners were most terrified of this kind of humiliation. Some unwillingly wrote the "three statements," just because of this. The guards would examine the quilts, clothing, bedboard seams, and all the pockets and socks. One time the guards discovered that Gan Zhuyun, an over 50-year-old practitioner from Chongyang had written out Teacher's lecture. They immediately cuffed her hands, did not allow her to use the toilet and deprived her of sleep. She was forced to stand on the cement floor in the freezing temperature for several days as punishment.
Whenever a TV showed fabricated news, or "The Focal Point Talk" and other programmes defamed Dafa, the guards would force us to watch the news on TV. They also forced us to write a "response" after the program. Those who refused to write would not be permitted to sleep and were forced to stand for a long time.
Those practitioners who remained firm were sent to the "forceful guarding class." Zou Guixiang from Macheng was sent to this class and told a story of Buddhism to a fellow practitioner who wrote the "three statements." A prisoner named Zhang reported this to the guard, expecting to get her term reduced. A few days later, this prisoner was released, but Zou Guixiang was immediately sent to the strict discipline area, during a time when the temperature was as high as 105 Farenheit. She was not allowed to drink any water. Sometimes, they did not even give her any food. She had to stand against the wall for a long time. She suffered from all kinds of physical tortures until she could not stand any more and wrote the "guarantee statement"[2]. Around ten days before her term expired, she wrote a "solemn declaration"[3] and left it in the strict disciplinary class, denying the evildoers' persecution.
The guard Li Jingyi and others often forced practitioners to view brainwashing materials and videos, which were full of slander and rumours. Erzhou practitioner Li Shaoxian suffered a mental collapse from the torture and was released before the term had expired. In addition, over 40 very firm practitioners were secretly sent to Shayang at 1:00 a.m. one day to be persecuted more severely.
[1] The "Three Statements" [Practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write these as proof that they have given up their belief. Created by the "610 Office," the three statements consist of a letter of repentance, a guarantee to never again practise Falun Gong, and a list of names and addresses of all family members, friends and acquaintances who are practitioners.]
[2] The so-called "Guarantee Statement" [A statement to declare that he or she is remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practise Falun Gong again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate with any Falun Dafa practitioners.]
[3] "Solemn Declaration" [A declaration in which practitioners who had been forced to sign statements to give up practise solemnly declare that they did so against their will due to the tortures, and that they wish to continue to practice.]
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2003/10/4/58374.html
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