The Phenomenal Cruelty in Harbin Women's Prison

In the ninth division (the third squad)

Since Yang Hua became the head in 2002, the guards there have tortured Falun Gong practitioners. In order to force practitioners to give up their beliefs, the police ordered practitioners to bend over and stand for nights on end with no more than two hours of sleep. During the winter, practitioners were told to walk outside from morning until night. The guards often beat practitioners with police batons or electric batons.

Ms. Zheng Jie, the former head of this division, was rewarded for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. In January 2003, she was transferred to the package workshop, where the torture has escalated. The police do not give practitioners enough food, and punish other inmates who bring more food to practitioners. They often brutally beat practitioners and even bring male police to beat female practitioners.

Policeman Yu Yongcheng curses female practitioners, and beats their breasts and private parts. One time the police were beating practitioners so hard that some of the criminal inmates could no longer stand it and came to stop them. However, the police would not stop, and beat the criminal inmates as well. Practitioners Dong Limin and Cai Mi were so severely injured that they almost died.

Zheng Jie also sent practitioners to small cells and ordered the guards there not to give them food and to beat practitioners on their private parts including pinching their inner thighs. Throughout the winter, he ordered the practitioners to sit on cement floors for days. Practitioner Guo Songmei from Jixi was cruelly tortured. She was locked in a small cell with her hands cuffed behind her back and in leg irons. They tortured her with the iron chair and force-feeding. Her whole body became swollen. Her lungs were severely damaged from the perpetual forceful feedings. She was sent home on March 6, 2003 and sadly died soon after.

In the eighth division (the first squad)

Since April 2003, all practitioners in the prison have been on strike to protest the persecution. The police began brutally torturing the practitioners. They hung the practitioners at the heads of their beds 24 hours a day. The practitioners legs and feet swelled to the point they felt like they would explode. Huang Jin, the vice-head of this division, whipped practitioners with key chains and kicked practitioners in the lower abdominal areas. After hanging the practitioners for more than ten days, they sent them to the small cells and increased the torture there. They let inmates arbitarily beat practitioners. Several inmates often beat one practitioner.

In July 2003, the practitioners started to do group exercises. The police immediately closed the doors and windows and called armed police to beat them. They sent 15 practitioners to small cells.

The prison then transferred Zheng Jie to this division on September 1, 2003. She started to torture Falun Gong practitioners en masse on September 3. The police brought more than 50 practitioners into the hallway between the male prison gates and forced them to do an "intensive drill." They forced the practitioners to run constantly, do frog jumps, stand on one foot, or do "airplane."[1] They punched, kicked, beat, and hung those practitioners who could not do it. The police ordered inmates to beat the practitioners. At night, the police brought the practitioners back to their cells but continued to torture them by tying them with rope, sitting them close together, and depriving them of sleep. They beat practitioners who fell asleep. Practitioners including Zhang Yanfang developed internal bleeding from the beatings, however, the police still did not stop the torture.

The torture in this division has continued for more than a month and is currently becoming more serious. The police are still bringing around 20 practitioners to the male prison to do "drills." Some practitioners are being tortured in workshops and small cells, and some are hanging by their wrists in the dormitories.

In the "training squad"

This squad was for newly-arrived practitioners. Last year, the police locked the newcomers on the third floor to brainwash them. The police from the training squad, the personnel from the "610 Office,"[2] and the division heads took turns attacking the practitioners. The "610 Office" used various methods including beating, cursing, sleep deprivation, cuffing from behind, and other physical punishment. They tried to freeze practitioners outside during the winter and deprived the practitioners of sleep without reciting the prison rules. They violently suppressed any peaceful protests by practitioners. The head of the squad, Lv, once lead several members to beat practitioners. They knocked the practitioners to the ground and stepped on the practitioners' faces. Lv also rubbed her shoes back and forth on practitioners' mouths.

This squad is now using the same torture as the first squad. Around September 20, 2003, police brought the practitioners to an outer boiler-room building and they started the "intensive drill." The police ordered inmates, including Hou Yuchen, to beat those practitioners who could not run. The practitioners' bodies were covered with wounds.

On September 27, the police cuffed more than a dozen practitioners from behind and forced them to bend over while standing. We could not imagine how the police would torture them once back in the dormitories.

In the seventh division

One time the practitioners practised group exercises. More than thirty police guards came and brutally beat them. Practitioners bled from their mouths and noses. Guards pulled practitioners from the top bunks directly to the ground. Practitioners could barely breathe after landing hard on the ground, yet they were tortured further.

In the first division

The police brutally beat the practitioners if they did the exercises. The head of the squad Xia ordered several criminal inmates to call out practitioners one by one and bring them into the electric workshop where they covered the practitioners' eyes, taped their mouths, cuffed their hands behind their backs, punched, kicked, and beat the practitioners with electric batons. It is against the law to allow inmates to use handcuffs and electric batons.

The most cruel tortures are in the small cells

The police apply many tortures here, such as cuffing from behind, anchor chains, iron chains, and iron chair. Sometimes, the practitioners were cuffed for months. They were cuffed from behind and anchored to the ground with chains so that they couldn't lay down. They had to constantly sit until the skin was rubbed away from the hip. The police only provide two bowls of corn soup daily. The police force-fed the practitioners if they refused to drink the soup, yet practitioners were not allowed to use the toilet. During the winter, practitioners are allowed to wear one thin layer of clothing and are forced to sit on a bed board or iron chair with handcuffs and leg irons. They could hardly walk when finally released from the cuffs.

The police force-fed practitioners as soon as they refused to eat. The police used very brutal methods and would not stop even when practitioners vomited blood. They used a instrument to hold the practitioner's mouth wide open, and left it in place 24 hours a day. They also force-fed the practitioners with alcohol and some unknown drugs.

They deprive the practitioners' visitation rights and withhold all telephone calls and letters. The prison initially refused to accept some practitioners. But the detention centres bribed the prison. Sometimes the prison takes 3,000 Yuan [The average monthly income for an urban worker in China is 500 Yuan] in order to accept one practitioner. Whenever being inspected, the prison would hide Falun Gong practitioners.

Personnel responsible for the tortures

Prison Director Wang Xing: 86-459-6359454
Vice-Director Zhu Shuhua (female): 86-459-6359322
The head of the eighth division Zheng Jie (female): 86-459-6358314 (note: Zhu Shuhua and Zheng Jie are the most vicious in torturing Falun Gong practitioners.)
In the seventh division: (12 people) the head is Kang (x)qin; the vice-head is Cui Yan who cursed and beat the practitioners and ordered the inmates to treat practitioners "bitterly"; Wu Xuesong beat and ordered inmates to torture practitioners including kicking and slapping; Shi Ying, Lei Lei, Lv Hua, and Lan Hong all have beaten practitioners; other people include cadre Yuan, cadre Jiang, Jiang Wei, Lin Jia, and Yuan Min.
In the second squad: Hou Xueping, Sun Rui, Cui Hongmei, Lv Cuijun, Ming Tianying, Sun Jian, Liu Yan, Liu Dan, Deng Yu, Lu Min, Lu Heng, Zhu Beibei, Wang Weiguang, Huang Jian, and Xia.
In the fourth squad: Tao Shuhua, Section Chiefs Yang Libin and Xiao Lin.
In the "training squad:" Hu Shu.
Heilongjiang Province Female Prison's address: Xuefu Lu, Nangang District, zip code 150069.

[1] "Airplane" In this torture, the head is bent down until it cannot go down any further, while the hands are pulled up and held up to the highest point. The hips have to point up.

[2] "610 Office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/10/23/59348.html