Sichuan Province: Xinhua Labour Camp Official: "Labour Camps Should Be Run Just Like Hell on Earth"

Xinhua Labour Camp is located in Mianyang City, Sichuan Province. Since July 20, 1999, it started to jail large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners. For long periods of time, the Xinhua Labour Camp has been rampantly using severe torture methods. Some prison policemen said openly, "Labour camps should be run just like hell on earth."

The prison police beat up Falun Gong practitioners, shocked them with electric batons, and with "Wolf Teeth Rod"[1]. The police first tie the practitioners up with rope. Besides this torture, the prison police also use other methods to torture Falun Gong practitioners, for example:

1. They force the practitioners to sit on a small stool for long periods of time, not allowing them to move. Some of the practitioners have developed running sores on their buttocks.
2. They restrict or prohibit the practitioners from using the toilet.
3. They deprive the practitioners of sleep. Not allowing them any sleep until after 2:00 a.m. For example, a practitioner named Wang Jun, who is nearly sixty years old, is not allowed to go to sleep until it is 2:00 a.m. or 3:00 a.m. He is then forced to get up at 5:00 a.m. In a several-dozen-metres-long hallway, he has to repeatedly "clean the floor" (he was forced to use a rag in his hands, with his hands and legs on the ground, so that he was in a bow-shape, and he had to push forward quickly with the rag on the floor). In August and September 2002, for over forty consecutive days, he was not allowed to go to sleep until 4:00 a.m., and he had to get up at 6:00 a.m. In the daytime, he was put through extreme physical training under the summer's burning hot sun. At nighttime, he had to "clean the floor." The prison police also used a match-stick to hold Wang Jun's two eyelids wide open, and while they continuously poked both sides of his chest he could not close his eyes. It was not until a Falun Gong practitioner named Li Xinze, who was jailed with him at the same time was tortured to death and it aroused the concern of the international community that the prison police started to restrain themselves.
4. For long periods of time, they did not allow practitioners to take showers, or wash their clothes and bed sheets. As a result, the practitioners had lice and smelled awful. Practitioners Chen Lian, Zheng Fangjun and Wang Renwei were forced to wear helmets, and were not allowed to take them off when they were sleeping. They stench could be smelled from far away. Chen Lian was tied up with a rope for refusing to write his ideological report. Several months later, the wrist bruise he got after being tied up could still be clearly seen.
5. In the name of extreme training, the police tortured practitioners physically. Chen Xiangyu, who is over 50 years old, was a party secretary general of a village before he was jailed. In the summer of 2002, like all the other fellow practitioners, in the daytime, he was forced to run and stand in military positions under the burning sun. After that, the prison police would think of various torture methods. They would do so-called training to correct their postures, but it was really an excuse to beat, poke and pinch practitioners. The thugs even tortured practitioners by digging into their anuses. As a result, practitioners could not defecate for several days. When they took off their clothes, their bodies were black and blue. In summer 2002, a practitioner named Deng had very little sleep over a long period of time and could hardly run during the extreme running training. The inhuman guards pushed Deng onto the ground to force-feed him cigarettes.
6. Those determined practitioners are denied the right to have correspondence, make telephone contact or visit with their families.
7. Force-feeding. When they are force-feeding a Dafa practitioner, they force out his stool. The prison police even shouted, "For those going on hunger strike, we have no other choice but to treat them in such a way." Force-feeding has become a means to torture practitioners.

In order to keep the practitioners under tight surveillance, the prison police arrange two to three prisoners to monitor them. The prisoners' job is to keep practitioners apart, keep them under surveillance, and torture them. In every cell, the police also arrange a cell monitor to keep them under surveillance. Besides this, they also arrange a "door guard," a "middle guard," and a "back guard" to keep them, including the cell monitor, under surveillance. Besides all this, the police have occasional inspection tours to keep the persecution of the practitioners under close watch. The labour camp also stations police in the cells to keep watch. In August and September 2002, when Li Xinze was tortured to death, every day there were two policemen kept on the inspection tour. During this period of time, many practitioners were tortured, and it was all reported to the brigade and endorsed by the police. However after Li Xinze was tortured to death in September 2002, the Administrative Section Director of the Camp, Yu Xincai tried to shirk his responsibility by pretending that the police were ignorant of the torture (referring to the wide-spread torture of Falun Gong practitioners, which led to the death of Li Xinze). They even had a drug-addict Li Chun (from Chengdu, who was very diligent in co-operating with the prison police persecuting Dafa practitioners) and several other prisoners fabricate an ideological report from Li Xinze that said that Li Xinze was going to "commit suicide."

In order to encourage the other prisoners to curse, beat and torture the practitioners, they used a kind of point system, in which, if prisoners got enough points they would be released from the labour camp earlier. The point system is actually a deprivation of prisoners' vacation time. If they do not choose to participate in the persecution of the practitioners, they would be punished physically, and have their imprisonment terms extended. Some prisoners who have had contact with the practitioners for some time, are moved by the practitioners' compassion and kindness, and are unwilling to commit any crime against the practitioners. They are also unwilling to carry out the police's order. However they said helplessly, "If we do not beat you, the police will beat us."

The prison policeman Zhao Yu, who is depicted by the Xinhua Labour Camp as a model policeman, is the instructor of Squadron Five of Team Four. Zhao Yu was very active at the end of 2002 when Team Four set up the tightly monitored class to persecute Falun Gong. In June 2002, Zhao Yu instigated others to beat practitioners to death. After this incident, he arranged for several prisoners to fabricate evidence [suggesting that he was not responsible]. He also collaborated with the Youxian District Procurator in Mianyang City to keep news of this incident from getting out. He said on several occasions, "So-and-so was 1.8 metres tall, and weighed 180 jin [1 jin = 0.5 kg], when he stepped out of here, he only weighed 80 jin." He even said, "If I were not meaner than the convicted prisoners, I could not have controlled them."

The Xinhua Labour Camp is stained with blood, violence and deceit. Inside the heavily guarded gate, lies the darkest place in China.

[1] "Wolf Teeth Rod" is a direct translation of a torture device from the Chinese original. It is a kind of inhuman torture method. Before the torture begins, the police use a rope to tie several circles around the practitioners' wrist, and pull it over their shoulders to their back. The tighter the practitioners are tied, the higher their arms will be held up. When the practitioners are tied very tightly, they can hardly stand up. In several minutes, the practitioners can be tortured into being disabled, and it is very painful. When the practitioners are released from this torture, their arms will feel broken, and will feel numb after such long drawn out pain.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/11/24/61160.html