Atrocities at a Labour Camp of Guangzhou City: Tying Practitioners into a Ball and Suspend Them on a Metal Hook

The First Labour Camp of Guangzhou City is located at the foot of Poluo Mountain, in Chini Town, Huadu District. In January 2000, this labour camp started to detain male Falun Gong practitioners. As of now over 600 hundred practitioners have been sent to this labour camp. The second brigade is specifically for detaining Falun Gong practitioners.

Falun Dafa practitioners were forced to sit on plastic stools facing the window along the corridor. Four inmates would walk around all the time and write down the actions of each practitioner every few minutes. Practitioners would be yelled at if they walked in the room without permission. The vicious inmates would accuse practitioners of reciting Teacher's writings if their mouths moved, or of meditating if their eyes closed. Reciting Teacher's writings or meditating was forbidden. Whenever practitioners wrote letters, the inmates would take them away to examine their content. They would only return the letters to practitioners if the content was not related with Falun Dafa. Encouraged by prison guards, the inmates went wild, full of arrogance and spouting foul language. In this labour camp the dignity of Falun Gong practitioners was not respected, and their human rights were not protected.

The determined practitioners firmly resisted the persecution. They persisted in studying the Fa, practising the exercises, and proclaiming Dafa's righteousness. They refused to wear prison clothes and never answered "yes" during roll calls. They did not cower when they met the guards. As a result, some practitioners were subjected to additional persecutions such an extension of their jail terms, being subjected to further torture, and being forced to sleep in the corridor. Some people were suspended from the basketball stand, with their feet barely touching the ground. They hung there, rain or shine, all day long, except for mealtime and going to bathroom, until 11 p.m. They would be awakened at 6 a.m. the next day and once again suspended. This treatment continued for over 20 days and sometimes for up to three or four months. Because they were dangling there for over 10 hours a day, many practitioners' toes were swollen and their legs were shaking. Because their arms had to bear all their body weight, the skin on their wrists was abraded due to the handcuffs cutting into their wrists, and the cuts would never have enough time to heal. In the night, their legs would constantly go into spasms. They could not sleep due to the pain. During the daytime, they felt dizzy. The pain was unimaginable.

The prison guards arranged many inmates to monitor practitioners' activities, what they said, and even their changes in facial expressions. These activities were recorded and reported to the guards daily. At the same time, in order to isolate practitioners, the guards prohibited other inmates from talking to practitioners. If anyone violated this regulation, a mild punishment would be a beating and a letter of self-criticism, while a severe punishment would be an extended jail term. In addition, they forced practitioners to work overtime and prohibited practitioners from silently reciting Teacher's writings. Their goal was to erase practitioners' memory of Falun Gong over time.

For the practitioners who had not been coerced into renouncing their belief after three months, the prison guards took turns torturing the practitioners day and night. They shut practitioners into a confined room and played tapes slandering Dafa day and night, or seven or eight prison guards took turns interrogating the practitioner day and night for several days. The practitioners were only permitted to sleep for one or two hours a day, and some were not allowed to sleep at all. Sometimes, four or five prison guards surrounded practitioners and shouted defamatory slogans slandering Falun Dafa for three or four hours until they were tired.

The prison guards often threatened determined practitioners: "There is no way out if you don't transform. If your jail term is finished, people from the 610 Office will come and take you to the "school of law" (brainwashing centre). If you don't transform in three months, you will be sent back to labour camp, and go back and forth repeatedly." In the labour camp, jail terms were automatically extended for practitioners who did not cooperate. For the practitioners who went on hunger strikes, practiced the exercise, or voiced their loyalty to Dafa, their jail terms were all extended in addition to subjecting them to more torture, for at least three months at a time.

For the practitioners who had finished their jail terms but were still firm in their belief, the labour camp postponed their release if they could. If the authorities could no longer postpone it, they would pretend to process the release but actually send the practitioners to a brainwashing centre for continued persecution. Thus, they could cover up their crime and further persecute the practitioners at will in the more secluded setting of the brainwashing centre.

In September 2002, the First Labour Camp of Guangzhou City initiated a large-scale forced brainwashing effort, employing massive amounts of manpower and material resources to brutally torture Falun Gong practitioners into renouncing their belief. In addition to the original confinement rooms, five new confinement rooms were constructed in the second brigade. A confinement room is about 100 square feet with no windows. Each room is equipped with a metal door. A peephole was installed in the door for the guards to monitor practitioners. It was in these horrifying places where many tragedies occurred.

Since September, newly kidnapped practitioners and practitioners who remained determined, regardless of their age or physical condition, were forced to endure the torture in these confinement rooms as long as they still had not written the "three statements" [statements renouncing Falun Gong, promising not to practice, appeal or associate with practitioners].

To force practitioners to renounce their belief, the prison guards chose a group of strong and vicious inmates to specifically persecute practitioners. They were exempt from regular labour and were awarded with points, which would reduce their jail term by 20 days if they were able to get a Falun Dafa practitioner to renounce their belief and stop practising Falun Dafa. Two inmates made up a team. Each team was on duty for 8 hours. Three teams took turns torturing one Falun Gong practitioner.

When a practitioner was brought to the confinement room, his clothes were searched immediately. Then the monitors would force the practitioner to stand or squat facing the wall in one position. No matter how numb his feet or swollen his legs, he was not allowed to take a break no matter how short it was. To do this, the authorities made a regulation that a Falun Dafa practitioner could only go to the bathroom once a day. If the practitioner still needed to go the bathroom he had to urinate in the same glass for brushing his teeth. If the practitioner showed even the slightest resistance, the monitors would swarm about him. They constantly monitored his activities and facial expressions. Practitioners were not permitted to for the first three days. Whenever a practitioner closed his eyes, someone would immediately shake him or pour cold water over him to wake him up.

After three days of this, when the practitioner was feeing dizzy and confused and on the verge of collapse, the monitors would start to torture him. They would tie him up with 5 or 6 lengths of cloth ropes about one inch wide and two metres long. Each time they did this, four or five inmates would hold the practitioner down on the ground, two inmates holding the arms while two others, each with a piece of rope, would tie one end of the rope to the practitioner's ankle and wind it tightly around the leg to the thighs. Then, the two legs would be bent into a cross-legged position. Two inmates sitting on either side of the practitioner and with their feet standing on him, pulled the ropes as tightly as they could and tied them together. This kept the blood from flowing through the legs and caused the muscles to swell. Two other inmates would use another rope to tie the arms behind the practitioners back. They would tie the left wrist, wind it tightly around the arm and pass it back to the right arm and wind it until it reached the right wrist. The rope was then tied tightly around the right wrist. His arms were bent behind his back, and his forearms were aligned facing upward and tied together. Then another rope was drawn around his neck, and the practitioner was forced to bend forward in a deep bow until his head touched his legs. The rope around his neck was tied to the string around his legs.

Thus, the practitioner was tied into the shape of a ball. The practitioner could not straighten his back, could not sit, and could not lie down. The pain was unbearable. His arms and legs were especially painful and numb. Within 10 minutes, the practitioner was sweating all over from the pain. Every layer of his clothes would be soaked with sweat. At that moment, to please the guards who were peeking in from outside, the inmates would use all the abusive words they could think of to curse the practitioner. In about 20 minutes, those inhuman persecutors would loosen the ropes to restore blood flow to the practitioner's limbs. Two minutes later, they would re-tighten all the ropes again. They would do this three times and each time was longer than the previous one.

After the third time of re-tightening the ropes, the practitioner would be tortured nearly to death. The inmates would then ask the practitioner if he wanted to write the "Three Statements." If the practitioner promised to write them, the inmates would take out a picture of our Teacher and ask the practitioner to tear it apart or burn it with a cigarette lighter. If the practitioner refused to write the statements, the inmates would proceed with the third step. They would pass a fifth rope through the middle of the arms and totally suspend the practitioner, who was tied into the shape of a ball, on a metal hook designed for hanging an electric fan. They would do this repeatedly to force the practitioner to give in. Some practitioners lost control of their bladder and bowels from this torture. Many practitioners' arms were injured by the stretching and were no longer were able to bend backwards. Necks, arms and legs were covered with purple bruises, which would last over two weeks.

After they wrote the "Three Statements" and signed with their fingerprints, they would be allowed to take a break. Bright lights were kept on all night, and inmates took turns monitoring the practitioners. During the next several days, prison guards would talk to the practitioners. They would often say how the practitioners should be in good spirits after writing the "Three Statements." If the practitioners felt low or said that they had been coerced by force, the guards would consider their renunciation of their practice of Falun Dafa a "false transformation," and they would then direct the inmates to torture the practitioner one more time.

During the following weeks or months, the practitioners who had renounced their belief by force were required to sit in the dim confinement room to write their "disclosure letter" day and night. If they could not finish the "disclosure letter," they would be deprived of sleep. The "disclosure letter" had to be longer than 6000 characters and the content must be well developed. Otherwise, it would be returned for rewriting. It could be rewritten once, twice, three times, and even up to seven or more times. If it were still unacceptable after many times of rewriting, the inmates would not hesitate to torture the practitioner again.

After the "disclosure letter" was completed, the guards would bring in an ink pad and require the coerced practitioners to put their fingerprints by the critical words on each page and to write a statement indicating that "the written materials are true and can be published." Then all the written materials would be copied, published, and distributed everywhere.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/5/61820.html