Cruel Physical and Mental Torture at a Women’s Forced Labour Camp in Shandong Province

According to incomplete statistics, from July 20, 1999 to the time of this writing, 30 Dafa practitioners have been verified as being tortured to death and more than 300 have been illegally sentenced to serve time (mostly 3 years) in the forced labour camp in Weifang City, Shandong Province. Of the total verified deaths of Falun Gong practitioners throughout the country, Weifang City accounts for the highest of any province to date. Of more than 100 female Dafa practitioners illegally incarcerated in the forced labour camp, some have been thrown into the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Shandong Province, otherwise known as the "Living Hell" to these female practitioners who have suffered, and continue to suffer from the most appalling atrocities.

The following is an incomplete compilation of the atrocities at the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City. It contains the names of some female Dafa practitioners currently incarcerated there.

Facts of the Persecution against Dafa Practitioners inside the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City, Shandong Province

Since July 20, 1999, the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City, Shandong Province started to illegally detain female Dafa practitioners. Since the beginning of October 2000, a large number of Dafa practitioners who went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa were brought back to Weifang and incarcerated in the First Women's Forced Labour Camp. At one time, this forced labour camp incarcerated over 800 female Dafa practitioners. Hence, the institution expanded its disciplinary staff (essentially hired torturers) from four to five platoons, each of which is led by the most wretched and depraved disciplinary guard as its captain. In the past four years, the head of the First Women's Forced Labour Camp, Jiang Lihang, has been leading the five captains of the torture platoons as well as many other lead torturers in persecuting illegally incarcerated female Dafa practitioners. The captains of the torture platoons are as follows (all women): Wang Shuzhen, Sun Yuhua and Zhao Jie (former and current captains of the 1st Platoon), Xu Ruiju (captain of the 2nd Platoon), Yang Anrong (captain of the 4th Platoon), and Niu Xuelian (captain of the 5th Platoon). They either personally torture or direct their subordinates and "collaborators" to torture female Dafa practitioners both physically and spiritually. ["Collaborators" are former Dafa practitioners who have succumbed to the atrocious torture, renounced their belief in Falun Dafa, and now work at the forced labour camp torturing Dafa practitioners for money or in exchange for reductions in their own terms].

The following incomplete compilation of persecution is but a sampling of the countless atrocities committed by the staff at the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City. Sources in China indicate that the forced labour camps continue to design crueller torture methods and use them at an alarmingly increasing frequency. The torture facts provided by this author are followed by a complete explanation of the torture, if available.

1. Physical Torture Methods
1.1 Forced to Hold Painful Positions for An Extended Time: Sitting Board

For a long period of time since October 2000, female Dafa practitioners at the First Women's Forced Labour Camp had to wake up at 5 AM and were not allowed to go to sleep until after midnight. Each day they were made to sit still on hard benches without any break, with their hands placed flat on their knees and their backs perpendicular to the ground. Anyone who dozed or spoke during the torture would immediately suffer from savage beating and kicking by the inmates.

[Sitting Board: Every day, victims put their hands on top of their laps, with backs straight and sitting on benches 18 hours per day. This continued for over fifty days. The authorities even limited victims' restroom use time. Because of the long time spent sitting on hard benches, victims' buttocks grew big sores that hurt badly. Victims could not even urinate normally because of the pain. The labour camp was very humid, and the police would not allow victims to have ventilation or the chance to get some sunlight. Because the victims were locked up for so long in these conditions, countless red scabies, which were extremely itchy and painful, grew everywhere on the bodies of the victims.]

1.2 Forced to March for A Long Time

Dafa practitioners who did not renounce their beliefs from the punishment of the "Sitting Board," and other determined practitioners, were forced to march non-stop for over ten hours, or else suffer a harsh beating. Anyone who refused to comply would be hauled to separate "Small Cells" where they suffered from escalated torture secretly.

[Locked in a Small Cell: A Small Cell is a room of less than 3 square meters. It has no window, no bed, no water, and no toilet. A victim is locked in a small cell for months, having to eat, sleep, and excrete in the same small area. Since the height of the room is less than 1.5 meters, one cannot stand up straight. To exacerbate the agony, the guards often handcuff the victim to the small cell door so the victim cannot sleep for many days. Moreover, the small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. During the night the rats are running around. The stench in the small cell is so bad that it is difficult to breathe.]

1.3 Forced to Hold Painful Positions for an Extended Time: Standing and Squatting in a Square

The First Women's Forced Labour Camp also hired a lot of male guards to help with the tortures. The male guards would make the female Dafa practitioners stand facing a wall all day long, with their nose pressed against the wall at all times. Often times the elderly Dafa practitioners would collapse from the position, and thus suffer from cursing and beating. Dafa practitioners were also frequently forced to squat in a square for an extended time.

[Forced to Stand for a Long Time: The victim is forced to stand, facing a wall, all day long, usually from dawn until midnight. This punishment is often combined with the deprivation of food, water, sleep, and use of the toilet. This abuse usually lasts several days. If victims cannot stand still, they will be severely beaten. Sometimes, the guards will then force-feed victims with drugs.]

[Forced to Squat in a Square: This means that the victim is forced to squat in a square floor brick measuring 30 by 30 cm [approximately 1 ft. by 1 ft.] for a long time. The head must be raised and the feet cannot cross the demarcated line. Otherwise, the victim would be beaten, kicked, pulled by the hair and slapped on the face. Usually, a victim would sweat all over after squatting for only 2 or 3 minutes. The guards, however, forced victims to squat for 16 to 17 hours straight.]

1.4 Injury to the Body: Mosquito Coil Burn

The guards often burn Dafa practitioners with lit mosquito coils (mosquito incense that, when lit, generates a special fume that kills mosquitoes) on the back, leaving their backs covered with ulcerations from the severe burns.

[Burning: The police have used cigarettes, cigarette lighters, and mosquito coils to burn fingers, toes, faces, nipples, vaginas, and other parts of practitioners' bodies. While burning them, the police would say, "I will stop when you give up Falun Gong."]

1.5 Hanging Upside Down

The guards would punish practitioners who got up at 4 A.M. to practice the Falun Gong exercises by hanging them upside down. They tied their legs together, bound their hands behind the back, and hung them upside down from 4 AM to 6 AM. This abuse often lasted many nights. Some practitioners were hung upside down intermittently for as long as 6 months.

1.6 Exposed to Freezing Temperatures

Some practitioners were stripped of their clothes and tied to the bed by their limbs with their head hanging off the edge of the bed. Then the guards opened all the windows in the room in the winter and left the practitioners in the freezing temperature.

1.7 Pulling the Limbs towards Four Directions

The depraved staff tied both of a practitioner's arms to the bedposts. Then they spread her legs and tied them to the footboard of the bed with her ankles hanging over the footboard. This is done so that the legs cannot touch the bed. Next they tied one end of a bed sheet to her waist and tied the other end to another bed across from this one, raising the practitioner's waist in the air. Thus the victim's body is pulled toward four directions as tightly as the face of a drum. This is an extremely cruel torture.

1.8 Slitting Wrists and Promoting Festering of the Wounds

The depraved staff would slit across the entire wrists of Dafa practitioners and force practitioners to wash and brush the wounds, which caused the wounds to fester and swell. Many practitioners were left with rings of visible scars on their wrists, bearing silent witness to the sadistic torture.

1.9 Savage Beatings

The police at the forced labour camp encourage inmates to watch and torture Falun Gong practitioners, with the incentive of reduced prison terms. The inmates at the First Women's Forced Labour Camp are experts in savage beatings. They constantly slap practitioners on the face, kick them on the lower abdomen, punch them on the breasts, hit practitioners' heads with their elbows, use their leather shoes to crush and grind practitioners' bare feet. Sometimes eight to nine depraved inmates took turns savagely beating up one practitioner all night long. All of them use different torture devices. Some use bamboo sticks to flog practitioners; some use their shoe soles to slap practitioners; some use their fingernails to pinch practitioners; some use their feet to kick; some use their fists to punch; some use their palms to slap. The police reduce more time from the inmates' terms when they increase the brutality of the savage beatings.

The police themselves also beat up Dafa practitioners. On the dawn of October 27, 2000, all Dafa practitioners incarcerated in the 5th Platoon began a group protest and demanded their immediate, unconditional release. The captain of the 5th Platoon, Niu Xuelian, ordered the disciplinary guards to keep pouring water into the cells until they had turned the entire floor into water dungeons. Meanwhile, she ordered a large number of male policemen to beat up the Dafa practitioners in the 5th Platoon. Around 7 PM, a S.W.A.T team arrived at the forced labour camp and added additional violence against more than 100 female Dafa practitioners in the 5th Platoon. Police cars and fully armoured S.W.A.T teams surrounded the building while over twenty heavily intoxicated police officers, under the lead of Captain Niu Xuelian, broke into the corridor and started to shock Dafa practitioners with electric batons. When Niu and the intoxicated police officers dragged Dafa practitioners around on the floor by their hair, other male police officers pounced at practitioners on the floor and choked them until they lost consciousness.

1.10 Shocking with Electric Batons

The police at the First Women's Forced Labour Camp often shock Dafa practitioners with multiple electric batons for many hours. The most wretched torturers among all the disciplinary guards are the husband of Captain Niu Xuelian of the 5th Platoon and the husband of disciplinary guard Zhang. Both of their husbands are policemen at the forced labour camp, and both take sadistic pleasure in targeting practitioners' palms, soles of the feet, and the top of the head [these are especially sensitive areas]. Large blisters covered many practitioners' forearms and gave them excruciating pain. After the blisters were broken, the wounds would fester, adding to the pain. One elderly practitioner was overwhelmed with pain.

[Electric Baton Shock: Electric shock batons are also known as cattle prods. This is by far the most common torture used by the police against Falun Gong practitioners. Practitioners have been shocked with as many as a dozen batons at a time, with voltage as high as 30,000 volts, often for several hours. Countless practitioners have suffered flesh burns, some have ears, hands, or feet charred from the electric shocks. The police have shocked practitioners' eyes, nipples, and penises. The police have also forced these batons into practitioners' mouths or vaginas to shock them. Many Falun Gong practitioners have died from electric baton shocks.]

1.11 Locking Up in a Small Cell

The disciplinary guards locked up determined practitioners in solitary confinement in "Small Cells" for a very long time. Some were locked in the "Small Cell" for months. On July 27, 2000 alone, more than 40 female Dafa practitioners in the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City, Shandong Province were hauled into separate "Small Cells."

[Locked in a Small Cell: Solitary confinement, widely condemned around the world, is among the cruelest tortures against Falun Gong practitioners. In China, police have used tortures beyond usual solitary confinement against Falun Gong practitioners. Locked in a small cell is only one of the many types of solitary confinement. A Small Cell is a room of less than 3 square metres. It has no window, no bed, no water, and no toilet. A victim is locked in a small cell for months, having to eat, sleep, and excrete in the same small area. Since the height of the room is less than 1.5 metres, one cannot stand straight. To exacerbate the agony, the guards often handcuff the victim to the cell door so the victim cannot sleep for many days. Moreover, the small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. During the night the rats are running around. The stench in the small cell is so bad that it is difficult to breathe.]

1.12. Punitive Force-Feeding

When Dafa practitioners in the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City went on hunger strikes, the disciplinary guards would torture them with punitive force-feedings. Usually there would be two military policemen dragging a female practitioner across one end of the corridor to the other end. Then they kicked her to the ground and pressed one foot against her rib cage while other guards pried open her mouth. Or, they would force a black, hard, foul-smelling and thick industrial rubber tube into her nose. Blood would gush out the nose and throat from almost all the victims, causing them to cry out in agony. The appalling wails of agony and the noises of the electric batons haunted the corridor all day long. In order to cover up their crimes, the guards would broadcast trashy music at the maximum volume. Some practitioners were tortured with punitive force-feeding over a period as long as 6 months at a time.

[Punitive Force-Feeding: This is another torture commonly used by police against practitioners, and it is the number one cause of deaths of Falun Gong practitioners. Almost every Falun Gong practitioner who has gone on a hunger strike in forced detention has suffered from abusive forced-feeding. Many practitioners not even on hunger strikes have also been tortured using this method.

The purpose of police force-feeding is never to nourish, but rather to punish practitioners and to cause so much pain that they will renounce Falun Gong practise. To that end, the police have used many different means to cause excruciating pain and injury, including:

Inserting and Withdrawing the Feeding Tubes Repeatedly: The police usually use a tube inserted through a practitioner's nose to force-feed. Often, even when the tube is already inserted, the police pull it out again and re-insert it. This can be repeated many times. Many practitioners have died from the tube piercing their lungs.

Leaving the Feeding Tubes in the Stomach: This is another way to cause pain. Practitioners tortured this way are usually handcuffed.

Knocking out Teeth to Force-Feed: To force practitioners to open their mouths, the police resort to the most barbaric violence, knocking out practitioners' teeth, tearing apart practitioners' lips, or even poking holes in practitioners' cheeks.

Force-Feeding Saturated Saltwater: This causes intense pain in the gut. Many practitioners have died from this because of the resulting dehydration.

Forced-Feeding Vinegar/Liquor: Several Falun Gong practitioners have died from this.

Force-Feeding Hot Pepper Oil/Mustard Oil/Boiling Water: These cause burns and intense pain in the oesophagus, stomach, and intestines.

Force-Feeding Urine/Feces

1.13 Forced Injections of Neurotoxic Drugs

Some determined Dafa practitioners were administered forced injections of drugs that damaged their central nervous system. Afterwards, they kept drooling and their faces became distorted. Some practitioners died after the forced injections of these drugs.

1.14 Tied to a Chair for Days

Because Ms. Zhai Jinping was very determined in cultivating in Falun Gong, Capatin Niu Xuelian of the 5th Platoon stuffed her mouth with a rag and tied her to a barber chair for two days. It is a torture similar to "Iron Chair Sitting."

Forced to Sit for a Long Time: A victim is forced to sit still for a long time, often for many days. This punishment is often combined with the deprivation of food, water, sleep, and the use of the toilet. This torture can result in poor blood circulation to the lower limbs, necrosis in the buttocks, and nerve damage from the waist down. There are several variations of this torture, including:

Iron Chair Sitting: A victim is shackled to a chair made of iron wires for more than a week. The wires hurt the victim's buttocks.

Board Sitting: A victim is forced to sit on rough wooden boards.

Triangle Board Sitting: Sitting on an iron board with sharp peaks and grooves. This often causes the victim's hips to bleed and fester.

1.15 Deprivation of Sleep

The staff deprived practitioners of sleep, or allowed them only three to four hours of sleep every night, in order to crush their willpower. Ms. Sun Mingxiang is a very determined practitioner, and was once denied of sleep for three consecutive days.

[Deprivation of Basic Physiological Needs: Police have exploited any and every basic physiological need or sense to torture Falun Gong practitioners. Anyone not obeying will be viciously beaten. Common examples of deprivation of Falun Gong practitioners' basic physiological needs include deprivation of sleep, food, water, use of toilet, sanitary napkins, shower, change of fresh clothes; prohibition of eye contact and talk; bombardment with deafening high-pitch sounds, being subjected to glare of intense lights.]

1.16 Restrictions of the Use of the Toilet

To prevent different cells of Dafa practitioners from engaging in conversations in the restroom, the staff in the forced labour camp set up a strict schedule of using the restroom. Each cell may use the toilet twice in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Everyone must report in advance if she wishes to use any of these toilet breaks, or she is not allowed to use the toilet at the scheduled hour even if the need is urgent. Every cell of practitioners must form a line to go to the toilet. The staff would curse everyone if the line was slightly disorderly. Fearing to cause unnecessary inconvenience to others, many practitioners chose to restrict their intake of food and water so as to minimise their need to use the restroom. Under the daily distress and pressure, many practitioners began to suffer from a disorder in this regard. There is no using the toilet at night. Whoever needs to use the toilet has to use a large plastic bucket in the cell which contains both faeces and urine, which permeates the room with an unbearable stench.

2. Mental Torment

When a new Falun Gong practitioner arrives at the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City, the disciplinary staff will first subject her to forced brainwashing sessions. If she refuses to renounce Falun Gong, they will ask the "collaborators" to help with the forced brainwashing efforts. Normally, they will form teams of two collaborators, taking turns in brainwashing a Dafa practitioner. Sometimes they will form teams of three, four and up to six collaborators, taking turns watching one Dafa practitioner and depriving her of sleep. If she refuses to renounce Falun Gong in writing, she will be completely isolated from all other Dafa practitioners or kept awake until midnight or even until 3 AM, to be woken up again as soon as 5 AM. Some Dafa practitioners were forced to sign a pre-written guarantee to renounce Falun Gong while they were only half conscious due to the deprivation of sleep. Next they would be forced to watch video programs and materials slandering Falun Gong. Thus these collaborators drag the newly arrived practitioners deeper and deeper into the abyss of hell until they too become depraved collaborators who no longer conduct themselves according to Truthfulness, Compassion, and Tolerance.

Whenever there is a news broadcast or an interview on TV that slanders Falun Gong, the staff will pull all Dafa practitioners back from the slave labour early, and force them to watch the program. Then they are forced to write "experience sharing reports" to express approval of the fraudulent TV program. In addition, the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City publishes its own internal newspaper, Xinyuan Monthly, with the exclusive purpose of slandering Falun Gong and to shatter the faith of Dafa practitioners. To encourage collaborators to write articles slandering Falun Gong for Xinyuan Monthly, the forced labour camp rewards each author of such articles with the reduction of one day of their sentence per article. Since the initial visit of the "Masanjia Labour Camp Lecture Team" led by a former assistant principal Zhu Xiuzhi, from an unknown elementary school in Jiutai City, Jilin Province, in November 2000, the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City has been arranging similar liars to come and deceive Dafa practitioners.

The forced labour camp wilfully deprives Dafa practitioners' families of their visitation rights. They forbid determined practitioners to meet with their family during visiting hours, hoping to crush their will.

Falun Gong practitioners are also deprived of their freedom to communicate with the outside world via mail. Each practitioner can send out no more than one letter per week to her family. They cannot seal the envelopes because the police have to read the letters first to make sure there is no undesirable information in the letters. The police also check each incoming letter first before a Dafa practitioner can read it. The steadfast Dafa practitioners can neither send out nor receive any letters.

3. Slave Labour

[Enslavement in the Forced Labour Camp: The forced labour camp is a machine of corporate dictatorship. With no worry about the source and availability of Falun Gong practitioners as slaves, the captive workforce is driven to the limit, regardless of whether the incarcerated practitioners are sick, disabled from being beaten, or weakened by the intolerable conditions. There is no concern for living conditions in forced labour camps and forced detention centres because any improvement in condition will subtract from profits. Illegally incarcerated Dafa practitioners are simply treated as objects from which to extract the maximum amount of labour, to be released when half-dead, and replaced with new ones.]

In order to maximise the revenue and bonuses from making export goods, the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City has been enslaving Dafa practitioners daily to work for extended hours to make export products. Dafa practitioners are herded like farm animals to storage rooms or remain in their cells to perform hard labour for extended hours like slaves. Dafa practitioners were woken up at 5:30 AM every day and forced to work nonstop until 10:30 PM, 11 PM, or even midnight. Practitioners only get half an hour for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

To finish orders for export goods, the forced labour camp often forced Dafa practitioners to work overnight, resulting in an average of 13 to 16 hours of hard labour every day. Dafa practitioners are driven as slaves beyond their limit. Anytime they slow down their work pace due to exhaustion, the police curse them fiercely. Even college girls were forced to continue with the hard labour when they had exceeded their physical limit and turned pale. Filling pencils is a tiresome and messy job. Even elderly women in their 50's and 60's must carry boxes that weigh approximately 55 lbs. Even those practitioners who are allergic to lactoprene and lead are denied any break. The storage room of the 5th

Platoon is located in the windowless basement. The storage room is so dark that it requires artificial light in the daytime. Dafa practitioners are forced to paint on glass bottles with ink containing benzene, even though the storage room is not ventilated and is the least suitable environment for exposure to benzene (a colourless, volatile, flammable and toxic liquid). The toxic benzene is highly damaging to the human body. Although exposure to benzene causes Dafa practitioners to feel nauseated, vomit, lose their appetite, and suffer from fatigue, the police persistently force practitioners to work extended hours of hard labour, including those practitioners who are on hunger strikes. Slowing down the work pace will result in immediate insults and sneering from the police.

After Dafa practitioners are relieved from hard labour at 11 PM or midnight, they are forced to write reports about themselves. Some practitioners have to stay up until 1 or 2 AM to finish the report. Some elderly practitioners in their 60's are struggling with great difficultly with their life as a slave. Dafa practitioners frequently collapse in the storage room or in the cell due to extreme exhaustion.

The forced labour camp has made a huge fortune out of the labour of Dafa practitioners. The police keep getting rewards and bonuses for being slave drivers. Within two years, the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City has earned a fat profit from enslaving practitioners and extorting money in every conceivable way. With the money, it has started to build a state-of-art office building, visitor centre and a large furnace room.

The brutal physical tortures, tremendous amount of pressure, and difficult forced labour have driven some Dafa practitioners to mental collapse. Because of the tight control of information in China, it is difficult to obtain complete statistics. In the 5th Platoon of the First Women's Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City alone, three Dafa practitioners have suffered from severe mental collapse.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/8/62057.html