Nanmusi Forced Labour Camp Kill One Woman and Cause Her Husband to Become Paralysed from Torture

The fate of a couple, Mr. Na Weigang and Mrs. Tang Fafen from Pengzhou City

Falun Gong practitioners Mr. Na Weigang and Mrs. Tang Fafen were married residents of Pengzhou City, Sichuan Province. They had both benefited greatly both mentally and physically from practising Falun Gong. Due to their persistence in practising Falun Gong they received many rounds of beatings from governmental officials.

In October 2002, the Pengzhou "610 Office" * sent the couple to the municipal brainwashing centre. In that terrible environment, Tang started to suffer from scabies [A fierce, itchy skin condition caused by a tiny mite] which covered his body and caused him to bleed everywhere. Because she insisted in her belief, the Pengzhou "610 Office" sent her to the Nanmusi Forced Labour Camp on March 3, 2003. After ten days of detention and torture she was on the brink of death, she then died less than two days after being sent home. Her husband Na Weigang was tortured so severely by the camp guards that he is now paralyzed and has also has become mute.

Na Weigang, 33 years old, his wife, Tang Weifen, 32, his mother, Liu Yuanfen, 70, are all residents of Fenghuang Village, Pengzhou City of Sichuan Province.

Na, Tang and Liu were often ill before they started to practise Falun Gong. After practising for only one year, their bodies and minds had significantly improved. In September 1999, Na and Tang went to Beijing to peacefully appeal for an end to the persecution but as soon as they arrived Beijing they were arrested by the police. They were sent to the Pengzhou detention center by the police and detained for fifteen days. They were later sent back to Mengyang Town where the government officials told the couple that they needed to pay their expenses in Beijing and that it would cost them 9,800 yuan [500 yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China.]. The couple couldn't afford to pay such a large amount of money as they already had to make many other payments. The police searched them and confiscated the 1,000 yuan they had on them at that time. The police also extorted money from them by calling it a "loan", so in the end they paid a total of 4,000 yuan.

At 10 pm on January 7, 2000, the village government dispatched about forty to fifty people to surround Na's house. Jiang Fachuan (a thug who was later fired) asked the couple to open the door and lied to them saying, "You have a relative in the government office who is looking for you." The couple was deceived by the lies and were taken to the town government office. One of them was detained on the second floor and the other on the first. The Chief of the town, Tan Yanbo, asked Na if he was still going to practise Falun Gong with which he replied "Yes." Hearing Na's answer, Tan immediately slapped Na a few times. Then Tan asked the same question and Na still answered with "Yes." Na was then slapped a few more times. At that moment, over ten people came from the first floor and turned off the light. They then continuously beat Na for about thirty minutes. When the hit men grew tired, the Secretary of the Party Commission, Na Guihua, asked his followers to take Na Weigang's clothes off. The Secretary took off his belt and brutally whipped Na's back until it was severely wounded and bleeding. Na Guihua had beaten him so viciously that his belt had broken into pieces and Na was in severe pain. The Secretary was tired after the beating and so he cursed at Na and then asked Bai Meichun, who was in charge of the "610 Office," to continue slapping Na. The Secretary said, "We have orders from high ranking officials that we have to make sure that you can't even get up or eat". He was referring to Jiang Zemin's policy toward Falun Gong practitioners: "Defaming their reputation, bankrupting them financially and destroying them physically." It was 2 am at that time and the thugs were all tired and left. The temperature was about 32F and Na was left freezing on the floor until the next day.

On the next day, one of them told Na that he hadn't paid their expenses the last time that he went to Beijing to appeal. Bai Meichun from the "610 Office" led a group of people to Na's house and took all his valuables, including a TV, a VCR, and a fan. Na's child was still young and was crying for a TV, so the couple had to borrow some money from their relatives and spent 1,000 yuan to get another one. On January 9, 2000, a government official named Hong Ming, asked Na again if he would continue to practise Falun Gong. When he replied "Yes," Hong immediately beat Na in such a brutal way that it was as if Na's life meant nothing. After that, Hong asked Na to clean all the toilets in the town [Note: In China's rural areas, the toilets are open pits that do not use running water to flush]. Na's wife, Tang, was also persecuted. She was asked to kneel down on the floor with her arms outstretched to both sides of the body in a horizontal position. If this became too much for her and her arms lowered, Lo Shifen and Zhang Zhixiang would hit her hands with tea cups or even pour boiling water on her. The temperature was only 32F (0 Celsius) during this time. I later overheard the officials chatting among themselves saying, "Even though she was beaten to such a degree, she still insisted on practising Falun Gong. She is so strong." After a few days, the officials held a brainwashing session and forced practitioners to fix the public road. Practitioners had to pay a "class fee" of 50 Yuan per day. The weekly cost added up to 350 yuan per person and so Na and his wife had to pay a total of 700 Yuan. A few days later, the officials called together a meeting in the village for the practitioners to attend. The Chief of the "610 Office" scolded the practitioners by saying, "Orders from higher levels say that if you don't give up the practice, we will defame your reputation, bankrupt you financially and destroy you physically." Only the Chief could talk in the meeting. Then under the supervision of the captains, practitioners needed to report to the captains and sign in every day.

One day in July 2000, Na and Tang went to Pengzhou City and chatted with other practitioners for a while. Soon the city police arrived and took them to Pengzhou City Public Security Bureau and then back to Pengyang Police Station. Without any explanation the Chief of the town, Tan Yanbo, and Bai Chunmei from the "610 Office" came and beat them up. Bai even used strips of bamboo to whip them. Afterwards the Chief of police, Fu Jing, asked whether "Falun Dafa is good?" Na replied, "Falun Dafa IS good!" Na was then beaten up again and later sent to the Pengzhou City Detention Centre for fifteen days. Qiao Lijun (female), from the Mengyang Towns "610 Office," took them back to the government office, which she was planning to charge them 1,000 Yuan to cover the expense, but because the couple had no money at all, they had to sign a letter owing the debt.

In the afternoon of January 2, 2002, Na was working in a brick factory. The Mengyang Town officials, Huang Guangyao and Huang Rensong, drove to the factory and found Na. They told Na that the government needed to speak with him. After Na got in the car, they told him, "We went to your house this afternoon. Your mother and wife were reading and so we took them to the government office. None of you should even dare think of spending New Year's at home." The entire family was abducted by the authorities and taken to the Mengyang government complex. The minute Na arrived, seven to eight people approached him and beat him up. They took his clothes off and lashed him over his back with many bamboo strips. The flesh on his back was severely lacerated and bruised. They even poured a glass of alcohol onto the wounds to cause him more pain. Then Huang Guangyao, Miu Shichang and Lo Dachuan dragged him to the back yard of the government complex. Na was hung up from a tree for an hour in such a way that his feet barely touched the ground.

When the three of the family were locked in the same room on January 7, Na realized that his mother and wife had both been brutally beaten. This time they were detained for many months and were tortured with extremely cruel methods. They wouldn't be given food if they didn't pay for it, and even if they did pay, they only received two meals a day. There were five people in Na's family and three of them were detained, leaving his father, more than seventy years old, and a nine-year-old child behind. The officials in the Town government asked the three of them for money every day. If they didn't have any money, Na's father would have to pay by giving them 250 pounds of grain.

The government detained another ten practitioners at the same time, and they all went through the same persecution. They practitioners were detained in a very damp place close to the open pit toliet. As the weather grew warmer, besides suffering from mosquito bites, the maggots from the open toilet pit crawled out and swarmed on the food brought in by practitioners' family members. Everyone there was badly tortured and was suffering from terrible scabies. Everyone requested that they be released, but the government would not pay attention to their request. Six of the Falun Dafa practitioners successfully were able to leave during the night and had to live away from their homes for four months to avoid further persecution.

Their escape shocked the Pengzhou police and the "610 Office." It was regarded as a "big case." The locals were all shocked at that time. Those practitioners who had escaped became wanted by the government and their names and photos were posted in all the train stations and on all utility poles. Their relatives were all being harassed and were placed under surveillance. All other practitioners were being searched.

The next day, Na's second sister was seized by police and taken to the Mengyang Police Station. As soon as she arrived, the Chief with a surname of Xu (first name unknown) not only beat her, but also whipped her with a bunch of Huoma branches [hemp-like perennial plant, with downy branches and piercing thorns that causes red, blistered and extremely painful, itchy skin. Often large patches of this plant are grown around detention centres and used in abusing prisoners or making escape more difficult] and pulled out a bunch of her hair. Na's sister was sent to the Mengyang government that night and detained. After a severe beating, Na's sister had a serious headache and didn't eat for seven days. The government wouldn't release her even though she was on deaths door. She was released after her husband asked for help from other officials in the village. Her husband had to carry her home on his back. Na's third sister was unable to escape the persecution.

One day in October 2002, the couple was clarifying the truth about the persecution in another town. Unfortunately they were reported by some people and then arrested by the local police. They were detained there for two days and then sent back to the Mengyang Police Station. As soon as they arrived at the station, they were brutally beaten by the Chief Xu and then by Qiao Lijun, Huang Rensong, Xiao Xiaofeng and Liu Zhengfang from the "610 Office."

The food served in the brainwashing centre was dirty, contained sand and was served in small portions. The portions were so small that it wouldn't satisfy anyone's hunger. Four to six people lived in a space that is about twelve meters square, with a wet, smelly and dirty floor. The practitioners had to eat, live and go to the toilet in the same place. Many of them were infected with serious scabies. Everyone who lived there was persecuted and was close to being destroyed both mentally and physically. The long-term torture and abuse caused Na to become paralysed, develop an abnormal heart rate and lose his voice. Even when he was on the brink of death, those in the brainwashing centre still wanted him to write a guarantee letter stating that he will stop practising Falun Gong. Though he couldn't speak, he still knew in his heart that he would always follow "Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance" even if he were to live for just one more day. He would never bow to the evildoers. The "610 Office" saw that he was in a state of emergency and didn't want to be responsible for what might happen to him, so they sent him home.

Na's wife Tang Fafen was sent to the brainwashing centre the same time as he was. On March 3, 2003, all detained practitioners, about thirty of them, were taken outside. The head of the Pengzhou "610 Office," Liu Zhaoqing, announced, "You can go home if you are transformed. If not, you will be sent to the forced labour camp." Tang was sentenced to two years of forced labour as she would not give up the practice even under their coercion. Later Tang was sent to Zizhong City Nanmusi Forced Labour Camp. Initially the Nanmusi Forced Labour Camp refused to take her because she had such a serious case of scabies and open sores. The Pengzhou "610 Office" talked the labour camp into taking her. During her ten days of detainment in the labour camp, it is impossible for anyone to imagine how ruthlessly the labour camp must have tortured her. She was sent home when she was about to die. Two days after she was sent home she was dead.

At the time of her death, Na was still detained in the brainwashing centre. The family asked the centre to let Na go home to see his wife for the last time. Even under such circumstances the "610 Office" and the Town government firmly refused.

Na's mother, Liu Yuanfen, was 70 years old and was also persecuted in the brainwashing centre. Her health was getting worse and she too was also suffering from serious scabies. She was swollen all over and was extremely short of breath. The brainwashing centre later allowed the doctor to see her and she was diagnosed with skin cancer. The centre didn't want to be responsible for causing her condition and quickly informed her local government authorities to pick her up.

This was how Na's happy family was persecuted and ended up in such misery and even death. The Pengzhou City "610 Office," police and the local government brutally persecuted them only because they wouldn't give up practising Falun Dafa.

* "610 Office" [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/2003/12/25/63250.html