The Crimes Committed by Police in Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp

Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp is located in the suburb of Wuyuan County, west Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (AR). On September 17, 2000, all Falun Dafa practitioners abducted by the authorities and forced into various labour camps in mid-west Inner Mongolia were taken to the Wuyuan Labour Camp for intensive brainwashing and persecution in order to force them to renounce their belief in Falun Dafa. Since then, under the direct instruction of the Forced Labour Management Bureau and the "610 Office" of the AR [the "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], Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp authorities applied all the persecution methods ever used since the camp's establishment. This was done in order to gain bonuses, by completing the task of brainwashing Dafa practitioners at a faster rate.

Principal Torture Methods

Practitioners are forced to attend brainwashing class every day during which they are required to read materials and watch videos continuously that defame Falun Dafa. Practitioners are required to submit pages of writing, which agrees with the propaganda against Falun Dafa and accepts the defamatory things against Dafa they are shown. If any practitioner refuses to renounce their belief in Dafa, the authorities interrogate and threaten practitioners with force repeatedly until they are injured, exhausted, and put under tremendous pressure to renounce Dafa.

The authorities instigate drug addicts and prisoners with gang backgrounds to monitor Falun Dafa practitioners and to curse and brutally beat practitioners at will. The prisoners are permitted to use torture devices given to them by the authorities (for example, electric batons) to torture Dafa practitioners.

Practitioners are continuously shocked on the mouth, face, ear, abdomen, back, and lower body with one or more electric batons (delivering more than 10,000 volts). Sometimes the baton is even directly inserted into a practitioner's mouth.

Practitioners are beaten with rubber belts and they are hit and kicked, and slapped on the face. The perpetrators sometime slam practitioners against the wall by grabbing their hair.

The authorities handcuff practitioners' hands behind their back (with one hand pulled down from the shoulder, the other hand stretched up from the back). Within a few minutes, the metal handcuff cuts into the flesh. Practitioners are handcuffed for several days or even for more than ten days, and many practitioners' arms have become disabled as a result of this torture.

Practitioners are often locked up in a dark, restricted cell, where they are isolated and undergo secret torture sessions. Once a practitioner is locked up, this type of torture will last for several days or weeks.

"Tying the ropes": the police tie the practitioner's hands behind his back, and hang him up with the rope, lifting his whole body off the ground. [see: http://www.faluninfo.net/torturemethods/index.asp for a report on and diagrams of this torture]

Another torture involves harassing practitioners with intensive jarring noises. The authorities handcuff the practitioners in a strictly monitored cell, and instigate the common prisoners to scratch the window glass day and night or scrape the concrete floor with metal tools.

Practitioners are often forced to stand for extended periods of time. Each practitioner is monitored by several prisoners, and is deprived of sleep for several days or even weeks. They are tortured continuously in this manner day and night.

Freezing practitioners: During the freezing days of winter, the authorities force practitioners to stand outside day and night for more than ten consecutive days.

Force practitioners to run: Practitioners have to run around the exercise field, sometimes for more than 80 laps, though they are in a weakened condition due to injuries from torture and lack of food. .

Intensive and overtime forced labour.

The authorities withhold visits from practitioners' families, and deprive practitioners of their right to write and receive letters.

Illegally prolong practitioners' terms, and prevent their appeals or prevent filing of a lawsuit.

Practitioners' "boarding fee" is often automatically deducted; however, the daily meal provided is not even worth one yuan [about US $0.12]. Under the pretext of deducting for living expenses, the practitioners' monthly allowance of 10 yuan is fully deducted [note: 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income for an urban worker in China].

Damage Caused by the Torture

1. Severe Mental Trauma

In order to coerce practitioners into writing materials slandering Falun Gong and its founder, and to report the number of practitioners who have renounced their belief, the police intensively run a brainwashing programme using a variety of techniques they received in training. These include misleading and disorienting practitioners through constant debate and false reasoning, forcing practitioners to watch propaganda videos that defame Falun Gong, forcing practitioners to read defamatory materials and to attend brainwashing sessions. Practitioners are repeatedly forced to write down their agreement to the defamation of their belief . Therefore, practitioners not only have no personal freedom or freedom of speech, but they have also been deprived of the right to think like a normal person. The mental trauma suffered by the almost 100 unlawfully detained Dafa practitioners is enormous. After being released in April 2001, due to mental depression and physical injuries he received while in detention, practitioner Mr. Song Tingfang passed away due to the injustice suffered, at the age of only 47. His wife suffered a temporary mental collapse, and the whole family situation became very stressful and sad.

2. Severe Physical Injury to the Body

During the four and a half years of brutal persecution, many practitioners have been beaten until they became severely injured or even handicapped. Falun Dafa practitioners Cheng Changlin and Yang Zhenqi were sent to Wuyuan County Hospital because their internal organs were damaged by the torture they received. As their health did not improve at the Wuyuan County Hospital, they were transferred to the Inner Mongolia Prison Hospital. After two months, there was still no improvement, so their families had to take them back. After being shocked with electric batons, Dafa practitioners lost control of their bowels. Chen Zhanguo's head became swollen and deformed. Yang Fengyu and Ma Yingju's front teeth were broken off from being beaten. Zhang Ruitong's lower back was paralyzed for many days. Dozens of practitioners were forced to stand day and night, and as a result their legs and feet became swollen. Practitioners were brutally beaten until injured or disabled at the hands of the common prisoners, who were encouraged by the police to abuse the practitioners. For example, soon after being sent into the labour camp, Shi Yanwei was beaten by a prisoner, leaving a cut of about 1.2 inches around the corner of his eye. Shi Jun slammed Shi Yanwei's head against the heating radiator, causing his head to bleed profusely.

3. Tremendous Suffering of Practitioners' Family Members

In most cases, if a male practitioner is sent to a forced labour camp, the family's only source of income is stopped. Furthermore, the practitioner's term is subject to extension at any time. Over the past four years, practitioners' family members have cried countless tears. Six family members of practitioner Zhao Kai from Ningcheng, Chifeng City, have all been sent to forced labour camps, leaving only his 70-year-old mother and a 6-year-old child at home, and their fields deserted. Cui Xiaojia and his spouse, from Liuzhao Town, Wuyuan County were both sent to forced labour camps, leaving their teenage son and daughter at home alone. During a rare family visit with their parents, holding back their tears, the two teenagers told their father not to worry about their home. Because family visits are strictly limited and they are not allowed to communicate through letters, practitioners' families have almost totally lost contact with their loved ones. The loss of contact makes the mental burden even heavier to bear.

Summary of the Main Crimes Committed at the Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp

Those who persecute Falun Gong practitioners carry out the orders of their superiors to persecute Falun Gong at every level. They do it purely to keep their own positions and jobs, to gain more political capital and to receive a percentage of the many bonuses offered for the persecution of Falun Gong. Each practitioner is monitored by two or more prisoners around the clock, and the monitoring record is reported to the team leader any time. The so-called law education classes are run every day, where practitioners are forced to watch videotapes and to read slanderous materials. Then they are forced to write their understandings, all in the attempt to brainwash Falun Gong practitioners.

During the period when Mu Jianfeng was the deputy labour camp director, every single act of persecution was authorized by him. He sometimes even personally came to the torture site to direct the persecution. After secretly planning with each section chief, Mu coordinated with each team leader to implement his persecution plan. At the end of December 2000, to achieve the transformation rate of 60% set by Jiang Zemin and Luo Guo's gang and to gain more bonuses, they put practitioners Cui Xiaojia and Ma Yingju outside in the freezing cold winter day and night. In June 2001, when the persecution was escalated, practitioners in each team were required to attend a brainwashing class in the morning and be transformed in the afternoon. The labour camp dispatched most of its staff, and each section chief together with several guards were sent to monitor, talk to, and threaten each practitioner.

After several days of intense efforts, they achieved no result, so they altered their tactics and brutally beat practitioners. Many practitioners, including Jin Haitao and Gui Zhiyu were beaten until seriously injured. On December 6, 2001, because the practitioners from the Third Team refused to do the so-called homework (aimed at defaming Dafa), Deputy Director Mu Jianfeng once again gathered all the section chiefs and over a dozen guards from the Third Team, and brought the eleven steadfast practitioners into the guards' dormitory. They used the dormitory as their private court, and frenziedly beat practitioners. As they only had four police batons, they took practitioners Liang, Wen, Gui, and Zhang first, and two or three policemen would beat each practitioner. They kicked, hit, and slapped practitioners on the face, shocked practitioners on the face and abdomen with electric batons, and forcibly pulled off practitioners' pants to shock their genital areas. They stomped on some practitioners. Forty minutes later, all four practitioners were on the floor; and their mouths and faces were swollen and covered with blood. Then, practitioners Yang, Zhao and Cheng received the same mistreatment. Two hours later, these seven practitioners' faces and hands were covered with blood. The beating of Cheng Changlin lasted to the very end, with his body being shocked with four electric batons simultaneously, which burnt right through his skin. Zhang Ruitong's entire back was seriously injured and he was paralyzed for almost six months.

In May 2002, Mu Jianfeng was promoted as the camp's director and political head for persecuting Falun Dafa. Yang Furong took over the position as the deputy director and started to persecute practitioners. Yang was as violent as Mu. On August 27, 2002, several lawless officials from the Labour Education Management Bureau of the Autonomous Region came to Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp and held meetings continuously to deploy a new round of persecution. Since then, under the supervision of Yang, the persecution in Wuyuan Labour Camp has risen to a new level. The guards and the prisoner-monitors were assigned to watch practitioners, with each of them in charge of monitoring one or more Dafa practitioners. They established a special criminal group, consisting of a dozen drug addicts and gang members, to willfully torture Dafa practitioners. Holding the torture instruments, Zhong Zhiyuan told these prisoners, "These instruments are not only for Falun Gong practitioners, but also for you! If you cannot force them to "transform" [renounce their belief in Dafa], these are for you!" Since then, all those practitioners who refused to renounce their belief were forced to stand day and night, suffering the brutal beatings. Many were injured or disabled.

In the Second Brigade, they modified the TV room into four small cells for persecution.

The drug addicts [usually heroin addicts] in the camp could take drugs in their cells in full view. Once, these inmates took drugs together five times in a day, and no policeman bothered to concern himself with their activities. However, in contrast, Falun Dafa practitioners were brutally tortured simply for upholding their belief in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance."

The Peaceful Protest of Dafa Practitioners

Falun Dafa practitioners detained in the Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp upheld the principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" all the time, and "didn't hit back when attacked, or talk back when insulted." In spite of the many excruciatingly painful and humiliating experiences, they exhibited the special peace and rationality of Dafa practitioners.

We deeply understand that many people were deceived by the lies. Over the past four years, we tolerated all this, and kindly clarified the truth to exhibit the mercy of Dafa. Facing the high-pressure coercion of the evildoers, we firmly refused to yield, and we directly exposed the shameless acts to exhibit the dignity of Falun Dafa. In the course of our peaceful protest, Dafa practitioners went on hunger strikes many times to resist the persecution together. While resisting the most vicious crackdown, Dafa practitioners broke through the intensive surveillance with their wisdom and fearless courage, wrote to different levels of government departments many times with letters signed by many practitioners, and sued the criminals in this labour camp. All these efforts were like a stone being thrown into the ocean, with no response whatsoever from the authorities. Today, the only things that can set these criminals trembling are the unshakable righteous thoughts of Dafa practitioners and the voices of justice from all over the world.

We hereby expose the crimes of the Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp to the world, to provide evidence for a thorough investigation by outside organizations, in order to help stop the cruel and bloody persecution as soon as possible.

Main persons responsible for the persecution:

Director of Wuyuan Forced Labour Camp: Mu Jianfeng, male, 54 years old.
Deputy Director:Yang Furong, male, in his 40's.
Chief of Hygiene Section: Sha Huiming, male, in his 40's.
Chief of Education Section: Zhang Qian, male, in his 40's.
Chief of Management Section: Zhang Tiefeng, male, in his 40's.
The First Brigade: Zhao Naiwei (brigade leader), male, 35 years old.
Li Haiying (brigade leader), male, in his 30's.
The Second Brigade: Zhong Zhiyuan (he was later dispatched to the "Admitting and Discharge" Team, male, 37 years old.
Shen Yansheng, male, 38 years old.
Liu Bin, male, 31 years old.
The Third Brigade: Wang Jigao (brigade leader), male, 40 years old.
Du Xiangyang, male, 40 years old.
Wang Jinbiao, male, 28 years old.
Yang Yang, male, 25 years old.
Liu Jun, male, 28 years old.
Wang Donglei, male, in his 30's.
The Fourth Brigade, Wei Yuzhi, male, 40 years old.
Zhao Naidong, male, 33 years old.
Liu Sizhe, male, 29 years old.
"Admitting and Discharge" Team: Zhong Zhiyuan, Du Xiangguang, Liu Taiping, Hong Shijun.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/28/63496.html