The Unwarranted Persecution of Dafa Practitioners in the Female Prison in Heilongjiang Province

To protest their incarceration for practising Falun Gong, the imprisoned Dafa practitioners in the fourth squadron in Heilongjiang Provincial Female Prison refused to wear nametags, answer roll call, or squat as ordered by the guards. Under the directives of Captains Wu Yanjie and Tao Shuping, the practitioners were often beaten by the jailed criminals, who had inflicted serious injuries on some of them. In the seven days between November 26 and December 2, 2003, under the directives of the former prison heads, Wang Xing and Chu Shuhua, the prison guards and police carried out torture that seriously violated the practitioners' human rights in order to coerce the practitioners to give up cultivation. Below are the main methods of persecution used in those seven days:

Practitioners were not given any food, water, or allowed normal toilet privileges, and were forced to stay outdoors to freeze for long periods of time.

On the first day, the number of people tortured reached 43. The practitioners were tortured by being forced to stand outside or walk for the entire day from 5:30am to 4:30pm. It was in the middle of winter, and the temperature was very low, but they were not allowed to bring any clothing to shield against the cold. Practitioners were stripped of their cotton-padded jacket and tortured until after 9 pm that day.

The female prison officers used electric batons to beat and shock practitioners and also asked the male officers to beat the practitioners. Moreover, they directed the criminals to assault the practitioners, as well.

(1) Practitioners were victims of the beating and shock treatment by Wu Yanjie, Tao Shuping and other female prison officers.

(2) Dafa practitioner Xiao Ailing was shackled to the iron gate and viciously beaten.

Ms Ma Aiqiao was struck with a wooden bench, resulting in a wound on her forehead requiring four stitches that bled profusely. The bench was broken into pieces upon impact. Ms Ma herself had to spend about 2,000 yuan for the medical treatment. She was then locked up in a small room. Every day she was given just two bowls corn flour gruel to eat. She was handcuffed with her arms to her back for three days, and only released when she became semi-comatose. She was locked up for 15 days in total.

(3) Female police officers Qiao Lina, Li Xiaoyu, Liu Hong and Sun Lisong used bamboo sticks to beat practitioners in the face and hands. Many Dafa practitioners' hands and faces became swollen, with eyes filled with blood. The guards also ordered three to four criminals to surround and beat one Dafa practitioner. Li Bingqing, Dong Yazhen, Zhao Yalun and others were viciously beaten nearly every day. Huang Yazhen's eyes were injured. Li Bingqing sustained internal injuries. Within a few days, every Dafa practitioner was injured. Liu Wenge used the brush for the washbasin to brush Ms Li Qingzhen's mouth, which caused her mouth to be inflamed and swollen.

(4) Ms Hu Yan was shackled to the iron gate of the jail in a squatting position from 4 pm in the afternoon to 5am in the morning. They also forced her to do hard labour and did not allow her the normal rest or sleep. Other practitioners were also forced to do hard labour. They went back to the prison building between 4:30 pm and 5 pm every afternoon. Some of them were being tortured and had to squat until midnight; others had to sit on the icy cold ground on the first floor until 2 am. But at 5 am they had to get up again. Seven Dafa practitioners were locked up in the small rooms because they did not give in to the police's demands. They were tortured non-stop.

On November 28, 2003, Dafa practitioners recited Falun Dafa teachings together. There were seven practitioners who were locked up in the small rooms. They were stripped of their woolen sweaters and trousers, and twenty-four hours a day they were handcuffed with their arms to the back and seated on the wooden beds. They were given only thin cornmeal gruel to eat two times a day. They were locked up until 3 pm on December 30, far exceeding the longest period of 15 days allowed by law. After they returned to the prison building and until January 9, 2004, they were continuously handcuffed to the bed frames from 6 am to midnight. Their bodies wasted away, and their faces were ashen. Every day they had to stand for 17 to18 hours, with their hands cuffed to their back, and their hands and feet became swollen. From January 10 to now, they have been forced to sit on tiny stools with their arms cuffed to the back. The torture is still ongoing.

The fourth team police deprived the practitioners' rights to phone calls, meet with visitors and purchase necessities. They forced all of the practitioners to refer to themselves in the third person as "criminals" when requesting to make phone calls, etc. But since Dafa practitioners are not criminals, they refused to do so, and in this way their requests were denied. When their families came to visit them, the police lied to them, telling them that the practitioners did not want to see them and sent them away.

The postal address of Heilongjiang Provincial Female Prison

387 Xuefu Road of Nangang District

Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province 150069

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/3/15/70010.html