The Story Behind Making China's "Sanitary" Chopsticks -- Exposing Slave Labour Practices Inside Chinese Labour Camps (Part Three)

Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/3/25/46394.html
Part 2: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/3/26/46395.html

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10. Methods of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners not only include cruel torture but also forcing high intensity labour in Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp in Jilin Province. Overworking practitioners is a method used by the officials of the Camp to break down Falun Dafa practitioners physically and mentally. For example: each person processing the masks is required to finish 500 pieces per day when it is only possible to do about 300. Each person processing handicraft products on small clothes is required to finish from 100 to 150 pieces per day. It is impossible to finish. Any practitioner who doesn't finish the unreasonable quota, is punished and beaten. So, the curses and the threats happen every day.

Under extreme mental pressure and harsh physical labour Falun Gong practitioners can't practise Falun Gong in Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp, so their physical bodies have become very weak. Many of the practitioners have heart disease, high blood pressure, cough up blood, have pulmonary disease, or are in a coma and bleeding. Even though some practitioners can't get up, the police still force them to go to work. As long as the practitioners can still breathe, they have to work.

Changchun Nanguan District Sanitation Materials Factory (Mask Processing Factory) and Changchun Yuping Crafts and Fine Arts Factory (The Clothes of Ling Puppets Handicraft Products Processing Factory) have contracts with Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp.

Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp also forces the practitioners to collate book pages which is very hard to do. The first procedure for processing a standard book is called collating large pages for a book. The shape and size of the large pages are the same as the pages of the regular Chinese newspapers. While folding a large page, the person has to make sure that the page numbers match and are in the proper order. Then, gradually fold the large page down to the standard size of a book. One large page is called one "Tai" and there are about eight or nine "Tai" for one book. Because of the large quantities, these large pages can be stacked as tall as a person. Folding fifty pieces is called one "Da" (some books use one hundred pieces for one "Da") and five "Da" are one package. People who work fast can finish between nine to eleven packages in fifteen to eighteen hours. Beginners can only finish two or three packages. The work is monitored for both quality and quantity. If a person folds the large page just a little bit off centre, it will be very easy to cut off the words or the page numbers when doing the third procedure which is when they cut the pages down to size. Falun Dafa practitioners are all beaten and cursed by the police and the criminals during the folding procedure.

The folding board for the big pages is made of bamboo. It is about 38cm long and 6cm wide. It is also used as an implement of punishment. Liu Lianying, the head of the Second Brigade, beats Falun Dafa practitioners with the bamboo folding board, especially on their faces and mouths. From 1999 until 2001, Falun Dafa practitioners all suffered from this torture so much that their faces and eyes were swollen and there were big knots on their foreheads.

An article revealing the crimes committed against practitioners in this place was written by a Jilin Falun Gong practitioner and published on the Minghui.net [Chinese version of Clearwisdom net]. In the article, she pointed out that the purpose of forced labour for Falun Dafa practitioners in the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp is to try to destroy the practitioners' will. She wrote: "On March 8, 2003, the officials of the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp continuously forced Dafa practitioners to sort soybeans and only allowed them to sleep less than two hours a day for three days, using the excuse of work being a rush job. While sorting out the soybeans, the practitioners were so tired that our eyes were dim-sighted. Regardless, we had to carry the bags of sorted soybeans from upstairs to downstairs. Each bag weighed about forty five kilograms and we did over twenty tons. Next, we had to carry up the bags of unsorted soybeans from downstairs to upstairs. Each of these bags weighed about sixty-five kilograms. In all, we moved over seventy tons. At that time, no one knew how many old, young and sick people were involved processing this rush job. I continuously carried bags sixteen times round trip in two hours and another practitioner who worked with me did seventeen round trips in the same time. During this 'rush job,' some practitioners hurt their backs and some even threw up due to complete exhaustion."

A Jilin girl who was just twenty-two years old in 2004, said: "On January 8, 2003, I was transferred to the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp, where they assigned me to the 'performing team.' After that, I was separated from others. I was not allowed to go out of the ward nor was I allowed to talk with anyone during times allotted for bathing or going to the toilet. I was not even allowed to have a meal downstairs. In the daytime, I wasn't allowed to close my eyes, to sit with my legs crossed or to stand in front of the windows. We couldn't even look each other. That was not all, I was forced to attend brainwashing sessions, read propaganda and watch television programmes all defaming Falun Dafa. This was the first time in my twenty years of living that I felt how terrible it was to lose my freedom."

"Because I persisted in practising Falun Dafa, policewoman Xiao Aiqiu talked to me several times. When she saw that didn't work, she decided to not allow my mother to visit me and threatened me several times that if I didn't give up Falun Gong I would have to stay there longer and would be locked in solitary confinement. I got sores that festered very fast. She didn't dare to touch me, so she only kicked me several times. Under the tremendous mental pressure and fear every day, I could hardly sleep. Sometimes I woke up from nightmares even though I had just fallen asleep. I felt much older than twenty during that period of time. Later, I became scared, very emotional and nervous, and I didn't want to talk with anyone. I couldn't take it any more and almost went crazy. Previously I had been such an active and bright girl."

The girl said that after she wrote the "Renouncement Statement" (the written proclamation giving up practicing Falun Gong), which was contrary to her inner belief, she was released from the solitary ward, where she had been confined for thirty-five days. Then she was sent to work in the workshop and to practise dancing.

She also said: "Our regular work and rest schedule was that we got up between 4:30 and 5: 00 AM. After washing our faces and brushing our teeth, we immediately went to work and went to sleep at 8:30 PM. Sometimes we were forced to work overtime until 9:00 or 10:00 PM. The latest time was past midnight and we had to get up at 4:00 AM in order to finish the rush work. Our only rest time was when we had a meal or when we went to the toilet. It was even scheduled what time we could go to the toilet. They only allowed us to have twenty minutes to finish the whole process from lining up in order and counting people's numbers, getting down to the canteen and having a meal, washing the dishes, and counting the numbers before going back upstairs, so we had to eat quickly. After a long period of time, many people developed stomach problems by doing it this way.

The girl who continuously refused to give her name: "In Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp, the First Brigade was required to make butterflies and birds. The Second Brigade was making birds and collating book pages. The Third Brigade was making the birds and collating book pages. The Fourth Brigade was collating book pages and processing the small toy clothing craft products. The Fifth Brigade was making various birds. Some of the birds were made of feathers while others were made of paper. The Sixth Brigade was making the birds and processing the small toy clothing craft products. The Seventh Brigade was making birds, small toy ship craft products and sewing products. In addition to that, they also processed some other products such as advertisement banners, paper bags, paper boxes and other things. The bird and butterfly craft products and small toy clothes were exported to Japan, America and other countries. Every year the brigades regularly turn over a lot of money to the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp, the rest of the money all becomes the warden's bonus, so the production quantity directly relates with the warden's benefits."

"The performing teams don't have a fixed output in the Changchun Heizuizi Female's Forced Labour Camp, but they do have this in the fifth brigade. We were not only doing the work but also rehearsing dances. There were no words to describe how tired we were. Whenever we hurried up to finish an order of product, we had to continuously work overtime. It seemed that we would just get to sleep, and it was already time to get up. People were so tired that they could go to sleep standing up. Every time when a holiday was coming such as May first, July first or October first, we were required to rehearse dance performances over and over from the morning until the evening. After dancing the whole time, we couldn't feel where our feet were. The exhaustion and the extreme mental pressure made me rapidly age. Now, I already have some wrinkles on my face and I look several years older than I did a year ago. Once policewoman Xiao Aiqiu told me to bring a dancing tape to the workshop and put it on the table, which I did. However, there was a box of glue on the table too. When she saw that the tape was next to the box of glue, she yelled: 'If the tape gets dirty, I will kill you.' Another time while going downstairs to rehearse the dance, Xiao Aiqiu told me to hold her drinking glass and said to me: 'If you drop my glass, I will kill you.' One time before the formal performance, a dance wasn't prepared enough, and she said to me: 'If your performance tomorrow isn't good, I will shock you to death with an electric baton.' It was as if a tape, a glass, or a performance was more valuable than my life. One time I saw the policewoman Wang Limei shock an over fifty-year-old practitioner because she insisted on practising Falun Dafa. When I heard the sound of her being electrically shocked, I felt as if the electric baton was shocking my own body. I can never forget that scene."

Another Falun Gong practitioner who wrote to the Minghui.net said: "I was abducted by the police from my home on March 16, 2003, and was sentenced to a year and half of forced labour in the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp. Their excuse was that I was found to have a Falun Dafa book. Most of the people who were held at the facility were Falun Dafa practitioners and the rest were criminals. Every day, we were processing handicraft products such as birds, butterflies, and small toy clothes in the workshops of the third brigade. It was said that those were exported overseas. There were over thirty people in our workshop."

"One day in May or June 2003, we were working in the workshop. About 2:00 PM, the labour camp police suddenly shouted at us to close all the windows and not look outside. So all the windows were closed but they forgot to close our workshop's windows. What happened? What were they doing? Some Falun Gong practitioners and I looked outside through the open windows. We saw four medical workers with masks and isolation clothes carrying a person on a stretcher. They had come from the ward opposite the second brigade. The person on the stretcher wore the camp's clothes. Her head was covered and she didn't move at all. While stepping down, the wind blew the cover off of her head and we saw her face. It seemed that she was dead. They carried her out of the camp gate and took her away in a vehicle. Meanwhile the automatic door was closed and we couldn't see any more."

"Later on, we asked around privately and found that the person who was carried out of the camp was a Falun Dafa practitioner and she was indeed dead. We didn't know her name and we didn't know how she had been tortured to death. This is because the practitioners were not permitted to talk to each other in the Camp. Hopefully, some practitioners who were released from the second brigade of Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labour Camp can expose the facts of her murder to the public.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/2/25/68518.html