Yoko Kaneko (A Resident in Japan), Imprisoned in China for 1.5 Years for Practising Falun Gong, Gives Personal Testimony at U.N. Commission on Human Rights in Geneva

Thank you respected Mr. Chairman,

My name is Yoko Kaneko. I was born in China. I am now residing in Japan. I am a practitioner of Falun Gong. I travelled back to China from Japan on May the 24th 2002. I was arrested and put in labour camp without trial only for handing out Falun Gong fliers on the streets in Beijing. I was released after one and a half years. Here I would like to share some of my sufferings while under detention.

In the Police Hospital, the police tried to force me to give up my belief. They handcuffed me to a bed. The handcuffs were so tight that my wrists were bleeding. They not only injected a tube through my nose into my stomach for force-feeding but also used a catheter to drain urine so that I would not go to the toilet. At that time, I was menstruating. They put me on a plastic sheet with my lower body naked and exposed.

I was handcuffed to that bed for almost 20 days in the hot summer, lying in my own sweat, the sticky sludge, and the discharge from my lower body. When I was finally released from the bed, I couldn't get off the bed by myself and couldn't walk. The skin on my entire back infected and rotted.

In the labour camp, the deprivation of sleep and brainwashing made my blood pressure increase to 270, which made me become almost blind. They sent me to another hospital and let practising doctors examine the bottom of my eyes by exposing my eyes to strong light for a long time. My eyes felt extremely painful. Afterwards I dare not see any light.

In the labour camp, some other Falun Gong practitioners were deprived of sleep for more than 20 days. Drug abusers were allowed to torture practitioners at will. We often heard horrible screams at night. Some women were tortured into losing sanity.

I once watched a video in the labour camp in which a self-claimed scientist Mr. Yusheng Wang summarised the evolution of techniques to brainwashing against Falun Gong practitioners and promoted the torture of deprivation of sleep. What shocked me most is that last Friday, I saw this person speaking and slandering Falun Gong in this UN Human Rights Plenary Meeting! I hope that all representatives could understand through his slandering remarks how the regime is trying to cover the truth of persecution.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.