Personal Account: Resisting the Persecution in Miaoxi Prison

I am a Falun Dafa practitioner in Xinjin County, Sichuan Province. In November 2000 I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa and was illegally sentenced to three years in prison by the authorities in Xinjin, and sent to the Miaoxi Prison in Yaan, Jianyang City, Sichuan Province. In the prison, we suffered all sorts of tortures and humiliation. None of our rights as human beings were respected.

In the prison, we refused to report to police, didn't wear an insignia that designates us as prisoners, didn't wear the uniform of prisoners, didn't do the labour assigned, and refused to admit that we had committed any crimes. The officers in the prison exhausted all of their methods trying to force us to yield to them. In April 2002 the prison held a "study class", during which they forced us to wear a sign saying we were guilty. I flatly refused. A prison cadre slapped my face and used a rope to tie me up for half an hour. Then he handcuffed me from behind my back to a window on the third floor. I am short and the window was high, so I was forced to stand on my tiptoes. Practitioners who were handcuffed like this on the third floor that day included Wang Jianhui, Hu Hui, Jiang Yanli, and Zhang Zhiqing. Another Dafa practitioner, Su Lan, was cuffed on a lower floor. We were cuffed there for half a month and some of us for one month. People could hear painful cries from us everyday. We were tortured because we would not wear the prison insignia and would not report to them. We were detained for five months in that prison.

The police could not achieve their goal with us. Therefore, they held a "patriotism class." For any practitioner who wouldn't wear the insignia and would not report, the police wrote the character for "criminal" on their clothes, quilts, towels, blankets, and even the underwear of that practitioner. This was labelled as "patriotism."

Police coerced criminals who wanted to get a reduction in their terms to drag and beat practitioners. The police saw that I would not yield to them, so they sent two other practitioners and me to a strictly monitored cell.

One day in the middle of October 2002 Mr. Wang Xinya, the head of the prison, came to the strictly monitored cell and asked me to report and say that I was a criminal. I refused. They then took me to the office building and tossed some rope on the floor, and asked me whether or not I would report. I said, "No." Wang and another prison official with the surname of Gao tied me up with the rope. They then took turns slapping my face. I still didn't yield. Gao used a pair of scissors to cut my hair off in a random pattern and said, "You say you are not a criminal but I'll give you a criminal's haircut." They also threatened that I better not cry out. Otherwise, they would pour the leftovers from a teacup on a towel and stuff my mouth with it. My right hand was injured after their torture, and I had difficulty holding a pen and buttoning a button. The guards in the prison claimed I was pretending. The second day, Wang, Gao, and the head of the education department of the prison who was in charge of persecuting Falun Gong told me, in front of many other officials of the prison, that I cannot tell others what I had experienced. Otherwise, I would be in trouble. They also told people around me that they couldn't help me. Before they transferred me to the Longquan Prison in Chengdu City, they saw that I indeed could not use my hand, so they sent me to the Miaoxi Prison Hospital for an inspection. My hand was diagnosed as atrophic, being obviously smaller than the other one. In the Miaoxi prison, practitioners who didn't write letters to denounce Falun Gong, didn't report, and didn't wear prison insignias were persecuted. For example, Dafa practitioner Gao Hongxiang was tied up for two days because she refused to write the letters.

In April 2003, during the SARS epidemic, police used criminals to force feed Dafa practitioners with medication. Zhang Hongqong lost two of her teeth when they forcibly pried her mouth open.

In the prison, some practitioners insisted in doing the Falun Gong exercises. One day, a criminal beat one practitioner while she was doing the exercises. The guards didn't do anything to stop it. Practitioners joined together and held a 6-day hunger strike, and requested punishment for the one who beat the practitioner. The guards had to handle the incident. There was another incident. One day, a practitioner was doing Falun Gong exercises on the bed. The head of the cell, who was a criminal inmate, asked the practitioner to stop doing the exercises. The practitioner refused. The cell head then beat the practitioner. The practitioner said the head of the cell took the lead in beating people, this is against the rules, and thereby the prison must deal with it unfairness. The guards had no words to say, but punished the head, making her stand for one day, and removed her from the head position.

The above is some of the persecution that I have experienced. I write this report in order to expose the evil deeds of those persecuting us to the world.

Chinese version available at: http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/3/26/70903.html