Slave Labour and Disguised Extortion in Detention Centres in Hubei Province

Detention centre guards in Wuhan, Hubei Province force detainees to do slave labour in their prison cells. For example, in Xiangfan City No. 1 Detention Centre, they force the detainees in their cells to produce medicine boxes, and to assemble elementary and preschool textbooks. The criminals, including drug addicts, robbers, murderers, ruffians, and people who have committed all sorts of crimes and are of low moral character, do unbelievable things during this process. For instance, when they produce the medicine boxes and fit the books together, these criminals purposely wipe filthy things onto the products, such as excretions from rotting wounds on their feet, blood, pus, and other filth. The detention centre officials do not bother to do anything about this.

The detention centre enforcers also collect tainted money. Not only do the slave labourers not get a single penny; but on top of that, some detainees are forced to pay 20 Yuan in "accommodation and meals fees" for each day they are locked up. Family members are not permitted to help the detainees with daily necessities such as a washbasin, toilet paper, or slippers (once they enter the detention centre they have to throw away their shoes and have bare feet). Family members must send money, the only thing the detention centres will accept! The detention centre controls the money - the detainee only gets a piece of paper as proof of such-and-such a cash balance "deposited" with the centres. The daily necessities are bought and sold at the detention centers' stores at a price set by the detention centers. They buy the poorest quality goods for the detainees, yet deduct cash that is two to three times the original cost. For example, for a bar of soap and a pack of toilet paper, the cost is less than 1 Yuan, but they deduct 2.5 Yuan. A box of instant noodles costing 10 Yuan is sold for 40 Yuan. It costs the detainee 100 Yuan for the prison doctor to ask, "Are you sick or not?" without the detainee actually undergoing any kind of examination. Disinfecting of the prison cells is carried out in the summer. Each cell is charged 10 Yuan for one disinfecting. The detention centre officials deduct at will from the detainees' cash balances and then reduce the cash balance in the bookkeeping records. This is obviously a disguised form of extortion.

The policemen in the detention centres verbally and physically abuse Dafa practitioners. It is also common practice for the common criminals to verbally and physically abuse the practitioners. Many Dafa practitioners suffer severe persecution and inhuman torture. For example, they are punished by being forced to stand against the corner of the wall, being heavily fist-punched in the heart by criminals, being slapped, being forced to maintain a half-squatting position (squatting down with legs apart and both arms raised forward, parallel to the ground), and having cold water poured on them during winter time. If practitioners do the Falun Gong exercises, they are handcuffed and shackled. Additionally, Xiangfan No. 1 Detention Centre has a homemade kind of handcuff. This handcuff is a most cruel torture device made with steel bolts. Once put on, these handcuffs can cause the person to faint after a time. The lawless guards also force-feed practitioners who hold hunger strikes to protest the persecution. This place is indeed hell in the human world.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/4/18/72602.html