Illegal Extortion in the No. 1 Female Forced Labour Camp of Shandong Province

The No. 1 Female Forced Labour Camp of Shandong Province not only mentally and physically tortures Falun Gong practitioners, but also uses many means to extort money from them. The following are some cases of the forced labour camp extorting Falun Gong practitioners' money:

Case 1

To "help and educate" (brainwash) one practitioner, he/she is charged 3,000 Yuan (1). This is not forced labour, but one who is "helped and educated" has no personal freedom. Usually, these brainwashing sessions last from twenty days to three months. Accommodations and even family visit accommodations are charged at the rate of 60 Yuan per night, excluding meals. For each practitioner being brainwashed, the authorities could make 5,000-10,000 Yuan. The actual brainwashing work is often done by those who had been forcibly brainwashed in previous sessions.

Case 2

Substitute management is where labour camps substitute local work units to manage Falun Gong practitioners. Each practitioner can be charged 120 Yuan as a substitute management fee that might include boarding. Usually the term is three to six months, but there are also terms of eight or nine months. The practitioners must lodge and eat with the class or group. They are not released even after writing the "Three Statements."(2) They still have to work like other prisoners to generate revenue for the labour camp. From a practitioner under substitute management, the police can extort more than 10,000 Yuan.

Case 3

The labour camp forces newcomers to buy their bedding, even if they bring their own. From time to time, they force practitioners to buy at least two sheets, and sometimes up to four sheets. Each one costs more than 15 Yuan. During the year 2000, they forced practitioners to buy summer uniforms. Although practitioners paid for these items, they could not take them when they were released. Everything was confiscated. Even the basin, bowls, basket, water container, and cool mat were confiscated. They also forced practitioners to buy casual cotton clothes at twice the market price, whether they were needed or not.

Case 4

Whenever Falun Gong practitioners felt uncomfortable, they would be taken to the clinic for cardiograms, or even taken to the police hospital for physical exams. Each visit would cost practitioners tens or hundreds of Yuan. This was purely to extract more money from the practitioners. Some practitioners didn't take any medicine but were charged pharmacy fees of tens or hundreds of Yuan. If authorities were asked the reason, they would say that fees had already been transferred so they could only give the medicine. However, the medicine cost several times more than market price.

Case 5

Visitor fees were charged to practitioners' families. If the family visited without having a meal, they would be charged 10 Yuan. When the police were not in a good mood, they would charge every person 10 Yuan for only 20 minutes of visiting time. There is no standard charge, and the fee is controlled by whoever is charging the fee. If having a meal, each person would be charged another 20 Yuan, which is quite expensive. If staying for the night, the charge was another 60 Yuan.

Case 6

Any money that Falun Gong practitioners' relatives brought in or mailed in was always postponed a few months before the practitioner could process the transaction. In case practitioners forgot about it, the police would just keep it. The accounting was never published. Each division had a policeman to handle the cash. The Yuan currency must be exchanged for the internal-use tickets (meal or general tickets). However, when practitioners were released, the tickets they held were not allowed to be exchanged back to currency. That means the leftover tickets were useless, and they are taken back by the labour camp or pocketed by the division head.

Case 7

No commodity or food was allowed to be brought in by relatives of practitioners. Practitioners can only buy from the canteen at the labor camp. The food in the labour camp was not only poor, but also several times higher than market price.

During the years 2001 to 2003, the labour camp built a five story, luxurious administrative building, a building for furnaces, and another two-story building for visitors. Moreover, the workshop and cells had monitoring systems installed in them, and the police duty room was equipped with a computer and an air conditioner. The whole labour camp was renovated. This leads one to ponder: Where did the money come from?

(1) Yuan is the Chinese currency. The average monthly salary of an urban worker in China is 500 Yuan.

(2) "Three Statements" - Practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write these as proof that they have given up their belief. Created by the "610 Office," the three statements consist of a letter of repentance, a guarantee to never again practise Falun Gong, and a list of names and addresses of all family members, friends and acquaintances who are practitioners.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/4/22/72912.html