Illustrations of Torture Devices and Methods Used on Practitioners Detained in the Jinzhou District Detention Centre

Below are some torture devices used on Falun Gong practitioners detained in Jinzhou District Detention Centre, Dalian City, Liaoning Province.

Torture Device: Death Frame

This device is a rectangular frame made of metal tubes. On the four points of the frame are four cuffs made of thick metal strips. The two smaller cuffs on the top are used to secure the victim's hands, and the two larger ones on the bottom are used to secure the victim's feet. When such a torture is used on someone, that person has to bend his or her body, unable to straighten the body or sit down. When the four limbs are cuffed to this frame, the victim has to endure excruciating pain. Whenever the victim moves any one of his or her limbs, the other three limbs will be painfully wrenched. When the victim is interrogated or force-fed at a different place, they then have to walk a long distance with great difficulty. Every step results in indescribable pain. Non-practitioner detainees would collapse after having such a device put on them for a day or two, but practitioners are often forced to wear such devices for as long as a dozen days. As a result, their hands and feet are badly swollen. Sometimes there are too many practitioners detained, so the guards then cuff two practitioners together to one single frame. In this situation, one hand and one foot of each practitioner are cuffed to the frame. This is even more painful. When only person is cuffed to this frame, they can still manage to relieve their pain by adjusting their position very slowly. When two people are cuffed together, however, one person's movement will often cause severe pain to both people.

Torture Device: Rubber Board

This device is made of rubber. Two types of these devices are used. One type of this device has is covered with rivets on both sides of the board, and is used specifically to beat male practitioners. The other type of this device does not have rivets, and is used to beat female practitioners. In the Jinzhou District Detention Centre, the guards often used these boards to beat practitioners. Zhang Shuquan is the prison doctor. He and two other guards have beaten many practitioners using this device. Most of these practitioners are actually from the same hometown (Dengshahe Town) as Zhang Shuquan. However, Zhang was very brutal in beating his fellow citizens. He usually struck practitioners' faces and heads with this board, causing some practitioners to pass out immediately. Some practitioners' faces immediately turned black and blue. When being hit with this board, the practitioners' faces often felt excruciating pain and they felt dizzy.

Torture Device: Bamboo Board

The prison policeman Du Xianjun once used a bamboo board to hit a female practitioner's face. As a result, her face was badly swollen, and there were two long cuts on her face that bled profusely.

Torture Method: Force-feeding

Former director of Jinzhou District Detention Centre, Du Xianjun, and the current director, Fan, led guards to brutally force feed practitioners on hunger strike. Several guards grabbed the practitioners by the hair and yanked their heads backward. They had the practitioners sit on the bed board, chair, or on the ground. Then, they inserted a plastic tube into the practitioner's stomach through the mouth. They repeatedly jostled the tube back and forth to cause injury and pain. Thus, the practitioner's esophagus was torn. The tube was jostled in the mouth, throat, and esophagus, causing excruciating pain and almost choking the practitioner. According to practitioners who suffered such tortures, every time after the torture, they felt like they had come very close to dying. Du Xianjun was extremely brutal. In order to escape the responsibility for his crimes, he quit and transferred to a different work unit. At the end of 2000, Du Xianjun and deputy director Wang Wenqi force-fed over 20 practitioners and the scene during and after the force-feeding was too horrifying to watch.

Torture Methods: Carrying Water Buckets

The prison police tied the practitioner's hands up to the heating pipe using two very thick and hard nylon ropes. Then they poured water on the practitioner's face. They brought in two water-filled rectangular buckets. Each bucket contained about 45 to 55 pounds of water, and they used a long cotton string to tie the two buckets together and put them over the practitioner's shoulder. After a while, they used water to dampen the string used to tie the buckets. Since the weather was very hot, a while later the string would attach to the skin. The two policemen then each yanked one bucket back and forth over the practitioner's shoulder. After several yanks, the skin on the shoulder and neck would be torn. The body would be exhausted from supporting the two buckets. After a while, the hands would swell up as well. About 30 minutes later, the practitioner's two arms would become numb and lose feeling. After such a torture, the arms would go dead and not be able to carry anything. After this torture, it usually takes at least half a month for the practitioners to be able to carry things again with their hands. Often it takes half a year until the arms can gradually recover. Male practitioners Xu Zhibin and Miao Junjie were once subjected to this torture. Currently, they are being detained in the Wafangdian City Prison. A female practitioner was also put through this torture, and even though the police filled the buckets half full when torturing her, the pain of this torture was unbearable.

Torture Method: Slave Labour

In order to make money, the police in the Jinzhou District Detention Centre forced practitioners to do hard labour by having them make various kinds of products.