Changle Forced Labour Camp Extorts Money from Falun Dafa Practitioners

The No.2 Ward of Changle Forced Labour Camp in Weifang City, Shandong Province is used specifically for detaining Falun Dafa practitioners. Although the fourth floor is set aside just for forced brainwashing, the sign for the facility identifies it as "Weifang City Legal Education Centre." This "free education" comes at a very high price. Each Falun Dafa practitioner is assigned two surveillance persons, at a cost of 30 yuan per day per person, plus their lodgings at 60 yuan per day per person. Falun Dafa practitioners must also pay ten yuan each day for their extremely poor food. In total, the cost for each practitioner is 250 yuan per day. Up to 13 Falun Dafa practitioners are being force-brainwashed at any given time, bringing in approximately 3,000 yuan per day for the labour camp from this brainwashing centre.

The practitioners sent here are detained for at least 20 days and up to two months. One female teacher from Changle County, in her 50's, was forced go through brainwashing for 53 days, and more than 13,000 yuan was extorted from her as her "Transformation Fee." It was reported that she was forced use more than two years' salary to pay this fee. This high "transformation fee" made many employers hesitant to send their Falun Dafa-practising employees to the facility, so the center was not crowded during the first half of 2001. In order to continue extorting Falun Dafa practitioners' money, the centre reduced the surveillance staff from two per practitioner to one per practitioner. More than 100 Falun Dafa practitioners have been sent to this centre, some of them twice.

Inside this centre, Falun Dafa practitioners are tortured both mentally and physically. There is an unspoken rule here that anyone refusing to write the "Three Statements" to denounce and give up the practice of Falun Dafa is not allowed to sleep. One female practitioner was deprived of sleep for seven straight days: the staff would drag or push her whenever she closed her eyes. Some firmly cultivating practitioners would be beaten or shocked with electric batons by former practitioners who had given in to the pressure and cooperated with the corrupt authorities.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/9/13/84059.html