A Record of the Crimes Committed by Authorities at Longshan Forced Labour Camp - Part I (Photos)

The Longshan Forced Labour Camp is located in a southeast suburban area of Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. It lies in a low valley surrounded by hills on all four sides. Before the persecution of Falun Gong started, few people were aware that the labour camp existed.

The first group of Falun Gong practitioners was sent to the Longshan Forced Labour Camp around October 21, 1999, at a time when a large number of Falun Gong practitioners went to Beijing to appeal. The local governments were forced to throw the practitioners into detention centres, custody centres, shelters, female correctional facilities (where prostitutes were held) and mental hospitals.

After these places were filled up, the Shenyang City Administrative Detention Centre released some inmates before their terms had expired to vacate cells to hold Falun Gong practitioners. Even so, they were still short on space as many Falun Gong practitioners were abducted for going to appeal. The government refused to deal with the situation in a positive and reasonable manner. Instead, the perpetrators continued to beat, arrest and send the practitioners to labour camps.

Around October 21, 1999, a group of Falun Gong practitioners were brought back from Beijing and sent directly to Longshan Forced Labour Camp. They were sent there arbitrarily, without following any due legal process. The government knows the practitioners are innocent. To hide what they are really doing, they called it the "Falun Gong Compulsory Study Class." The practitioners were then held in a grey two-story building at the labour camp and were transferred to a new four-story building in June 2002.

Male non-practitioner inmates were held on the ground floor and practitioners were held on the second floor. Around 45 of the practitioners were men. They were held on the west side in two rooms. About 60 women were held in three rooms on the east side. The guards who watched the practitioners were transferred from other places and did not work for Longshan Forced Labour Camp prior to the persecution. The male guards were from Zhangshi Forced Labour Camp in Shenyang City, and the female guards were from judicial and legal departments in Shenyang City, from the Zhangshi Forced Labour Camp or the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp. There were no female guards at the Longshan Forced Labour Camp before the persecution because only male inmates were held there.

A guard named Wang was in charge of the persecution. He is around 50 years of age and everyone calls him "Commissar Wang." He often yelled at and beat people. The guards didn't know much about Falun Gong at the time and completely believed the slander on TV. They believed that there were two types of Falun Gong practitioners: the first were ones duped into practicing Falun Gong and considered "victims." If they wrote a statement to promise not to practice Falun Gong and not to appeal, they could be released. The second type were the "core members and organizers" who needed to be "struck on."

The guards were surprised to find out that there are no such things as organizers and followers among Falun Gong practitioners. The practitioners don't even know each other and they were together because they were held together at the labour camp. They had the same requests, however, such as to restore their Teacher's reputation and Dafa's reputation, unconditional release of all illegally detained Falun Gong practitioners, and to restore a peaceful environment in which they can practise.

The perpetrators did not respond to the practitioners' requests. They took away the practitioners' books and when the practitioners did the exercises, the perpetrators would shock them with electric batons, force them to stand, squat, squat with their buttocks pointing upwards or torture them with a method called "the gecko climbing the wall" (as shown in picture 1). In this torture the practitioners are forced to stand upright against the wall with their arms stretched out and pointing straight up. It doesn't appear to be a cruel torture but when the practitioner's arms tire quickly in this position, and when the practitioner's arms move or bend, the guard would shock him or her with electric baton(s) saying, "You're not doing it right."

The first group of women practitioners held a hunger strike to protest the persecution. The guards ordered doctors from Dabei Prison to force-feed them. They pried the practitioners' mouth open with metal spoons. One elderly practitioner named Cao's mouth was injured from the force-feeding. She walked to Beijing and clarified the truth about Falun Gong along the way. She was reported to the government in Luan County close to Beijing. The local police sent her back to Shenyang City and later sent her to the Longshan Forced Labour Camp.

The set-up of the cells used to hold male and female practitioners are basically the same. Each bed-arrangement features an upper and lower bunk; there is a heavy metal door at the end of the hallway in addition to the wooden door in each room. The guards usually lock only the metal door and leave the wooden door open, but they warn the practitioners not to go to other rooms and talk to people held in other rooms. Commissar Wang is the main person in charge of the persecution, and the emphasis of the persecution was still Falun Gong practitioners. The practitioners never stopped doing the exercises and Wang grew furious. He used electric batons and other forms of torture in an attempt to bend the practitioners' will. According to policies, the male guards are not allowed to enter female cells/rooms after curfew, however, the guards in uniform often open the metal door and stick their head inside each room at midnight to see if anyone is doing the exercises. They do this in male and female cells.

Wang once saw a practitioner Chu Dianjiu do the exercises. This practitioner is a middle school teacher. Wang went crazy and shouted hysterically in the hallway. He threatened, "Today I'll skin you alive! So you think you are made of steel, huh? I'll teach you a very good lesson." He called for several inmates and ordered them to drag Chu Dianjiu into the office, pin him down and Wang himself shocked Chu Dianjiu's sensitive body parts with an electric baton. He pressed the electric baton against one body part for a very long time until the skin and flesh were scorched. Chu Dianjiu screamed and could be heard throughout the hallway.

Because Wang had set up a model for the labour camp, the guards were unrestrained in persecuting the practitioners. Practitioner Xu Huanying was held in Room 3 of the Female Division. She was an English teacher around 30 years of age. She is thin and short, and because she refused to read the "Six Prohibitions Notice" about Falun Gong which had been issued by the Department of Public Security, a male division head (named Zhuang Tao, in his 30's) slapped her face and stuck an electric baton inside her clothes from the back to shock her in order to make her read the notice in public.

In prisons and labour camps in China, there are "live-in officials" who are theoretically responsible for monitoring guards and punishing those who commit human rights violations. There are such officials at the Longshan Forced Labour Camp, but because of Jiang Zemin's group's policies, the laws are nothing but worthless bits if paper. The officials at the Longshan Forced Labour Camp intentionally overlook the guards' acts of torture.

The perpetrators' violence could not change the practitioners' mind. When faced with violence and misunderstanding, the practitioners once and again clarified the truth to them and stepped forward to validate Dafa. On November 20, 1999, practitioners held in Room 1 of the Female Division did the group exercises. We were not trying to challenge the guards and labour camp authorities. We did the exercises because it is not wrong to do the exercises and it is our right to do so. We didn't negatively affect or harm anyone by doing the exercises. We should be released and allowed to do the exercises at home because it is not our wish to do the exercises at the labour camp.

Teacher has always taught us to consider others before doing anything, and we did so before doing the exercises. There is a standard by which we judge things. If we stopped doing the exercises simply because it infuriates the guards, wouldn't that would be the same as stopping being good because bad people don't like it? Our exercises weren't the cause of the guards upset. They had deprived us of our basic rights. We were upholding our rights according to the law, and the perpetrators claimed we were "challenging authorities and stirring up trouble," which is quite ridiculous.

The guards would punish the practitioners day and night if they saw us doing the exercises. The practitioners eventually decided to do the exercises openly and publicly. The guards saw us when we were half way through, and they were shocked. They tried to take a few practitioners away as examples, but the rest of the practitioners wouldn't let them. So they forced all practitioners to squat in the hallway. Three practitioners were taken to the division head's room and shocked with electric batons. A division head shocked Li Fengling the night before, leaving her face scarred from the electric baton torture. The male division head also made Li Linghua and Tong Chunshi squat, and the division head sat on a chair and scraped their faces and mouths with the bottom of his leather boots to humiliate them. He also sandwiched the practitioner's neck between his legs and moved the practitioners closer toward him with his feet. All three practitioners' faces and hands were shocked with electric batons, as shown in picture 2. Male division head Zhuang Tao participated in the torture.

The next day, November 21, 1999, a male guard named Zhao (in his 50's, he was transferred from the Zhangshi Forced Labour Camp) called all the woman practitioners to the hallway and said group exercises should never happen again. He said the practitioners in Room 1 were insane for having the courage to do the exercises at a place such as the labour camp, and he verbally abused them. In the end he said, "We stop you every day and you still do it [exercise] every day. So, how about this? If you really have to do it, come out and do it in the hallway and I'll do it with you. How great would that be?"

In the evening, practitioners in Room 1 went out to the hallway and did the exercises. The division heads on duty were shocked and afraid. Division head Zhao held an electric baton and forced the practitioners to squat with their feet against each other. Then Zhao kicked the practitioners. Sixty-three-year-old practitioner Chen Jun was squatting against the heating pipe. Zhao said Chen Jun was not up to the standard, so he kicked Chen Jun and as a result her head hit the heating pipe. Later, Zhao made the practitioners to do "geckos climbing the wall" and then he shocked the practitioners with electric batons.

The division heads on duty that night were transferred from the judicial bureau and other labour camps. They were not professional labour camp guards so they didn't know how to use an electric baton. They called over a male division head named Wei Maojin (around 30 years of age) who was transferred from the Zhangshi Forced Labour Camp. Right now he is working at the division especially established to persecute Falun Gong at the Zhangshi Forced Labour Camp. The three female division heads were Chen Jing, Li Yuan and Yao. They said to Wei Maojin, "Shock them! Shock them one by one! Don't miss a single one! Aren't they brave? They do the exercises just during our shift, aren't they scorning us?"

They were afraid the practitioners in Room 2 and Room 3 would come out in support, so they locked the two rooms and took the practitioners in the hallway to the office where they shocked each of the practitioners individually. They shocked each practitioner with at least two and sometimes four batons. They shocked the practitioners' face, head and mouth (as shown in photo 3). Practitioners Tong Chunshi, Li Linghua and Li Fengling sustained the most serious injuries because they had not recovered from being shocked the night before, and this time they had new scars. Li Linghua's face swelled up and her lips oozed pus. The scars on Tong Chunshi's face were still there six months later. Li Fengling's whole face swelled up and was almost destroyed. Li Fengling was shocked for the third night straight.

Chen Jun, who was 63 years old, was then the oldest practitioner. The evil-minded guard put an electric baton into her mouth and kept rolling the baton on her lips to shock her (as shown in photo 4). Her lips swelled so much that they could almost touch her nose. Wei Maojin kept saying while administering the torture, "You are said to be as tough as steel. Let me increase the voltage! You seem very talkative, talking to the leaders one after another each day. It seems there are enough people for you to talk. I just want to shock your mouth. Let me see who will be the next one you are able to talk to."

From the beginning of Chen Jun's detention in Longshan, she took every opportunity to talk about Falun Gong to different leaders in the labour camp, from the head of the labour camp to the supervisors or section heads. She would ask to meet anyone who was in charge of something and to "report" the situations. The division leaders were then sarcastic, saying to her, "Who are you? How can you make a request to meet anyone and then are able to meet? Those leaders are not whom you can meet." Chen Jun eventually did meet the camp leaders and clarified the truth to them, which made these division leaders unconvinced and is why the evil-minded guard Wei said these nasty words during the torture.

When Wu Yefeng, a 35-year-old practitioner from Shenhe District of Shenyang City, was suffering electric shock on the head, a male guard even rode on her body and shook her a couple times (as shown in photo 5). Is it not clear to see who was just a guard or also a hooligan?

Jing Cai, 27 years old, was shocked on her head, her hands and her face. At the same time, she was subjected to slapping on the face, kicking, and being forced to bend her waist with the bottom rising up. Jing Cai tried to block the electric batons with her hand. Division leader Wei said to her, "If you try to dodge again, I will shock you 30 times." He stepped on her body on the ground and pressed the electric baton against her face, even pointing it toward her eyes (as shown in photos 6 and 7). Another female team leader who was present said they would tie her up with a rope if she tried to dodge the baton again.

Other practitioners also suffered electric shocking on their faces and hands. These savage, electric torture acts of practitioners did not stop until breakfast. The division leaders boasted, "It hasn't ended yet. Let's have another round after breakfast!"

At the cafeteria, all practitioners saw what the women practitioners in the Room1 had gone through. They were not recognizable after suffering the electric shocking. Everyone felt upset and angry and couldn't understand how these guards could commit such a vicious crime. The Longshan Labour Camp warden had publicly said, "You are not criminals. We will not regard you as criminals." However, what we suffered was worse than those criminals.

After breakfast, those division leaders told those in the next shift to continue to punish four practitioners. The practitioners were forced to squat in the hallway for a whole morning, while others were forced to sit on a small bench in the cell. Because of squatting for so long, Song Yuying had no feeling on her legs and fell down when going to the toilet.

Around noon, many visitors would arrive at the labour camp. To cover up their misdeeds, the camp authorities did not allow those who had injuries to be seen by their visiting families. However, Li Linghua's family contacted an influential person and demanded to see her. Finally, they arranged for the family to see her at a division leader's office. When the family members saw Li's miserable appearance they immediately cried out, which made the division leaders very nervous. The enforcers even complained to Li Linghua, "Why didn't you tell us earlier that you know so-and-so? If we had known that, we would not have treated you as such."

Practitioner Liu Xiangyu had many relatives coming to see her. Some were from out of town. They demanded to see her and eventually were allowed. Liu's oldest daughter, a non-practitioner, was then pregnant. When she saw her mother's shock-swollen face she couldn't help but cry. Later, Ms. Liu's daughter had premature delivery but she was detained in Longshan and couldn't help take care of her during her daughter's critical period.

This is a good example, illustrating that the persecution of Falun Gong does not merely impact practitioners but also their families, relatives and friends.

At the time when practitioner Zheng Peiling was detained at Longshan, her daughter-in-law had just had a new baby. Zheng Peiling was deprived of the right to help her daughter-in-law and the new baby because she was arrested when she went to Beijing to say a few just words for Falun Dafa. Zheng Peiling was also a chief manager of a sweet factory. Her arrest and detention affected the factory business and the financial loss was hard to measure. Her over 80-year-old mother became weaker and weaker for missing her daughter.

Practitioner Tian Xilian, 50-year-old, lost her-mother-law when she was detained in Longshan. She was not allowed to attend the funeral. Party head Wang turned things upside down and criticized Tian for not having a sense of closeness and not having compassion. Tian Xilian said to Wang, "If you open the door now, I will immediately go home. It is you who does not allow me to go out. What crime have I committed that I was even not allowed to see my family? How can you completely turn things upside down and blame us for not having family closeness?"

The father of practitioner Wu Yefeng died when his daughter was detained in Longshan. His last hope was to see his beloved daughter one more time. However, under the evil persecution of Jiang's regime, his hope couldn't be fulfilled. He died with deep sorrow.

All this and more in what Jiang Zemin boasts to the international community as, "The best period for human rights in China."

(Note: All pictures are reenactments.)

To be continued

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/9/15/84217.html