What Really Goes on in the Beijing Juvenile Detention Centre

I was sentenced to three years in prison for wanting to practise Falun Dafa. They locked me in the Juvenile Detention Centre. While imprisoned, I witnessed many things that are hidden secrets, unknown to the general public.

1. The untold truth about the Juvenile Detention Centre

The Centre was under the direct supervision of the Prison Management of Beijing City. It was the stronghold where Jiang's group of gangsters (referring to the former President and dictator of China Jiang Zemin and his regime) carried out the suppression and persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners. In October of 2000, the centre was moved from Lishuiqiao, outside Anding, to the new location in Daxing County, across from the Labour Re-education Personnel Dispatch Centre in Beijing City, and separated by a large farm field between the two. The centre's name was changed from "Youth Detention Centre" to "Juvenile Detention Centre."

The name, Juvenile Detention Centre, was a deceptive disguise for the uninformed. They wanted people to think that the place was a cultural and moral education centre for lawbreaking minors, or a centre for youth work-study program. My husband even naively thought that the kind, highly-educated Falun Gong practitioners were sent there to teach youths. Little did I know that I was to be thrown into a "hell" on earth! Electric barbed wire was scattered over the tall walls, high watchtowers were at the four corners, and armed police with guns stood guard day and night at the gate. There was an isolation area segregated by the wire mesh fence, which was the K-shaped jail within the prison. It is equipped with automatic audio and video surveillance and an alarm system to monitor and record every corner of the prison. It was a well-kept secret.

Since it is called the "Juvenile Detention Centre," one would think that the people imprisoned there would consist of youths under the age of 18. In fact, from 2000 to 2003, 70% of the over one thousand population locked in the facility were adults, consisting of about half men and the other half women.

The centre was further divided into four prison divisions, and ten sub-divisions. Each sub-division housed about 100 to 120 people. The young male prisoners were locked in the first division. Male adults were locked in the second division. The third division (6 and 7 sub-divisions) was mostly adult women with one or two young women. The fourth division (8, 9, and 10 sub-divisions) consisted of entirely adult women. This was a top secret, not even known to the police of the public security offices at the state and all other levels of the legal system. When the policemen saw the "Juvenile Detention Centre" stamp on my prison release document, they were amazed and thought that it was inconceivable that I, an old lady, had been locked in a juvenile prison.

The secret had to be concealed from foreign countries. Whenever there were any foreign visitors, the prison authorities ordered all women to hide, to avoid being seen by the foreigners. One time, prisoners from the ninth sub-division were forced to work the slave labour job of "trimming sheep wool" in the jail house east of the male juvenile division. But we were told to stop working not long after we started the job. We were told to leave right away, go back to the women's jail-house to the west, sit in the centre of the room and not be seen near the windows. We were baffled by what was going on! Later, we learnt that we had Japanese visitors. Because Chinese officials claimed that the prison system in China was very civil, and managed according to classification and sex, and that there were no co-ed prisons, we had to leave the work site and hide in the room. When the Minghui/Clearwisdom.net website (Falun Gong website) exposed the fact that authorities in Masanjia Forced Labour Camp stripped eighteen female Falun Dafa practitioners and threw them into a cell filled with men, everyone was infuriated. The ninth sub-division police explained that it had to be untrue because the Chinese prison system always had policy of providing separate male and female prisons, and thus what happened in Masanjia was just not possible. The prison officials were well aware of the fact that the Juvenile Detention Centre that they were managing locked both male and female prisoners together, yet they were willing to lie again and again in the face of the true facts.

2. Policemen promoted for persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners

The Juvenile Detention Centre followed the lead of Jiang's gangster group and an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems called the "610 Office" to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners with wild zeal. During the period from November of 2000 to February of 2003, the ninth sub-division illegally locked up 49 Falun Dafa practitioners ranging in age from 18 to 72.

The centre's assistant director Jin Hua, the fourth division head Huang Qinghua, the ninth sub-division head Zheng Yumei, and the assistant of the ninth sub-division Li Xiaonuo were the key persons responsible for persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners.

It was a customary practise to torture Falun Dafa practitioners with techniques such as sleep deprivation, long-term torture devices, military drilling, corporal punishment, compiling fake scriptures, spreading rumours and slandering words, personal attacks, and lies and deceptions. In addition, they adopted a very strict military-style management, forced overtime, and excessive slave labour work, forced brainwashing, mandatory viewing of anti-Falun Gong propaganda films, and demanded tons of writing. It created a very tense atmosphere for practitioners, causing physical fatigue, and forcing practitioners to the brink of collapse. Some practitioners actually suffered from mental collapse due to the mistreatment. Guards instigated Li Cuixiang, the criminal who was sentenced for fraud to 15 years in prison, to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners with vicious means like spreading rumours, cheating, and deceptions. One of the rules in the prison was that a fraud criminal could not be assigned the role of a team leader or someone as a special helper to the prison management. They ignored the rule and gave her authority and freedom beyond that allowed by law so that she could persecute Falun Dafa practitioners and compile and write reports for the "610 Office." She even bragged about her privileges.

The Juvenile Detention Centre took the initiative to help Xichengqu Detention Centre persecute over twenty Falun Gong practitioners who were staging a hunger strike as a form of peaceful appeal against the persecution. They helped the State Security Chief Team to illegally detain practitioners waiting for trial in the brainwashing centre, and proposed to "transform" practitioners in Chadian men's prison in Qinghe in an effort to make money through helping the Datun Village "610 Office." They continued to carry out many persecutory crimes against Falun Dafa practitioners, yet these inhuman acts were commended and awarded by Jiang's lawless regime.

In September of 2001, the public security office commended the ninth sub-division for being the "progressive cultural division" in persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners. The Beijing municipal administration law clerk, Qiang Wei, who is currently under investigation by The World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), visited many times to show support and encouragement to the police. The policeman, Huang Qinghua, was awarded as an outstanding Communist Party member and outstanding justice administrative worker by Jiang's Beijing municipal administrative office. He was promoted from the ninth sub-division head to the fourth division head, Zheng Yumei was promoted from the assistant to a division head, and Li Xiaonuo was promoted from a general prison guard to the assistant of a sub-division.

3. A look at Jiang's crimes from the perspective of the persecution suffered by practitioners in the Juvenile Detention Centre

All 49 practitioners locked in the Juvenile Detention Centre were good people who lived by the principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." Some of them were model and progressive workers. They were illegally sentenced because they would not give up their beliefs and they explained the facts about the practise to other people.

On the 4th of February, 2000, Chinese New Year's Day, over one thousand determined Falun Dafa practitioners went to Tiananmen Square to display the Falun or Law Wheel emblem and "Falun Dafa is Good" banners. Jiang was extremely upset and personally ordered a thorough investigation to search for the organiser of this event. This was the so-called "204" case. What they didn't know was that there was no organiser, so no matter how much national effort they put in to look for an organiser, they could not find one because there wasn't one. They then arrested nine people including Li Shuying, Li Jie, Mi Xiaoping, Liang Zhaohui, Yan Haizhi, Yang Xiliang, Hu Guoping, He Weizhi, and myself, and accused us of being the organisers. We were illegally sentenced. Li Shuying and I were each sentenced for three years, Li Jie for five years. All of us served our terms in the Juvenile Detention Centre.

There were two Falun Gong practitioners from the military locked up in the Juvenile Detention Centre. One was an English Professor, adviser of doctorate students from the Air Force Command Institute, Liu Xizhen. The other was the Principal Doctor of Gynecology and Obstetrics in the Army Hospital, Li Chaoran. They were arrested at Liu Xizhen's house while discussing a possible date, the 11th, to go to Tiananmen Square. They were arrested with the crime "planning to go to Tiananmen Square for a Falun Gong activity" and were illegally sentenced to five and four years in prison, respectively.

The Jiang regime's worst fear is that Falun Dafa practitioners can break through the government information blockade. They spend a great deal of effort and planning to arrest people who attempt this, and punish them with extreme sentences. Ms. Mu Chunyan was sentenced to seven years because she was in charge of printing truth-clarification materials. Guo Shujing and Zhang Lixin were each sentenced to three years.

Since 2001, Jiang's regime has escalated their vengeful persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners. The Falun Dafa practitioners are certainly not shaken a bit. More and more practitioners join the wave to clarify the facts, printing and distributing truth-clarification materials. Jiang's outraged and angry regime has been arbitrarily arresting and punishing practitioners with heavy sentences.

Mr. Yao Yue, 27, was a candidate for a Master's degree at Qinghua University. He was illegally sentenced to 12 years in prison for clarifying the facts about Falun Gong to people by, launching remote controlled balloons, and distributing materials containing factual information about Falun Gong.

Ms. Jiang Changfeng, a 72-year old retired cadre, worked for the government all her life. She was unlawfully sentenced to ten years because she cooked for practitioners who were in charge of printing Falun Gong related materials. She was constipated for seven days from the harsh distress suffered in the Juvenile Detention Centre. Her face was so full of pus and swollen that she could not open her eyes. Under the circumstances, they still tortured her body day and night and enforced brainwashing activities. Her husband, Yu Zhangxin, was a high level cadre in the air force. He was illegally sentenced to 18 years in prison for being a fellow of the Falun Dafa Research Group. He is currently serving the sentence in the military prison.

In 1990, Ms. Xu Nuo graduated from Beijing Broadcast College majoring in Television Programming. She later became an oil painter and held a few art exhibitions throughout the country and the world. In 2002 she was unlawfully sentenced to five years in prison for downloading and compiling Falun Dafa materials from the web.

Ms. Hao, a woman from the Pinggu mountain farming area, was a simple and sincere person. Both husband and wife cultivated Falun Dafa and led a very comfortable life. She was wanted by the local police for pasting "Falun Dafa is Good" banners and distributing factual information about Falun Gong. To avoid being persecuted she wandered around the mountain area for over one year, raising chicken in the mountains. Eventually, they were both arrested, illegally sentenced, and sent to prison. They had to leave their over 80-year old father and two small young children at home, unable to subsist without the couple's economic support. She is in the prison without money or resources, and in an extremely difficult situation.

Forty-nine Falun Dafa practitioners were "found guilty" by the court of: surfing the Internet, downloading information from the web, printing and distributing materials, appealing in Tiananmen Square, and so on. These so-called crimes are exactly the basic human rights that are guaranteed and protected by all democratic countries. They are clearly written into the Chinese constitution as well. The fabrications written in the court judgements against Falun Dafa practitioners shall become the irrefutable evidence for the inhuman crimes committed by Jiang and his followers.