The Torture and Persecution That I Sustained Inside Wangcun Forced Labour Camp

Recently, "CCTV" [China Central TV]broadcast a series of fabricated lies and rumours alleging that Falun Gong practitioners are not tortured when they are arrested and detained by the authorities. This is completely untrue and so I hereby document and submit my personal experience of the torture and degradation I experienced when I would not go against my own conscience by giving up the practice of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance;" the practice of Falun Gong.

In 1999, I travelled to the capital city of Beijing to appeal for an end to the persecution and to clarify the facts about Falun Gong. However, not only was I arrested, but I was sent to a labour camp. In the process of my appeal, I suffered merciless beatings from Beijing's Public Security Police and the local public security police. The Beijing police tried to force me to slander our Teacher. If I refused, they would hit and kick me. At my workplace's branch office in Beijing, the police forced me to squat on the floor while they stomped on my toes with their leather boots. They handcuffed me and grabbed and pulled my hair to make me turn around in circles while rubbing their boots on my face and mercilessly beating and kicking me. Such was the public security personnel's "warm reception" that I received when I went to Beijing to legally and peacefully appeal for the rights of Falun Gong practitioners!

In order to protest the illegal "re-education through labour" sentence, I began a hunger strike. The re-education police inside the labour camp conspired with the prison inmates to barbarically force-feed me. They held me on the floor and thrust a tube into my nostril. Soon the tube was dripping with blood because of the injuries caused by the forceful insertion. Another of my fellow practitioners was murdered while being force-fed in this manner. Because the police feared that they would be blamed for this incident, they fabricated lies saying that the death was caused by weakened kidney function due to the hunger strike. They also used reduced jail terms to entice prison inmates to concoct and falsify evidence. Actually, the majority of the inmates in the labour camp were aware of the truth about this incident. Quite a few also witnessed the barbaric scene of this tragic episode and some of them secretly condemned the inhumane nature of the police and the labour camp guards.

Because of my persistence in refusing to give up the practice of Falun Gong, the police transferred me to the Wangcun Forced Labour Camp in Shandong Province. After my admittance there, once again, because of my refusal to provide a written "Guarantee Statement" (1), two policemen dragged me to a secret room, that was especially designed for forcing confessions through the administration of torture. It was an airtight cell located in an inconspicuous courtyard. About a dozen police, in assault readiness gear, were waiting for me. They all wore long rubber gloves and in their hands they held various lengths and sizes of electric batons. Amidst angry growling, they menacingly pressed me firmly to the floor, twisted both my arms behind my back and tightly handcuffed me. They then ripped off my clothes and my shoes and stomped on my legs and grabbed and pulled my hair. The innumerable electric batons in their hands began to rain down on me, sending out frightening, sparkling, hissing high voltage currents. They shocked me on my head, my face, my body, and the soles of my feet. The air was soon filled with smell of burning flesh. The police then thrust an electric baton into my mouth. In this way, they tortured and tried to force me into writing a repentance guarantee as dictated by them. After this incident, the police attempted to cover up their atrocity. They imprisoned me in isolation and in handcuffs inside the criminal division of the so-called re-education centre of the main prison, in order that others would not see what they had done to me.

Afterwards, the prison authorities transferred me to a special division established solely for the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Since I steadfastly continued to refuse to accept "transformation," for a long period of time, I suffered new atrocities at the hands of the guards and their accomplices. These accomplices included collaborators - those former practitioners who have turned against Falun Gong under brainwashing and torture and are then made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners.They were relentless in their new forms of torture. They employed severe intimidation methods, non-stop interference in rotating shifts, tiring and fatiguing strategies, merciless beatings and other inhuman means designed to devastate my body. For a long period of time, I was isolated. I was forced to sit in a fixed posture on a very narrow wooden stool. A slip of paper was inserted between my legs. I was forbidden from moving my feet and my hands were placed on my knees. If for any reason the slip of paper fell or moved, severe, merciless beatings would rain down as punishment. Sometimes for several days and nights in a row, we practitioners were not allowed to sleep; only a few minutes of rest was allowed in a day. The guards lied about this abuse and dared to shamelessly say that they did not deprive us of sleep.

When their threats failed to change our will, and in order to create an environment of psychological fear and pressure, the authorities resorted to sentencing us to illegal jail terms, increasing the time of prison terms, and refusing to release those steadfast practitioners whose prison terms were over. They manipulated the collaborators to burn me with a cigarette lighter and beat my legs with a wooden club until my legs were covered with blue and purple injuries. They forcefully tied my legs up in a full lotus position for long periods of time, and tried to "transform" me through their own rigorous criticism, discussion, condemnation and punishment rituals designed to humiliate and confuse me. They also claimed that whatever they were doing was a combination of western and Chinese methods of medical treatment designed to "cure" the illness that caused me to not give in. If they couldn't "cure" me, they said they would lose the chance of having their jail terms reduced. The variety of torture methods they came up with to devastate people were unimaginable and too numerous to mention. This was not the first time that my strong determination began to waver under the atrocities that they inflicted upon my body and mind.

I also witnessed many tortures that were inflicted on other steadfast Falun Gong practitioners. They would strip off practitioners' clothing and expose their naked bodies to the icy blast of winter winds until they froze. They handcuffed practitioners' hands between two iron beds, making the victim squat in that position for long periods of time. They handcuffed and shackled practitioners to open windows to make them freeze in the cold. They made the practitioners balance cups filled with water on their heads and if the water spilled or the cup fell, they were severely beaten. During winter, buckets of freezing water were poured over practitioners' heads. In the hot summer months, they would refuse to provide water to quench practitioners' thirst, and they forced them to wear woollen hats instead, to intensify the effects of the heat. Practitioners were also prohibited from using the toilet. Such was the shameful and notorious terrorist-style treatment adopted and used by the police, guards, and "reformed" (2) practitioners.

The above is my testimony of the abuses I suffered and witnessed at the forced labour camp.

Notes:

(1) "Guarantee Statement": A statement to declare that one is remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practise Falun Gong again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate with any Falun Dafa practitioners.

(2) "Reformed" refers to a practitioner having publicly renounced Falun Dafa.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/1/31/94605.html