Three Practitioners, Including a 16-Year-Old, Forced into Slave Labour

Falun Dafa practitioners Mr. Xu Zhiwu, 40 years old; Mr. Song Hongjian, 37 years old; and Mr. Yang Shuguang, 16 years old, are all from Shancheng County, Henan Province. Shancheng County Police Station authorities sent all three of them to the Henan Second Prison in Henan Province without any legal procedures or legal documents. Yang Shuguang has since been forced to do rigorous hard labour, including working on a big furnace.

In 2002, Mr. Xu Zhiwu was illegally imprisoned at the Shancheng Police Station for 14 months. He was released only after both of his legs became paralysed with numbness and his life was in danger. To this day, he has not recovered his health. During this detention, Mr. Xu went on a hunger strike for three days, and the condition of his legs deteriorated to the extent that he could not even walk. The Henan Second Prison still admitted him, ignoring the standard checkup and breaching Chinese law, which dictates that severely ill prisoners are not to be accepted. The practitioners who were completely unable to perform work were force-fed. Prison officials Mao Zhenjing and Li Shupeng instructed seven prison staff members to pin down the practitioners' limbs while a screwdriver was driven down their throats until they foamed at the mouth. Some practitioners' noses were also pinched closed so that they could not breathe. Prison staff member Li Jianbing stepped on practitioners' chests with total disregard for their lives in order to perform the force-feeding.

Criminal inmates supervise the three practitioners every day, and the prison staff, who report to the prison supervisors, monitor their actions closely. Since March 6, 2005, the practitioners have been forced to perform slave labour for 24 hours a day in two shifts, producing steel in a hot furnace, where they are exposed to molten ore. The twelve-hour shifts exceed the maximum number of hours that prison labour is allowed to work. Only those who work in the furnace are provided with food. Those who perform sanitary and miscellaneous tasks are not fed. Practitioners Mr. Song Hongjiang and 16-year-old Yang Shuguang have been forced into slave labour in the furnace. The prisoners are divided into teams, and those who refuse to work are randomly beaten with thick wooden boards by the team supervisors.

Prison staff and supervisors tie practitioners up and shock them with electric batons at will. When practitioner Mr. Wu Jingzhou argued with the team leader, the team leader tied him up and shocked him with two electric batons. Mr. Wu was then placed beside a furnace heated to over 1000° C for two minutes. When a practitioner refuses to work, the prison staff beat him at will. The illegal abuse of practitioners is a common phenomenon. Many practitioners have bruises all over their bodies from severe beatings, yet they are still forced to work in the furnace.

If someone refuses to work, the prison staff gathers everyone in an activity room and forces them to study slanderous books and be brainwashed with fabricated stories. Practitioners are forced to listen to the prison staff intently and to endanger their lives working for the prison.

The practitioners must get up at 6:00 a.m. to start their cleaning tasks, both private and public. Personal tasks include: brushing their teeth, washing their faces, putting their bedcovers in a designated room, and neatly folding their bed sheets. Public cleaning tasks include: scrubbing the floors; washing windows; washing the walls; and scrubbing sinks and toilets in the living quarters, corridors, washrooms, activity rooms, luggage rooms and storerooms. All the tasks are to be performed once or twice daily, and those who do not complete the tasks are beaten. The three mealtimes at 7:00 am, 11:00 am and 6:00 pm are about twenty minutes long, and attendance in the dining area is marked before and after each meal. The meagre meals consist of very diluted rice in boiled water or half a bowl of carrot and cabbage soup. Most of those who don't receive money from their families for additional food are starving. Those who are able to buy items have to pay the prison's highly inflated prices for poor quality goods. The prison officials won't even spend the stipulated $108 per month ($120 per month if the prisoner did physical labour) for a prisoner's living expenses. When the day finally finishes at 9:00 or 10:00 p.m., attendance is taken and the practitioners are allowed to rest, but they have to call the roll and need to go to a different place to get their bedcovers so that they can sleep. Oftentimes, they have to run back and forth several times before they can get their bedcovers.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/5/2/100941.html