Crimes in the Liaoning Province Women's Prison

On March 8, 2004, a term reduction meeting was held in the Liaoning Province Women's Prison. During the meeting, the order to "transform" (1) Falun Gong practitioners was announced, with an incentive of a 700 yuan (2) bonus for each "transformation." With the inducement of money, brutal beatings of Falun Gong practitioners occurred in each team. The entire prison was bathed in terror. Every night Falun Gong practitioners could be seen being brutally beaten in front of the wards. The same disaster also befell the Seventh Team of the Seventh Branch.

At that time, every practitioner was very nervous. I was the first one chosen by these vicious people. They selected five people and prepared to start the violence on the night of March 22. It happened that on March 19, officials from Liaoning Province came for an inspection. When they came to the Seventh Team, I took advantage of this precious opportunity. I stood up and spoke loudly about the violence in the Eighth Team. Li Lihong, a prisoner, slapped my face. My nose started bleeding. Zhang Yantong, a section chief of the prison who mainly works on brainwashing, and Li Yan, the team lead of the Seventh Team, immediately held a meeting with the entire team, and the team leads of the other six teams, to criticise me. Before they left work, the two leaders said that no one should beat me or curse me.

But after the team leads left, Zhang Hongxia took me to a small warehouse. Song Shiwen, the head of the prisoners who is now released, Song Xia, the Team Leader of the Second Team of the Seventh Branch, and Chen Jingbo, a prisoner of the First Team of the Seventh Branch who is now released, had been waiting for a long time. Chen Jingbo and Song Wenxia slapped my face. Song Shiwen hit my head with a broom. Seeing that I did not "transform" after about three hours, Song Shiwen ordered Chen to insert the tip of a safety pin under my fingernails. I turned away, and was pierced about twelve times. Seeing that I still did not give in, they called in Li Lihong and Feng Dazhi, both prisoners of the Seventh Team and the Seventh Branch. Li helped Chen to hold me to the floor. I could not bear it.

Inserting the tip of a safety pin into the fingernail

On the night of April 17, Li Shuping and Fu Ying were brutally beaten. We reported these incidents to section chief Zhang, asking him to look into this and resolve it. But the prisoners who conducted the violence, and Liu Fengyuan and Xiao Wei, who were on guard for them, did not take any responsibility.

Starting in October 2004, Falun Gong practitioners were forced to work overtime for six weeks. Under the unbearable pressure we tried to negotiate with the team leaders, but it was to no avail. We then went on strike to protest the illegal tortures in the prison. During that time the amount of work in the prison was tremendous.

We heard that two young girls (said to be prisoners) in the Third Branch "committed suicide." Later we found out that they were actually Falun Gong practitioners who were beaten to death, and the prisoners gave false testimony. During the past year, this kind of incident happened a lot. There are unspeakable details behind each "suicide" case.

In January 2005, Falun Gong practitioners Zhang Lihua and Chen Yuzhi went on hunger strikes after they were locked up in small cells for raising the issue of forced labour with the team leaders. Falun Gong practitioners had many discussions with their team leader, asking for their release. Yet in March the two practitioners were still not released. Chen Yuzhi was forced to stand for a long time for refusing to do forced labour. On April 16 they were forced to work overtime again, with a schedule of 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. Three days later they worked through the entire night. Chen talked to team leader Li Ying about it, and refused to work. Song Yan hit Chen. Chen reported the beating to the team leader, but was ignored. The next day, Song Yan hit Chen again. Later Chen Yuzhi was sent to a small cell for punishment. Falun Gong practitioners asked the team leader and the section chief for her release, but she was not released.

Liu Xia of the Eighth Branch was likewise sent to a small cell around August or September last year and has been locked up ever since.

Li Sen is the new prison warden. Some Falun Gong practitioners wrote to him, but were brutally beaten by the prisoners as a result. Newly imprisoned practitioners are always cursed, beaten, tied up, and dragged along the floor. Many practitioners gave in, as they could not bear the torture. The prison deducts 700f the money from the new prisoners in the name of daily necessities. For example, 360 yuan out of the 420 yuan I had with me was taken away, and some of the daily items are not necessary.

Everyone says that the prison is like hell, with a huge amount of labour. The normal working schedule in the prison is 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., with overtime to 11:00 p.m. On some special occasions, prisoners work all through the night. What has been told to the outside is that the prisoners work a schedule of 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. During the Spring Festival in 2004, the Eighth Branch and the Ninth Branch did not give the prisoners any time off. Moreover, the prisoners worked all through the night.

The guards in the prison also abuse their authority by fining the prisoners. Because the prisoners of the Seventh Team did not meet the production standards due to the short timeline, section chief Hu Xin ordered that everyone be fined 50 yuan. There are over 50 people in the team. The fine reached 2,500 yuan. Every time when working for customers, an additional amount of products were made and were sold internally to the prisoners, and the guards pocketed the extra profits. In addition, guards in other branches physically torture those who cannot finish their assignments. Some prisoners choose to commit suicide or to be locked up to avoid the physical torture. They'd rather give up their points toward reducing their terms. The brutality of the physical tortures is evident.

Note:

(1) "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

(2) "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/5/17/102013.html