Inhuman Torture At the Guizhou Province Women's Labour Camp; Ms. Zhang Yan Died After Brutal Force-Feeding in 2003

Prison staff at the Guizhou Province Women's Labour Camp have committed countless crimes against humanity. Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Chen Guihong was severely tortured and suffered a mental breakdown. Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Zhang Yan, employed by the Zunyi City Medical Institute, was tortured over an extended period, and her body was completely emaciated. She was unable to walk and had to be carried to the treatment room to be force-fed. One day near the end of August 2003, she was again taken to the treatment room, restrained, and died immediately after being force-fed. Another Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Zhou, from Guiyang City, was tortured almost to death and then died soon after being taken home.

"Personal monitors" other prisoners assigned to harass and torture Falun Dafa practitioners, often will take a practitioner to an empty room and for fun take turns throwing the practitioner's body against the wall or into a metal bed frame. They use all their strength to torture the Falun Dafa practitioners. If Falun Dafa practitioners should glance at each other, this will result in immediate beatings. The prison guards will sometimes inject or otherwise install unknown drugs into practitioners' bodies. They force practitioners to memorise the Camp Regulations during time "facing the wall" and force them to view material which slanders Falun Dafa.

Prison guards have daily meetings to discuss new torture techniques, such as stuffing dirty rags into a practitioner's mouth, forcing them to stand facing the summer sun, forcing them to stand in wet, freezing clothes in the winter, and forcing them to stand outside with little clothing in a freezing windstorm. The guards sometimes feel their actions are not severe enough, so they force practitioners to stand outside with bare feet. When the practitioners are too exhausted to stand any longer, the guards enlist other prisoners to punch the practitioner's head against a wall. Many practitioners' clothes are torn or missing, their feet are swollen with injuries and sometimes to the point of decay, their lower body muscles so weakened that they are unable to walk.

Only because Falun Dafa practitioners want to be good people, they are inhumanly tortured in this living hell on earth. It is impossible to imagine the mental and physical hardships they endure. The perpetrators who commit these heinous crimes perform their evil acts mostly under cover, out of sight of even the regular prisoners. The guards try to destroy all the evidence of their tortures. In most cases, the prison guards do not perform these tortures themselves, but direct personal monitors to do the hands-on work. On the surface they are maintaining "civilised management" in a controlled prison environment. In reality, they are directing the most brutal of tortures against these good people, these Falun Dafa practitioners who have committed no crime whatsoever.

When I first entered the Guizhou Province Women's Labour Camp, prison guards shut the door and the windows, drew the curtains, and immediately started training the personal monitors. The personal monitors took turns watching and torturing me, depriving me of sleep for a long time, forcing me to stand facing the wall, forcing me to walk with army steps, making me stand from early morning till night and then from night until morning, not allowing me to even close my eyes, not allowing me to move my hands. Even when mosquitoes bit me, I had to report and get permission to move. If any of the Falun Dafa practitioners collapsed after standing for hours on end, the personal monitors would pour cold water on them. If a practitioner is unable to open his eyes from fatigue, the guards or monitors will punch them in the chest. They would scream at us, "If you write the three statements (1), then you may sleep." Some practitioners who could not bear this degree of torture and accepted the brainwashing against their will, were then assigned as personal monitors, further damaging their dignity and conscience.

The personal monitors had to report to prison guards several times each day, or they would be in trouble themselves. Under the threat of disciplinary action against them combined with the possibility of a shortened sentence for good performance, the personal monitors torture and molest Falun Dafa practitioners at will. Practitioners are only allowed to use the toilet twice per day and by request, with personal monitors watching closely. Some practitioners became ill due to such restriction, but they still were not allowed to wash or use the toilet when needed. Practitioners have to walk to the washroom with their head lowered. At the washroom, the beating and cursing would start immediately. If a practitioner did not follow their direction, he would be pulled back to the cell, choked by the neck until he passed out, then carried to an empty room to be further "punished." Falun Dafa practitioners have to buy personal daily need items from the personal monitors and are not allowed items such as pens and paper.

Prison guards force Falun Dafa practitioners to perform labour more than ten hours each day. This includes elderly women who are 60 to 70 years old. They must finish their work within the allotted time or work overtime.

All steadfast Falun Dafa practitioners have endured life and death hardships in the Camp. These descriptions of the camp activities I have witnessed personally and are the truth. Many more tortures are known to occur behind closed doors.

Note:

(1) "Three Statements": Practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write "Repentance Statement," "Guarantee Statement" or 'Dissociation Statement" as proof that they have given up their belief. In the statement, the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practising Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/8/1/107486.html