I was detained and brutally tortured in the 5th and 1st brigades at Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp. In the end, my heart disease recurred due to the persecution. Because the labour camp officials do not care about human life, they agreed to release me only after two more deaths were registered. After two more deaths they would have reached their allowable quota for deaths, and to avoid having to answer for my death, they said they would release me.
I began practising Falun Dafa in 1998. Before learning Dafa I had been very weak due to suffering from many illnesses. I needed frequent injections, took medicines and spent time hospitalised. I had a very hot temper and frequently argued with others. After I became a Falun Dafa practitioner, I benefited both physically and mentally. My many diseases disappeared without further treatment. My temperament brightened and I was able to treat other people kindly.
After the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20th 1999, I suffered persecution many times. Specifically in August 2002, the local police led two superintendents on a raid of my home. They tried to force me to write the Three Statements (1). When I refused, they called for more policemen, who forcibly took me to the police car and handcuffed me. They coerced my family into opening the door of my room, and they grabbed my Dafa books and cassettes. At the police station I was forced to sit in an iron chair, with both of my hands were shackled behind the back of the chair. Later, I was moved to the detention centre of the sub-bureau.
During my detention at the sub-bureau, the police interrogated me to obtain information on fellow practitioners. They wanted information such contact names and the methods we used to contact each other. I did not reveal any information that could hurt others.
When I was detained the last time, my workplace gave me only 200 yuan (2) for living expenses because I refused to write the "Guarantee Statement." (3) I still persisted in practising Falun Gong. I could not support myself otherwise, so I had to stay at work. I was then arrested, sentenced to one year of forced labour and brutally persecuted.
At Wanjia Training Centre, because I refused to write the Three Statements, I was forced to squat within a space that is only 30 centimetres (1 foot) square until late at night.
Torture Specialists Moved to the 5th Brigade in Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp
In mid-October, I was transferred to the 5th Brigade at the Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp. There was a newly established team there created specifically for persecuting Dafa practitioners. The team was comprised of Captain Zhao Shuang, political instructor Zhang Chunliang, and Deputy Captain Yang Yu. They also transferred the most brutal criminal prisoners from each of the other brigades to the 5th Brigade to assist in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.
The Persecution Methods of the 5th Brigade
First, the practitioners are stripped and body-searched . Then they are subjected to more than 20 different tortures. They use psychological tactics against practitioners as well. They say such things as, "You knew so and so, right? She was such a firm practitioner; even she could not bear the torture, can you endure it?"
The actual torture means used are as follows:
Pushing: The perpetrators fill the practitioner's mouth with long strips of cloth and then force the practitioner down on their hands and knees with their head touching the floor. Then someone sits in a chair placed over the practitioner's head, locking it in place. Then they push the practitioner's arms from behind, to the front of the head.
Pinching: Pinching the legs.
Breaking the Feet
(Many people are needed to simultaneously implement the pushing, pinching, and foot breaking tortures).
Numbness: Numbness is caused by the smashing of the veins and nerve endings.
Check: The knob of a tea pot lid is used to drill in between the ribs from top to bottom. This is also called "Checking Short Ribs."
Smashing: Beating a person's back with the legs of a tall stool.
Chopping: Chopping the back of the neck with a board or a wooden block.
Electric shock: Using electric batons to shock practitioners, especially the sensitive parts of the body such as the genitals, until they are burned. (They sometimes pour cold or hot water on someone first to intensify the electric shock.)
Whipping: Whipping a practitioner's head using a rubber stick or rubber bar. Sometimes one's head becomes very swollen with internal bleeding that takes weeks to go down.
Pricking: The use of needles to prick the body.
Slapping: Slapping the face.
Beating: Beating with fists.
Kicking
Dousing with Water: Pouring cold water on the body, wetting the clothes, and forcing practitioners to keep wearing the cold wet clothes.
Freezing: Stripping off or wetting all the clothes and then opening the window to freeze the victim.
Squatting: Punishing people by making them squat inside a space that is only 30 centimetres (about 1 foot) square for long periods of time.
Hammering: Hammering toothpicks under the fingernails.
Hanging Up: Handcuffing both hands to the top bunk beds for several days and nights. The victim hangs there and the perpetrators keep them awake the entire time.
Wiping the Eyes with Irritants: If a practitioner closes their eyes, the guards wipe the eyes with chilli sauce, which causes continuous tearing.
Brushing: After a practitioner's neck is swollen from being chopped, the guards use toothbrushes to roughly abrade the skin until the flesh and blood are intermingled.
Force-feeding: The perpetrators force-feed mustard oil into the nose, which causes long-term loss of smell. To practitioners who are on hunger strike, the guards force-feed fluids mixed with a great deal of salt through a tube inserted into the nose. Sometimes the tube is even plunged into the lung, causing death.
Elbowing: Using the elbow to hit practitioners in the breast.
Stomping: Stepping on a practitioner while wearing heavy shoes or boots.
Twisting: Pinching the handle of a toothbrush between the base of two fingers and twisting it until the bones of the fingers are exposed.
Rat Bites: Putting a 5 to 6-inch rat inside the person's trousers.
Once when Deputy Captain Yang Yu was on the night shift, I was called to the guard's room. They tried to force me to write the Three Statements by torturing all my sensitive places (such as my neck and private parts) with an electric baton.
I refused to write the Three Statements, so I was hung up for three days and nights. During that period, I was also tortured with many of the above-mentioned methods. On the ninth day after I arrived at the 5th Brigade, both of my hands were swollen to two inches thick, and the skin was so swollen that it appeared to be transparent. The back of my left hand festered with infection and my wrists were torn by the handcuffs. I had many canker sores inside of my mouth and I could not eat for several days. After being let down, because I could not stand, I sat on the ground and later fainted. They left me lying on the ground for a day. On the second day, I was sent to Wanjia Forced Labour Camp Hospital for further persecution.
The Persecution Methods of Wanjia Forced Labour Camp Hospital
The doctors tortured the practitioners who were on hunger strike (to protest the persecution) by force-feeding them with lots of salt. They forced practitioners to squat and deprived them of sleep if they did not write the Three Statements. As soon as a practitioner so much as blinked their eyes, they were pricked with needles. In the winter, many practitioners suffered from being hosed down with cold water. Some non-practitioner inmates also suffered this torture; they usually died after several rounds of this torture. Their dead bodies were simply carried to the iron coffins in the backyard.
The hospital only allowed two family visits each month. Food, clothes and other belongings delivered by family members were taken by the duty officers at will. Practitioners were not allowed to shower or wash their clothes. They had to get permission from the doctors to use the toilets. Several severely sick people could not hold back their urine and wet the bed. Then the perpetrators simply threw away the bedding and let them freeze in the cold of winter. I did not have bedding with me, so I froze for a night. On the second day, my family asked to visit me and brought me bedding. I was not allowed to see my family because I did not write the Three Statements in the hospital. Later, my bedding was taken by the prisoners and I endured more than 20 cold days.
The hospital charged 300 to 500 yuan for a single bed every month, otherwise the bed remained vacant. A bunk bed sometimes had 5 to 6 people sleeping in just the lower bed. Their calves and legs would stretch beyond the bed. Usually, 2 to 4 people had to sleep on their sides and some people with many injuries from torture were tied to the headboard of the bed. While inspecting the hospital wards, the head of the hospital, a man with the surname Song, told the duty officers to pay attention not to leave any external injury evident when torturing practitioners. They wanted to avoid having the families checking over the bodies of their loved ones after death. The medical treatment and living conditions were very bad and the persecution was so brutal that on average, one person died every five days. Sometimes one coffin would contain as many as three bodies.
We were not allowed to shower and wash our clothes (except for prisoners with "special privileges"). There was a lot of body lice and many people had scabies and festering growths on their bodies. The doctors used a long-handled steel spoon to scratch the wounds until they bled profusely. In the tuberculosis wards (Wards 309 and 314) and the heavy discipline ward (Ward 307), practitioners were not allowed to lie down during the daytime, but squatted a lot, causing the wounds on their buttocks to bleed. This caused the underwear to stick to the wounds, which caused extreme pain when practitioners took off their trousers.
Breakfast and dinner in the hospital consisted of half a bun, a bowl of porridge and a few pieces of pickles. Lunch was a small bun and a bowl of vegetable soup. If anything remained, it would be thrown away in order to starve Dafa practitioners and patients. The duty officer told the patients to ask their families for money when they visited. Then he would give the money to the head duty officer. The head duty officer was Zhang Jun, a drug dealer who was bailed out on medical treatment. Not long after he was bailed out, he was sentenced to death for selling huge amounts of drugs. Zhang Jun bribes Police Captain Chen 5,000 yuan every month.
The Persecution Suffered in the 1st Brigade in Changlinzi Labour Camp
I was persecuted for more than seven months in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp Hospital. Six Dafa practitioners and I were sent to Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp because we fell behind in paying the medical expenses. This time I was allocated to the 1st Brigade. This brigade was responsible for the supervision of practitioners at night. Two guards slept on each side of me. During the daytime, four to five people monitored me and did not allow me to speak to other practitioners.
We worked overtime from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. each day and when it was busy, I even worked until 11 p.m. or midnight. Tuberculosis patients also sorted toothpicks. Other people undertook the manufacture and transportation of the toothpicks. The production workshop had massive amounts of sawdust produced by the lathe shaping the toothpicks. The extremely loud noise level caused many people to become sick, especially those with lung diseases.
On visiting day, Dafa practitioners were strictly monitored and the items delivered by their families were carefully checked. Guo Richeng even pulled apart the packages of instant noodles to inspect them and searched my whole body. He randomly touched and pinched everywhere on my body, claiming to be looking for cash and articles by Teacher Li.
Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp never gives the practitioners the money for medical expenses or the pocket money provided them by the families, but they asked practitioners to sign their names for all the items their families brought them. Then they charged the families 300 yuan for "baggage expenses," but they did not give us the things our families brought. This extortion was said to be the idea of Superintendent Shi Yingbai; he was the behind-the-scenes commander of the labour camp police. If the family did not pay the labour camp personnel, they were not allowed to visit.
Breakfast was porridge, which consisted of corn kernels with some husks and pickles. For lunch and dinner, we were given a cake or steamed bun which was often sour and sticky (old corn flour and old flour), vegetable soup, cabbage or carrots which had been cooked for so long that the smell was disgusting. People needed more food and were not given any more. An elderly person kept crying because of hunger. Not long after that, he was hospitalised and died.
Many practitioners are detained beyond their terms. As far as I know, practitioners who were due to be released on November 1st 2002, could not leave until the 17th because they refused to write the Three Statements. Luo Li was detained for an extra month. A practitioner in the 2nd Brigade was not set free when the term was up, because he would not write the Three Statements. Later, he was released after many days of being on a hunger strike. I was held for three more months after the date that I should have been released on medical bail. Detaining practitioners beyond their terms is another means of persecuting Dafa practitioners.
In the 1st Brigade, because I had not entirely recuperated from all the tortures, I could not take care of myself. I could not complete the work quota, so I was punished many times by having to stand outdoors in the cold. I practised the exercises and refused to wear the name tag of a prisoner, so I was cruelly beaten by Deputy Captain Guo Richeng, Zhang (surname) and Captain Yang Jintang. After New Year's Day 2004, Yang Yu was transferred to the 1st Brigade as Deputy Captain. Yang Jintang ordered Yang Yu to persecute me. At that time, I already suffered from heart disease and anaemia due to the persecution. I had to support myself on the wall when walking and I could not go to the canteen to eat. Yang Yu handcuffed me and attempted to torture me using an electric baton. I said, "I now have heart disease; if you torture me with that electric baton, it may take my life." He said, "Even if you die, I will still torture you." I shouted loudly and called for help, but he taped my mouth shut. A practitioner opened the door and saw what was happening. Afterwards, Yang Yu looked for that practitioner many times to persecute him.
Yang Yu's plan failed and he had others carry me to room 201. The instructors were going to put me in bed, but he told them to lay me on the bare floor. Furthermore, he wrote on a piece of fabric "prisoner so-and-so" and sewed it to the back of my clothes. On the third day, Yang Jintang saw that I was almost dead and sent me for a checkup. I described the persecution I had suffered to my mother, because they wanted my family to pay the examination fee. My mother argued strongly against paying, based on the reasoning I provided. The physical examination showed that I had double pulmonary tuberculosis. I was moved to Ward 206 for tuberculosis sufferers and was forced to sit on a small stool. Later, after negotiations with my family, I was allowed to rest in a bed.
In early February 2004, Yang Jintang told my family to bail me out. My family went to the work unit to sign and get the release stamped. The manager said, "It's better for her to die in there. I can't sign." Afterwards, an administrative official acted on my workplace's behalf; and only then did they agree to sign for my release. Through early April, we obtained the signatures of more than ten work units. During that period, we had to pay 800 yuan in judicial checkup fees, fares, form fees, treatment expenses and so on. The brigade leader told me that I could go home soon, however, after May 1st 2004, the other people on bail all went home, but I remained. I asked Yang Jintang for the reason, and he said he needed the approval of a superior. Later, he said that my term could be reduced only if I wrote the Three Statements.
At the end of June, my heart disease returned and I lost control of my bowels. Yang Jintang did not want to let me go, but the 1st Brigade had already killed Dafa practitioner Tian Baobin and an instructor. On July 2nd 2004, they notified my family that I needed another health checkup. On the same day, staff from my workplace and my family came to pick me up. My mother saw that I was on the verge of death. She requested that they send me to the hospital, so they found people to carry me to the ambulance. The ambulance attendants put an oxygen mask on me and delivered me to the pulmonary section of the hospital.
I was finally free.
The above is just some of the brutal persecution I suffered at Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp. It is a living hell for Dafa practitioners. Its 5th Brigade is the most vicious in persecuting practitioners. Many practitioners died or became disabled there.
Here, I would like to call on all just people, who love peace and respect human rights, to come together in stopping the brutal persecution of Dafa practitioners in China. Let us bring these evildoers to justice.
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.
(2) "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.
(3) "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.
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/8/22/108907.html
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