Persecution at the Changchun Forced Labour Camp

The Jilin Province Women's Forced Labour Camp is also known as the Changchun City Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Reform School. The mailing address of the labour camp is: Mail Box 1085, Jilin 130022. Ninety percent of the detainees in the labour camp are practitioners, seven percent are religious believers not approved by the Chinese government, and only about three percent are criminals. The detained practitioners are accused of "Disturbing the Social Order."

The Jilin Province Women's Forced Labour Camp's focus is to persecute practitioners. However, to hide their brutal persecution from the outside world, the Chinese Communist Party has falsified evidence and changed the name of the labour camp to the Changchun City Heizuizi Women's Forced Labour Reform School. The prison guards call the detainees "students" and frequently threaten them by saying, "Always remember that no matter how old you are or what your title was, if you are here, you are criminals who must work."

The detainees are divided into seven brigades that are then divided into groups, with each group monitored by a prison guard. The groups are further divided into sub-groups consisting of three or more people with a sub-group leader. Practitioners are put in the middle of the sub-groups and closely monitored by the sub-group leader. In a group, detainees are forced to stay a distance of one metre apart. They have to work, eat, sleep, and use the toilet together. They are not allowed to talk with each other or with detainees from other sub-groups. Anyone who violates these rules is reported. Each brigade has four "study coordinators" assigned by the prison guards to persecute the practitioners.

In each brigade, there is a special group called the New Students Group that focuses on viciously torturing newly detained Falun Gong practitioners. This special group is headed by a brigade captain who specialises in brainwashing and a prison guard. The other guards also "help" persecute newly arrived practitioners, who have to stay in the special group for two months.

During this period, intensive brainwashing and physical tortures are administered simultaneously to try to force practitioners to give up the practise of Falun Gong. They force practitioners to watch videos, listen to audios, and read books that slander and defame Falun Dafa. They also try to coerce practitioners to slander the practise.

If a practitioner refuses to write the "guarantee statements¹" or writes something that the prison guards do not like, the practitioner is tortured. If the practitioner is "lucky," she is not allowed to sleep before midnight or for a whole night and must stand all day and night, causing her legs to swelling. She is also cursed at daily. If the practitioner is "unlucky," however, she is beaten and shocked with electric batons. Even detainees younger than 20 years old or elderly people in their 60s or 70s are not spared.

A practitioner in her 60s, suffering from high blood pressure, heart disease and poor vision, was tortured only because she believes Falun Dafa is good. The guards beat her up until her mouth bled and shocked her with electric batons until her chest area was full of burn marks. Yet, they were unable to shake her belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." The prison guards then lied to her family members so they would misunderstand her.

It is common practise for the guards to spread lies that practitioners do not care about their families and to coerce family members to persuade practitioners to stop practising Falun Dafa. They also coerce the practitioners' husbands to divorce them and force employers to fire them.

After being persecuted in the New Students Group, the practitioner is further persecuted in other groups. The prison guard "talks" with practitioners every two or three days. As long as practitioners say "Falun Dafa is good," the guards torture them. Even words like "be kind," "be virtuous," or "be good" are not allowed to be spoken. Practitioners are also forced to attend brainwashing sessions that slander Falun Gong. If they refuse to attend, they are persecuted.

Practitioners have to work more than 12 hours a day during the weekdays and ten hours a day on the weekends. They are not allowed any breaks during the day or given any holidays. Even a robust person could not endure such a workload. Long work hours are against the forced labour camp's regulations. Still, the guards force group leaders to lie that practitioners only work until 3 p.m. every day with a lunch break and that they do not work on the weekends.

Practitioners who resist the persecution are brutally tortured. They are beaten up, not allowed to eat and drink, or use the toilet. However many days they do not work is how many days their term is extended. Director Yue of the labour camp said that everything they do is legal, and that they do not care if detainees appeal.

The head of the forced labour camp openly declared that the camp was open to the public for social monitoring. However, they violate human rights every day. They force practitioners to attend various kinds of brainwashing activities. If they refuse, the practitioners are beaten, shocked with electric batons, or have their terms illegally extended. One time, a practitioner was telling about the persecution of practitioners to an officer from a city 610 Office², who had come to collect information about the detained practitioners in the labour camp. When Director Chang of the labour camp's education section halted the conversation, the practitioner told Chang, "You are so unreasonable." Chang replied, "I do not need to be reasonable."

The camp's management rules are just for show. For example, although it's against the rules, prison guards still bring their family members' dirty laundry and shoes to the camp and force detainees to wash and clean them.

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners is still going on in China. The forced labour camps in particular are places for torturing practitioners.

Note

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. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/10/23/112983.html