Message Hand-Written on Cloth Escapes Harbin Women's Prison

This eye-witness account of the persecution against Falun Gong escaped circuitously from the Harbin Women's Prison on a piece of cloth. A practitioner transcribed the hand-written message on the cloth and compiled this article.

Since early 2004, all Falun Gong practitioners in the Harbin Women's Prison have refused to wear jail uniforms, to respond to roll call, and to be treated like prisoners. Consequently, they have been put into solitary confinement for five, six, or more months. Jail wardens made using the toilet a privilege for practitioners and prisoners frequently scold them.

Starting in September 2004, practitioners have suffered more severe tortures. Some practitioners were hung from the upper frame of a bunk bed by their back-cuffed hands - with feet above the ground for over three months. Others were forced to sit on the concrete floor for up to four months. These corporal punishments have been used in the First, Fifth, Eighth, and Ninth Divisions in the prison. Practitioners in the Eighth Division have held several hunger strikes, each lasting about a month, to show solidarity with practitioners still in solitary confinement. Practitioner Li Yushu went on a hunger struck for over six months.

Practitioners in the Ninth Division suffered the worst persecution. On March 12th, 2004, this division organised a brainwashing class. In June, jail wardens forcibly brainwashed practitioners from the service team and the Third team. Four or five male wardens have often tortured one female practitioner from head to toe and forced her to watch brainwashing videos non-stop. Wardens seal a practitioner's mouth with duck tape, tie her hands to her head, and verbally insult her whenever she recites Dafa scriptures. Wardens have also goaded some inmates to kick practitioners' vaginas and breasts, to strike their heads and feet with broomsticks, and to use other physical and verbal abuses.

The head warden in the Ninth Prison Division has incited inmates to force feed hunger-striking practitioners with water. These criminals stand on practitioners' limbs and pinch their noses tightly. Qiao Qingyan and Xu Zhen instructed other inmates to persecute practitioners. Ms. Zhang Dan's leg was broken during force-feeding. Although she was transferred to the "sick area," she was still denied adequate sleep. Many practitioners protested by holding hunger strikes. Recently, all but two of the imprisoned practitioners have written solemn declarations, stating that all guarantees to renounce Falun Gong were made against their wills and are null and void.

Ms. Liu Shufang in the First Prison Division also persisted in a hunger strike for six months. Ms. Ba Lijiang was on hunger strike for four months. In mid-August 2005, practitioners in the Eighth Division were hung up with hands cuffed behind their backs in the water closet. In September, practitioners in the Eighth Division were not allowed to purchase toiletries from the prison store because they had refused to wear prison name tags.

Ms. Feng Haibo was kept in solitary confinement for nine months. Ms. Yang Xiaolin was kept shut in a solitary-confinement cell for two months with her hands cuffed. Such cells are cold, damp, and dark.

Persecutors in the Ninth Division include Qiao Qingyan, Xu Zhen, Guo Shuhua, Zeng Fanrong, Gao Zongyan, Sun Yumei, Tao Hong and Chen Zenglian.

Jail wardens include Yan Yuhua and Jia Wenjun.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/11/23/115067.html