A Conscientious Prisoner Exposes the Crimes Committed in Dabei Prison

The law should punish a criminal who violates the law, hurts others, or endangers society. We criminals acknowledge our guilt. We want to change for the better, walk the rest of the path steadily and make up for the damage done to society, family, and others. I hope there is an environment that will assist us to correct our wrongs. Furthermore, it is quite helpful, also, to have policemen we trust to guide us on the right track and assist with our integration back into society.

After entering this prison, though, what I saw and experienced made me despair. People can't learn anything positive from being here; even some good people learnt how to be bad. This place is full of interpersonal intrigue, fighting, framing others and bribery. The head of the jailers publicly extorts and blackmails us. Decent people are forced into a corner.

There is no one to help to sort this out. The guards beat whoever doesn't back down; torment whoever doesn't give them gifts and give a hard time to prisoners who reported the situation to authorities. There is no knife or gun involved here, but electric batons, fists and kicks. No one even dared to report that prisoners were starved. Whoever reported the true situation faces severe reprisals. The higher authorities repeatably sent people to investigate, but this didn't solve the problem. On top of that, the person who reported the truth was retaliated against, and the situation actually worsened. The investigators sold the information they gathered at a very good price. The same tragedy happened again and again. Prisoners were afraid to speak up and were particularly afraid to speak the truth. The prisoners say, "It's said that all crows are black! But the crows in prison are even blacker." Below, I offer some accounts of what I saw and experienced. Hopefully, this information will bring a positive outcome.

This prison ward treats Falun Gong practitioners particularly ruthlessly. The prison team heads didn't beat them, but they arranged and coerced prisoners to beat them. If we [the prisoners] didn't do it, the team head would beat us, punish us, increase our hours of labour, deduct points, and cancel canteen accounts. When we couldn't take it anymore, we had to beat the practitioners and torment them.

To tell the truth, we really didn't want to do that. The tortures they were subjected to included depriving them of their right to sleep, making them squat for extended periods during the day and at night, only giving them a small steamed bun to eat, forbidding them to drink water or eat vegetables or soup, forbidding them to buy things or use daily necessities, forbidding any prisoners from talking to them, forbidding anyone from giving them food or things to use. Visits are also denied and they are denied the right to call home or write letters. They couldn't go to the bathroom freely, wash their clothes, or take showers. They were forced to squat for dozens of days, even a few months.

If practitioners still refused to be "reformed" or write a guarantee statement, the team head would deem them "stubborn people." Prisoners would tie them up, tear off their clothes and harass them. They would stick needles into their hands and private parts, whip them, and in the winter pour cold water on them, drenching them from head to toe. If the practitioner fell down or fainted it became easy. They would carry them to the hospital downstairs. Doctors cooperated with them to tie the practitioner's limbs to a bed. They push a feeding tube through the nostrils into his or her stomach. The practitioner would be tied up for months until they wrote the three statements against Falun Gong.

The people who gave these orders or adopted those tactics include the section chief, Wu Yan, team heads Zhao Xiaohong, Jia Yingchun, former head of the prison ward, Yu Chengshui, and current head of the prison ward, Wang Shaoping.

In the Fifth Prison Ward, Falun Gong practitioners who suffered most severely were Li Wensheng, Yao Yuhua and Wang Lihua, who has since been released and returned home. At present, Zhang Guangyuan, Jing Ping and Shao Changhua are still being tortured. Several days ago, Shao Changhua was tied up in the prison cell. Team head Zhao ordered Jiang Dongmei, prison guard Jiang Yi, and prisoner Yu Mei to beat her severely. Wu Yan directed the beating. The guard and prisoner did the beating. Practitioner Shao Changhua still didn't write the guarantee statement. The section prepared to punish her with more ruthless methods after the National Day holiday.

Another practitioner named Liu Yanjun has been bedridden for over a year. Her lower body is paralysed and her leg muscles have atrophied. Ever since last year, she often vomits after eating. She vomited everything she ate a few minutes after swallowing. Her blood pressure was high. They measured it several times, and the results were all above 200. She suffered from heart disease and often lost consciousness. She had no bowel movement for a month or longer and she also suffered from bladder incontinence. Doctors examined her and said she had gastritis. The last time the symptoms occurred, she could not speak and is still to fully recover. Earlier, at the end of last year, the prison ward officials saw that she was dying and decided to set up a "bailout for medical treatment" procedure to take her to an outside hospital. They brought up their plan to bring Liu Yanjun to the prison ward hospital for reexamination and evaluation. They said she could be released on medical bail, but for some reason, Liu Yanjun has still not been released. The team head said that it is the decision of the Prison Management Bureau. When practitioner Liu Yanjun arrived at the prison, she weighted over 140 lbs. Now she weighs only about 70 lbs.

The practitioners' families have paid too much. They had to pay "the right people," otherwise some practitioners would not have escaped death.

Even murderers like us didn't suffer the kind of torture Liu Yanjun and the other Falun Gong practitioners did! Looking at them, I pity them. It is very sad, but one has to admit that their minds are pure and righteous. They do not argue with people. They are polite and never fight for their own interests. One can see these things clearly.

The team head never brings lunch to work. When she was on duty at night or needed money, Jiang Dongmei would take care of it by deducting money from prisoners' accounts. Prisoners have no redress for such injustice, but have to put up with it as much as they can. The prison requires prisoners to work until 9:00 p.m. The team head would order us to bring the work to our cells to finish. We had to work till past midnight. It was really hard to bear!

They routinely took money from the prisoners. Take the Fifth Prison Ward as an example. The money in the prisoners' accounts is for purchasing necessities. But every month there was a shortfall in almost everyone's account, sometimes several dozen yuan¹; other times it was several hundred yuan. It was forbidden to examine the account. Even if you strongly request an examination, no one would do it. No one would ask around for you. Reporting this to the higher authorities would not work, either. You would not get your money back. If you continue your efforts in this regard they would increase your workload, enough to keep you working until after midnight. Then, they would use that as an excuse to punish you. This was still not enough. They didn't only syphon off money from prisoners' accounts, but also required "tributes" and "gifts;" otherwise, they continue the same tactics and torment you until you do as they say. They beat prisoners at will. Nobody would intervene. If you reported it to the team head, she would say you did not comply with the management and you did not complete the work. Then she would verbally abuse you. Everything remained the same no matter what you did.

Jiang Dongmei is the head of the guards at the Fifth Prison Ward, who is also in charge of the prisoners' welfare. Among prisoners she is the boss. You can only flatter her, but can't go against her. One is also encouraged to regularly bribe her. The money she took was transferred to the visitors' meal account, and of course she uses certain tricks to achieve this. Because the money under the visitors' meal account is not properly recorded on the ledger, no one will know how much is missing. It is easier to trade in private. Someone purchases something and personally delivers it to the buyer's hands. The buyer will sign for it. It is difficult to trace the transaction. Then the purchased items are transferred to the cell or other places. The team heads can benefit from this system, too.

Many prisoners felt that this place is darker than hell. The head of the Fourth Team is called Zhang Li. She takes from almost everyone's money in that team for herself. Prisoners are angry, but don't dare to stand up to her. On September 13th and 14th, (2005?) when the authorities sent people to investigate, many prisoners were afraid to expose the truth.

The prison's constant acts of deception also give prisoners a headache. If today the authorities came here to investigate, coarse grain will immediately be replaced by flour and rice. The next day they will change it back. When a holiday comes, they will serve flour and rice. After the holidays, we start to eat coarse grain again. When an investigation committee arrives, you can see some meat among the vegetables in the food, but for the rest of the time you can't find one bit of meat. The price of items sold in prison is outrageous, especially the supermarket food and the visitor's food. Things are very expensive. For instance, certain cookies are sold at 28 yuan a box outside the prison, but inside the prison it is 40 yuan. A retail box of a certain brand of instant noodles is priced at 21-27 yuan on the outside, but inside the prison it is 30-35 yuan. A pair of slippers that sells for 15-20 yuan in the prison costs only between 5-7 yuan on the outside. In addition, it is forbidden to bring anything into the prison.

If a family member comes to visit, the starting price for food is 150 yuan. The prison will offer them a meal (four varieties of vegetables), which is sold for 5 yuan outside of the prison. If they pay more than 200 yuan, the family will see some meat. A plate with around 20 dumplings, with little meat in it, is 50 yuan, and the family is required to buy it. They must accept any meal that is presented to them and must pay for it; otherwise, they can't see the prisoner. On September 14, the Procuratorate sent someone to investigate. The prison hid the visitors' meal in fear of their misdeeds being discovered, and they didn't sell things to the prisoners that day.

From the top of the prison to the very bottom, from wardens to guards, the environment cannot be darker. What is the law? Where is the law! Law is money! What is law enforcement? Law enforcement is bribery! Without money or gifts of money, one does not get anywhere! If you want to have your sentence reduced, get paroled, be let out on bail or reduce your torment, you must pay for it.

If Falun Gong practitioner Liu Yanjun's family had paid the money, she would have been bailed out long ago.

Note:

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