Torturing Practitioners at Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp

Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp in Sichuan Province is notorious for following the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policy and has been persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners for a very long time. In order to achieve the goals of "transforming¹" practitioners, gaining recognition for this achievement, and receiving bonuses and promotions, some camp guards use very brutal means to torment the detained practitioners. Out of all of them, the most cruel and vicious are Li Qi, No. 8 Squadron's Captain; Deputy Captain Yin Dan; and police officer Li Xia.

Li Xia once threatened practitioners at Xinjin's Brainwashing Centre, "If you are not 'transformed' here, you will be 'transformed' at Zizhong Forced Labour Camp. Over there you won't be so 'relaxed.' They don't use torture there, but we can use instruments of torture on you, as it is allowed by our policies." Guard Yin Dan also often commands the drug addicts, saying, "You must deal with these Dafa practitioners 'well.'" Li Qi even threatened, "You must make the stream of Dafa practitioners' blood become a river."

By order of the guards, besides monitoring and physically punishing practitioners, some prison inmates also frequently abuse and cruelly beat practitioners. They even sexually assault or use poison on practitioners. Those who exert their utmost to beat and curse practitioners are treated favourably by the guards. The guards often "praise" such criminals and reduce their prison terms. Officer Li Xia frequently buys food to reward the inmates that do her bidding. However, the guards punish those few prisoners who are not willing to persecute practitioners.

At Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp, the guards often torture practitioners with electric batons and a variety of other instruments. They curse, beat, and physically punish practitioners. The following are some of the horrific crimes committed by prisoners at the instigation of labour camp guards.

Forcing Practitioners to Stand for a Long Time, Beating and Tying Them Up

Li Qi has forced practitioners to stand in the "army posture" for as long as 24 hours at a time in order to destroy a practitioner's will. She has also sent prisoners to take turns monitoring the practitioners, which has resulted in complaints from the prisoners. If practitioners refused to stand without moving or blink their eyes even once, they are immediately beaten. Many times practitioners have forced themselves to keep their eyes open even though they were exhausted from lack of sleep. One time practitioners were tormented in this way for more than 20 days in a row. Ms. Zhu Yuehui was made to endure this torture longer than anyone else--61 days.

One day in the winter of 2002, an Australian journalist went to Nanmusi to find out about a torture method called the "water dungeon." Li Qi denied that any such thing was used at the camp. Li took the journalist on a tour from the first floor to third floor. When he saw 13 practitioners being forced to stand, the journalist asked, "Why are they all standing?" Li replied, "They like to stand." Upon hearing this, practitioners Ms. Luo Meng, Ms. Duan Wenlian, Ms. Peng Shiqun, and Ms. Wang Huiying, age 59, pointed at Li Qi and said, "We don't like to stand! She makes us stand." Later that day, the four practitioners were surrounded by prisoners and cruelly beaten for several hours.

After dinner, the guards again ordered some inmates to take the four practitioners to an isolated place and beat them some more. When they dragged Ms. Luo Meng, practitioner Ms. Gao Huifang stood up to stop them, "If they beat Luo Meng again, I will die in front of you today." When she learned that Luo Meng had been tortured again, Ms. Gao angrily rushed out the room, smashed her head on a cement baluster, and immediately passed out. [Editor's note: The principles of Falun Dafa teach people to cherish life and that suicide is sinful. Under the terrible persecution, however, some practitioners have adopted extreme methods. Such behaviour is wrong.] Ms. Gao was sent to the hospital and given oxygen for several hours. After she recovered, she was forced to stand for two weeks. After Ms. Gao smashed her head on the wall, many prisoners cruelly tortured Duan Wenlian, Peng Shiqun, and Wang Huiying in a private room. Then Li Qi took Ms. Luo Meng out of the room and when she came back, she had a piece of paper in her hand. She claimed it was a "guarantee statement²" written by Ms. Luo and so they would no longer beat her. Ms. Luo Meng had already signed and put her fingerprints on the sheet, making everyone wonder what drug Li force-fed Luo Meng in order to obtain the statement. Then Li personally beat Peng Shiqun and said that, even if she were not in uniform, she would want to kill any practitioner who spoke the truth. Finally, they cuffed Ms. Luo Meng and Ms. Peng Shiqun to a tree, and then allowed other prisoners to beat and curse them. Afterwards, Ms. Luo Meng, Ms. Peng Shiqun, and Ms. Gao Huifang were forced to stand for two weeks.

Elderly practitioner Ms. Wang Huiying was forced to sit with both legs crossed and was tied up. When she was untied four and a half days later, her buttocks were putrefying in her body waste, and so much flesh was destroyed that bone was visible. During that period, the police still compelled her to listen to recordings that slandered Dafa and tried to make her write a Repentance Statement promising not to practise Dafa.

Cruel Beatings, Being Stripped and Beaten

Between September 15th and 18th, 2002, officer Li Qi, Yin Dan, and Li Xia transferred 20 prisoners from other squadrons to add to the 30 prisoners in Squadron No. 8, and ordered them to form a team. The group surrounded the practitioners and started to cruelly beat them. Dafa practitioner Ms. Fan Ying firmly resisted but was tortured by 12 prisoners until she passed out. Ms. Gong Suying, who later died from the torment, was beaten to the ground, sustained multiple injuries, and was unable to get up. Because practitioner Ms. Yu Bin refused to admit that she had committed any crime, Li Qi ordered eight prisoners to beat her for several hours, during which time four of her ribs were broken.

The inmates were merciless when beating practitioners. Besides slapping their faces, punching their temples, striking them with elbows, and giving them knee-strikes in sensitive places, they also used a folded belt to whip them and used hard plastic slippers and wooden sticks to beat them. Li Qi, Yin Dan, and Li Xia even ordered the roughnecks to pull off the practitioners' clothes and then beat them.

In October 2003, whenever these three guards were on duty, a different practitioner each night was taken to the dishwashing room in the still of the night. It was a very dark room, its door and windows closed. The practitioners were beaten while their clothes were stripped off, and the guards cursed, "Do you still speak the truth?" The guards tried to force the practitioners to write a "Repentance Statement." Once, practitioner Ms. Jiang Xianfang was tightly tied with rope. As she was barely conscious from the pain and discomfort, the policewomen grabbed her hand and put her fingerprint on a prepared "Repentance Statement." Thus, they counted her as having been "transformed."

Practitioners who went on hunger strikes to protest the atrocities were usually force-fed. In October 2002, guards Li Qi and Yin Dan ordered Li Jiaqin and another prisoner to force-feed practitioner Ms. Liu Zhongyi. Their brutal method of prying her mouth open dislocated her jaw, which left her unable to close her mouth or to chew normally.

Stripping Practitioners, Stepping on Their Lower Abdomens, Sexual Assaults, and Force-Feeding with Water

Because the practitioners were not willing to read the materials that slandered Falun Gong and Teacher Li, on February 17, 2003, Li Qi, Li Xia, and Yin Dan ordered Chen Qi (from Xichang), Li Hong (from Chengdu), Deng Ailing (from Xichang), and three other prisoners to strip the clothes off practitioners Ms. Liu Zhongyi, Ms. Tao Yuqin, Ms. Peng Shiqun, Ms. Luo Meng, and Ms. Duan Wenlian. First, they beat each practitioner with a folded leather belt, hard plastic slippers, and wooden sticks. The practitioners were beaten to the floor and then dragged inside another room for more beatings. When the prisoners became tired, they randomly stepped on the practitioners' lower abdomens while wearing leather boots, and ceaselessly abused them. The abuse lasted for several hours. They continued to beat practitioners during the night. Even the people on the floor below were awakened by the noises.

The next day, prisoners Chen Qi and Deng Ailing colluded with other prisoners to strip practitioner Ms. Tong Guoqun and make her stand in one place about a foot from the wall. Chen and other prisoners, wearing leather boots, ran toward Ms. Tong from three metres away and then fiercely kicked her lower abdomen. They then punched her temples and chest until Ms. Tong could no longer bear it, but they forced her to keep standing. Next they stripped Ms. Luo Meng, in her 20s, and also cruelly beat her with the leather belt, shoes, and wooden sticks. Prisoners Li Hong, Chen Qi, and Zeng Guona (also called Zeng Guorong) then pulled Ms. Luo Meng inside a room and threw her on the rough concrete floor. They tried to force practitioners Ms. Huang Min and Ms. Huang Guoqun to write words that slander Dafa under Luo Meng's crotch and along her inner thighs. When Ms. Huang Min refused, she was also beaten to the ground until she could not move. Prisoners then grabbed Ms. Huang Min's hair and forced her mouth to touch Ms. Luo Meng's private parts. Prisoner Li Hong stuffed a dirty dishcloth into Ms. Luo Meng's mouth and used lewd language to insult her as she rubbed Ms. Luo Meng's hands over her own breasts. Li used her fingers to rape Ms. Luo and then beat and cursed her and poured cold water on her chest and private parts. That day, Ms. Luo suffered three sessions of beatings. Ms. Tao Yuqin also suffered beatings.

On the 19th, at the guard's insistence, the thugs tied Ms. Tao Yuqin's hair, thumbs, and little fingers together with thin nylon rope (supplied by the guards). They hung her up between the upper and lower beds, spread-eagle, with only her toes touching the ground, and then beat and cursed her. On the same day, practitioner Ms. Liu Zhongyi was also tortured.

Beginning on the 19th, Li Qi and other guards ordered thugs to begin force-feeding water to the steadfast practitioners. Anyone who refused to drink the water was tortured. Practitioners were made to drink a large cup of water every ten minutes but only allowed to use the toilet twice a day (once in the morning and once at night). When the practitioners wet their pants, they were not allowed to wash themselves. They were only allowed to wash every three months, and were given only half an hour to wash themselves and their clothes.

Confinement to Small Cells; Water Dungeons

After that, the guards locked up practitioners alone in small cells, while two of the criminal prisoners monitored each practitioner. The thugs forced the practitioners to stand ramrod straight, facing a wall, for 24 hours a day. The practitioners were beaten if they started to fall asleep. The sound of flesh hitting the wall, bodies being beaten, items crashing to the ground, rebukes from the thugs, and the practitioners' grieved screams resounded from the small cells. Guards Li Qi, Yin Dan, and Li Xia purposely didn't "patrol" the small cells on one side of the third floor and pretended they didn't know that atrocities were happening. However, every Friday afternoon, the inmate perpetrators gathered to share the methods they used to persecute practitioners. Some were rewarded according to their level of participation. Some prisoners' terms were reduced because they put forth a lot of effort to curse and beat practitioners, and they were given special foods to eat--guard Li Xia often bought nice food for them. The guards would physically punish any prisoners they discovered being relatively nice to practitioners.

Besides being locked up in small cells, some practitioners were left for a long time in a corner that was dark and dank. Water was splashed over the floor every day. Because the room couldn't hold deep water, it was used to deceive journalists who were investigating the prison. Practitioners were only given 100 grams of food every day. Practitioners Ms. Zhang Wenqing and Ms. Zhang Fengqing's hands and feet were cuffed for a long time, but they shouted "Falun Dafa is good," "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is good," "Restore the innocence of Dafa," "Restore Teacher's good name," and other phrases every one or two days. Some prisoners would run to punch and kick the practitioners whenever they heard such righteous talk.

Torment with Drugs and Poison

In order to achieve her goals, guard Li Qi not only used the tortures above but also poisoned practitioners using strong drugs to put them in a deathtrap.

On the morning of February 16th, 2003, practitioner Ms. Liu Jingli was force-fed with a diuretic every hour, along with two cups of liquid each time. After a while, she needed to go to the toilet and became very uncomfortable, but she was not allowed to use the toilet. In the afternoon, she was force-fed every two hours with poison that damaged her central nervous system. Within several seconds, she couldn't move her fingers. Ms. Liu immediately asked the prisoner who was monitoring her what she had been given. The prisoner said, "Do not speak so irresponsibly. The cadre cared about you enough to give you water." On the other hand, this prisoner signalled the guards who were hiding in the room. They were testing the effects of the poison on Ms. Liu so they could use the same method to persecute other practitioners.

At midnight, because the medication did not affect Ms. Liu Jingli, after guards Li Qi and Kang Feng finished the night patrol, prisoner Cao Jiemei was ordered to beat Ms. Liu and force her to stand up straight. That night, Li Qi would not give up. After the 4 a.m. patrol went by, prisoner Cao Jiemei force-fed Ms. Liu a bowl of liquid that contained a nerve-damaging drug and a strong poison (provided by Li Qi) in front of another prisoner. Within minutes Ms. Liu Jingli felt intense pains in her abdomen and then vomited blood. Two hours later, she started hallucinating. The next morning, when she wiped her teeth with some tissue, the poison turned the paper green.

On February 19th, 2003, because practitioners refused to read slanderous materials, Li Qi ordered prisoners to secretly poison the practitioners' drinking water. After practitioner Ms. Duan Wenlian was poisoned, she became mentally unbalanced and suffered a cruel beating from prisoners Li Hong, Chen Qi, and Deng Ailing. However, Li Xia and others alleged that her unstable behaviour was caused by the practice and insinuated to other practitioners that they would suffer a similar fate if they didn't "transform."

What has been described is only the tip of the iceberg in the persecution of Dafa practitioners detained at Zizhong Women's Forced Labour Camp. There are also many unrevealed activities including the sexual abuse of practitioners.

Note

1. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

2. "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://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/12/13/116430.html