Chinese Prison is Hell

Like tens of thousands of Falun Dafa practitioners, I was illegally arrested¹ and unlawfully sentenced to forced labour in 2003 for telling people about the beauty of Falun Gong and the facts of the persecution. I had exposed the hoax of the "Tiananmen Square Self-immolation" directed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), as well as all the defamatory propaganda and lies on TV.

I was detained with another practitioner in a detention centre for more than a year. During that time, a practitioner from Beijing and I explained the true situation of Falun Dafa to the police and other inmates in the prison, and did the Falun Gong exercises in the morning. There were about a dozen practitioners in my prison cell. Although life in the prison was inhuman, Dafa gave me everything and consolidated my righteous belief and righteous thoughts.

One of the practitioners was sentenced to three and a half years in prison, and she later died from the persecution. I never knew her name. Once we arrived at the prison, police from the 610 Office² forced us to wear prisoners' uniforms. We four practitioners were each assigned to a different prison cell, where there were three inmates to "monitor" each of us. I was in prison because I believe in Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance. However, my monitors were in prison for corruption, robbery, and drugs. This world is upside-down this way. Besides the inmate monitors, there were also electronic surveillance devices in each cell. When I was first put into that prison, I was asked to fill out some forms, which I refused to do. My inmate monitors immediately reported this to the prison guards. The guards punished me by forcing me to squat for a long time, which made my feet numb. In the prison, the guards would not let me speak and ordered me to raise my hand before I was allowed to speak to them. After their approval, I had to bend down and tell the guards, "I am an inmate, and I want to talk to you about something." But those inmate monitors did not need to bend down when they talked. I did not follow their rules, which made the guards punish me by forcing me to stand facing a wall, which I rejected. Then they stopped giving me food. Instead, they told me to say in front of a microphone: "I am a criminal. Please give me food." I decided to hold a hunger strike. Some inmate monitors reported this to the guards. Since they could do nothing about me, they gave up.

The guards forced us to watch those trashy "conversion" videos every day, after which we had to do "homework." Also, day after day we were forced to recite the prison's "58 rules," "38 rules," and "new three-word poems," for which we were selectively inspected for recitation. In addition to reciting and reading, each day we needed to do a lot of homework. Sometimes the head of the prison sent people for selective examinations. In this way, they tried to prevent us from silently reading Teacher Li's writings.

An inmate monitor secretly told me that I was lucky to be transferred to the new Renhe Prison with my group of practitioners, where the conditions were better. Practitioners sent to Shaoguan Prison were put into solitary confinement as soon as they arrived. The monitor also told me that a practitioner named Ms. Zhu Xiaohong had arrived earlier and was also detained in the third prison sector. Ms. Zhu Xiaohong refused to cooperate with the authorities and continued to do the exercises. The warden of the third prison sector, He Weizhen, ordered several inmates to push her down on the ground and then made dozens of inmates trample on her back. Another practitioner, Ms. Zhu Luoxin, firmly held on to Dafa and refused to be "transformed³". In order to destroy her will, police put her into solitary confinement for two years and eight months. It was a dark cell without sunlight. When she came out, she was unable to walk.

The CCP's prisons have no positive educational affect at all on those true criminals. Instead, the guards order the criminals to use any twisted means conceivable to monitor and even brutally beat Falun Gong practitioners, which makes the criminals even worse. The tactics used by the CCP against practitioners include forced labour, electric baton shocks, and solitary confinement, all of which have no effect at all on unwavering practitioners. The guards, who are even more caustic toward practitioners, can never be trusted. In the prison, each inmate is forced to finish her production assignment each month. If she finishes her assignment for a year, she will get 12 so-called "rewards" and earn a reduction of her prison term. Some practitioners have never received such "rewards" even though they have finished their assignments. When they asked the 610 Office about this, they were told that Falun Gong practitioners did not have permission from the provincial prison, thus they were not counted for such "rewards." In contrast, those inmates that monitored Falun Gong practitioners got such "rewards" even if they failed to finish their work assignments. This was because they were the guards' accomplices.

There are even more ridiculous things. In the summer of 2004, the head of the prison required all inmates to learn mute dancing, and the 610 Office checked Falun Gong practitioners for that. Also, all inmates were required to learn a qigong called "Ba Duan Jin," which also had exams. Because of her refusal to be "transformed", Ms. Zhang Qinghao was monitored around the clock. The guards encouraged the inmates, who forced her to stand for 24 hours without sleep until she was unconscious. Ms. Xie Xiuqin was a practitioner from a district in Shantou. She was arrested after being reported for explaining the true situation of Falun Dafa. In the prison, she refused to be "reformed." Two inmate monitors dragged this woman with two disabled legs to work. She also suffered physical abuse and verbal assaults.

The above are things that I experienced, saw, and heard in prison.

Note

1. Illegally arrested: Contrary to what former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution, and the Chinese Communist Party would like the world to believe, practising Falun Gong is NOT illegal in China. Although the Public Security Department issued an unconstitutional set of restraints on the practice at the onset of the persecution in 1999, no laws have been passed by the only legislative body in China, the People's Congress, banning Falun Gong or granting the police the authority to arrest Falun Gong practitioners for practising the exercises or distributing flyers. For a more complete discussion of the illegality of the persecution of Falun Gong, please refer to the article "The Ban on Falun Gong—A Dictator's Whim, Not the Rule of Law". (Variation: "illegally sentenced")

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.

3. "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")

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/4/12/125021.html