The Brainwashing, Physical Punishment, and Torture I Witnessed at the Dalian Forced Labour Camp

For those Dafa [Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance] practitioners who are being detained for the first time, the Dalian Labour Camp is a shocking first encounter with the viciousness of Jiang and his regime. Upon arrival, the guards at the labour camp try to force the practitioners to sign their names on a white cloth that has slanderous statements against Dafa and to recite the absurd regulations of the labour camp. Practitioners who don't comply are beaten up or tortured with electric-shock batons and sent to brainwashing classes for further persecution.

In the brainwashing classes, Dafa practitioners are forced to repeatedly listen to audiotapes that make groundless accusations against Dafa and to listen to the evil ideas of their persecutors. The goal of this is to try and confuse the practitioners and break their faith in Dafa. Determined practitioners aren't allowed any visits from their family members or even given a change of clothes. They are constantly monitored and escorted by two criminal inmates wherever they go and aren't even allowed to speak or use the bathroom when they need to. The labour camp assigns people to try to incite hostility among the practitioners, causing practitioners who have been “reformed” to look upon determined practitioners with hatred, thereby isolating them from the group. These are the so-called "soft" methods used by the labour camp to brainwash practitioners.

If these soft methods don't work, they then resort to harsher methods. They have thugs force the practitioners to bend over with their arms jutting out from behind their backs and hold this position for a long time. On March 19th, 2001, all of the detained practitioners were forced to bend over in this manner without exception. The police monitored them, carrying electric-shock batons. Practitioners who couldn't stand the torture any more and fell down were shocked with the electric batons until they stood up again. After a while, some practitioner's faces turned purple and some threw up blood. They had to continue bending over and holding this position until they signed a pledge promising to stop practicing Falun Gong. One session lasted for 11 hours. The practitioners were unable to squat down and had difficulty walking after such torture. Other tortures included forced standing, squatting and leg-crossing for as long as 9 hours at a time, as well as sleep deprivation. These are but examples of the many harsh physical punishments used in the camp. For a detailed description of the many forms of torture used in forced labour camps, click here

If these physical punishments don't work, criminal inmates are conscripted by camp guards to beat the practitioners. In fact, everyone from the director to the team leaders--even ordinary prisoners-- are encouraged to beat up practitioners. They slap their faces, hit the back of their heads, kick them and smash their heads against walls. They beat the practitioners with the soles of their shoes or with chairs and bottles full of water, pinch their inner thighs, stab them with needles, whip them with leather belts and shock them with electric batons. If one baton isn't enough, they use two or three, even as many as 12 batons to shock their faces, chests, and genitals. The duration of the shock torture can be anywhere from one to 40 minutes. They have even specially built iron cages to confine and torture Dafa practitioners.

If a practitioner's sentence is up, yet the practitioner remains firm in his practice of Falun Dafa, camp authorities simply extend the sentence arbitrarily. The practitioners are forced to do hard labour for many hours a day, sometimes even throughout the entire night. This has caused severe damage to the health of many of the elderly practitioners and made them very sick.

These are the horrible atrocities I have witnessed at the Dalian Labour Camp. Many practitioners have been tortured to death under these conditions. Throughout the persecution, the practitioners have been able to endure what is impossible to endure, something far beyond the ability of ordinary people. They are able to do this because they practise Falun Dafa. This alone should be enough to awaken what good remains in the persecutors.

Source: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/3/5/19479.html

* * *