Is There Any "Warm Sunshine" Behind the High Walls and Electric Fences?

Even though the horrific news that the Sujiatun Concentration Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, and other concentration camps in China are removing organs from living Falun Gong practitioners has surfaced, the Chinese Communist Party's organ harvesting system continues to operate. To cover up its crimes and maintain its illusion of respecting human rights, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses its tight grasp of the media to broadcast propaganda and fabricated stories, which deceive and poison the world's people, while it continues to kill practitioners to destroy evidence of its crimes.

On the morning of May 29th, 2006, I saw a copy of the Dalian Evening newspaper at a friend's place. The paper featured an article entitled "Warm Sunshine inside the High Walls and Electrified Fences," and a picture of detainees reading books in the library, that caught my attention. This article reported on an event organised by Dalian Police Department on May 28th where over 20 members of the Municipal People's Congress supposedly visited Dalian City Detention Centre. The reporter wrote, "High walls; electrified fences; a heavy front door; icy cold, hard shackles; gloomy, moist prison cells; impoverished prisoners; coarse steamed bread and pickled vegetables for all three meals; and violence and torture... This is the impression that most people have have about detention centres, based on the old prisons that they see in the movies and on TV." When he "walked into the police camp," the reporter claimed to have accompanied Congress members into Dalian Detention Centre. He wrote, "The members of the congress sighed. One European-style building stood against blue mountains and flowing water, amidst blooming flowers and woods. Were it not for the police badges and the 'Dalian Detention Centre' sign on the gate, we could not imagine that this could be the place where criminals with short-term penalties are detained." The reporter said the detainees fully enjoy eleven rights, including the right to appeal, expose and denounce, etc., and are given access to over 2,000 books, as well as classes to learn calligraphy and fine arts, which all demonstrate the humanitarian care performed by the detention centre.

One glance reveals that this article was fabricated. The six criminals in the pictures wore the same blue uniforms and read books in the library. I have twice been detained for over eighty days in the Dalian Detention Centre. Except the occasions when we were forced to wear waistcoats, no other clothes were issued. Nor did I see any book, not to mention a library, or calligraphy or fine arts classes. The eleven rights to which detainees are supposedly entitled were also non-existent. The white quilts and neat toothbrushes were all on display for visitors only. Most detainees do not have bedding, towels, or toothbrushes. In fact, quilts and bedsheets are shared among two to three people, and most people cannot brush their teeth at all during their detention. Sometimes ten or twenty people share one towel, which becomes so dirty that it turns black.

In Dalian Detention Centre, detainees eat nothing but coarse steamed bread and pickled vegetables and are beaten and cursed-at every day. Falun Dafa practitioners are regularly tortured. Handcuffs and foot shackles are seen everywhere. As far as I know, practitioner Ms. Chi Yulian was tortured to death in June 2001 in this centre.

In April of 2004, while illegally detained, practitioner Ms. Sun Yan was beaten by other detainees at the guards' instruction. She was chained with handcuffs and foot shackles, which were connected together with a short shackle and then fixed to the bed. She was held in this position for days on end. Over a month later, Ms. Sun was near death and her internal organs started failing from the torture. Yet in the end she was still forced to serve out three more years of hard labour.

On August 20th, 2004, a female practitioner was illegally arrested by Wu Changjun, a policeman from Rixin Police Station, and sent to Dalian Detention Centre. Policewoman Jia Ling, the team leader, gave the order to pin this practitioner down on a hard bed with her arms and legs stretched in four directions. Practitioner Ms. Ma Xueqing was arrested on July 28th, 2005, and has been detained in Dalian Detention Centre since then. Ms. Ma was sentenced to three years in jail on groundless charges by the Zhongshan District Court of Dalian City without any lawful evidence, and she is still appealing.

Since the CCP started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, thousands of practitioners have been detained in Dalian Detention Centre. How many practitioners have been illegally sent to do forced labour or sentenced to jail? How many practitioners have been tortured? How many practitioners have been persecuted to the point of disability or death? This reporter did not say a single word about these facts, nor did he interview any detained Falun Gong practitioner or any other detainee. He did not even mention the names of those twenty members of congress, instead merely singing empty praises of the CCP's detention system.

Those who have been to Dalian Detention Centre lived a life of high walls, electrified fences, tightly closed metal doors, armed military police, detention centre guards, and ruthless prison wardens. It was a terrible, gloomy, and fearful life, without any kind of "sunshine warmth" at all. I certainly cannot recall any guard's "humanitarian care." The persecution of humanity and trampling of basic human rights were everywhere.

It is the nature of the CCP to fabricate stories, tell lies, and cover up the truth. Therefore, whatever the CCP trumpets, I understand in the opposite way. When the CCP says the Party is "great, honourable and correct," I understand that the Party is "mean, dishonourable and evil," and when the CCP says something is "warm," they are intending to cover up their ruthlessness in this respect. When the CCP says some place is "sunny," they are often trying to conceal the horrors of that place, and when the CCP promotes someone as noble, I believe it usually means the person has a shameful background and has cut some kind of political deal with the CCP. The CCP says Falun Gong is not good, but Falun Gong is good. Understanding things in this way, our thoughts will not be fooled by the techniques that the CCP uses to fabricate stories, and we will not be manipulated like puppets in the CCP's hands.