The Suffering of Practitioner Mr. Cheng Huazheng in His 60s at Bazhong Labour Camp in Guizhou Province

Three years ago, Cheng Huazheng, a Falun Gong practitioner from Anshun City, Guizhou Province, was perfectly healthy. But now, due to the tortures he experienced in a labour camp, he is skinny and weak, his body is covered with wounds and his previously black hair is grey. He cannot walk normally and his mental health has been damaged too. Before the persecution, he had perfect teeth, but in the labour camp, most of his teeth were knocked out. Now, he cannot chew anything, and his gums bleed whenever he tries to eat something. He is out of the labour camp now, but he is very weak. He vomits blood daily due to internal injuries and he is in a very dangerous situation.

1. The whole family was jailed

Cheng Huazheng was part of a happy family of four before Falun Gong was persecuted. Since Jiang Zemin's gang launched the persecution, three members of his family, who are Falun Gong practitioners, were persecuted. They were forced to leave their home and become destitute. They were jailed. In order to threaten Mr. Cheng, policemen even arrested his second daughter, who is not a practitioner. Cheng Huazheng and his first daughter were sentenced to labour camps. In the labour camp, Mr. Cheng's mental health was damaged. His wife, Wu Guiying, a practitioner, has been threatened and harassed by policemen for a long time. His first daughter, Cheng Mei, who is only in her twenties, was jailed in a detention centre, where her right leg was broken due to beatings.

2. Being sentenced to a labour camp

Cheng Huazheng was forced to leave his house. He became homeless on July 15th, 2002. To explain the facts about Falun Dafa to the public, Cheng passed out fliers exposing the persecution and other materials in Xishan Village, Anshun City. He was beaten by a group of thugs and was badly injured. The thugs sent him to Huaxi Police Station. Later the police station sent him to a detention centre, where he was badly beaten by criminals again.

People from the 610 Office¹ and the police station in Xixiu District wanted to make Mr. Cheng's case high-profile and sentenced him to jail so that they would get awarded by the government. To do that, they arrested his wife and daughter, and forced him to admit that he had produced thousands of copies of Falun Dafa materials, which didn't even exist. After being jailed in the detention centre for six months, Mr. Cheng was sent to Zhongba Forced Labour Camp in Qingzhen Town without any legal trial. During the three years he spent in the third team of the fifth division of Zhongba Forced Labour Camp, he was badly tortured and his mental heath was destroyed.

3. Zhongba Forced Labour Camp

a. Forcibly deprived of sleep for one week

Encouraged by financial rewards and Jiang Zemin's mandate that "deaths of Falun Gong practitioners from beatings are counted as suicides," the policemen in the labour camp tortured Falun Gong practitioners, trying to "transform²" them.

Policemen used many kinds of torture on Cheng Huazheng, like forcing him to stand or bend down for long stretches of times and depriving him of sleep for a week or more. Policemen ordered criminals to monitor him in turns. When they found that Mr. Cheng's eyes were closed, they would beat and kick him or throw things at him. Cheng Huazheng was forced to stand up straight for long periods of time. Whenever he tried to take a break, the criminals beat him or kicked his legs.

b. The criminals struck Mr. Cheng's face for hours, knocking out most of his teeth

Policemen promised criminals a reduction of their sentence if they were willing to help to "transform" Falun Gong practitioners. Criminal Feng Jianlin and policeman Yang Renshou beat Mr. Cheng on his face from each side, and they often did this for hours. Criminal Du Xin and Wang Jian and policeman Li also beat his face. The beating caused his lips and cheeks to bleed badly. Due to the torture, most of Mr. Cheng's teeth were knocked out, which made chewing almost impossible.

The criminals also rubbed Mr. Cheng's face with a very dirty cloth, and inserted the cloth into his mouth before beating him. Du Xin tried to force him to eat faeces. The criminals often tied Cheng Huazheng up and inserted dirty cloths into his mouth before beating him. Sometimes, the criminals beat him down to the ground and stood on his body. In the winter, criminal Li Zhongyong beat Mr. Cheng and forced him to lie on the cold floor. Once, the policemen Yun Changchun and Huang hit Mr. Cheng's head against the hard floor, which made his head bleed profusely. The criminals always threatened that if they beat him to death, they would bury him in the mountain behind the labour camp, and nobody would know about his death.

c. The beating caused fractures and internal injuries

Under orders from the policemen, criminals Feng Jianlin and Du Xin beat Mr. Cheng frequently. This broke Mr. Cheng's ribs. The pain in his ribs lasted for 3 months. Once, the criminal Wang Suobiao twisted Mr. Cheng's hand and broke bones in his left hand. He could not hold anything with his left hand for three months due to the pain. The beatings caused Mr. Cheng severe internal injuries. He vomits blood even now due to the internal injuries.

d. Mr. Cheng almost died in the solitary cell due to the torture

Most of the policemen in the labour camp have been involved in torturing Falun Gong practitioners. Due to the practitioners' efforts, some criminals learned the truth about Falun Gong, so they were not willing to torture practitioners anymore. Policemen found that the criminals were not very active in torturing practitioners, so they tortured the practitioners themselves. There was a policeman, Yang Renshou, in the third team of the fifth division, who directed and was involved in most of the torture of Falun Gong practitioners.

Mr. Cheng was jailed in a solitary cell and beaten more than 20 times during the three years. To avoid being seen when torturing practitioners, policemen often jailed practitioners in a solitary cell to torture them. The practitioners who were jailed in the solitary cell were often tortured in the cell for several weeks, sometimes even several months. The cell is humid and dark. Policemen forced practitioners to sleep on the hard floor without any bedding. Policemen didn't give practitioners any toilet paper or other daily necessities.

Once, the policemen covered Mr. Cheng's mouth and nose with clothes and suffocated him. They also burned his palms with cigarettes. Once, Cheng spoke out on behalf of Falun Dafa, so Yang Renshou and several criminals beat him in the solitary cell. Yang beat him with an iron bar, which caused many open wounds on his legs.

It was winter time when the blood was frozen on the ground. To eliminate the evidence, policemen tried to wash his trousers, which were soaked in blood. Mr. Cheng tried to stop them. Later, the policemen were afraid that the blood would not be washed off, so they stole the pants from him and threw them away. Mr. Cheng was beaten all night and he passed out. The policemen didn't stop until they were tired.

e. Mental torture

Many Falun Gong practitioners gave into the high pressure and did things they shouldn't have because of the torture. To help those practitioners who accepted "transformation" to come back to cultivation, Mr. Cheng talked to them one by one at great risk to himself and tried to convince them to write "solemn declarations." With his help, many practitioners who were "transformed" submitted their "solemn declarations" to the policemen, and told the policemen that the transformation statements that they had made under torture were void. The labour camp office was full of practitioners showing their solemn statements to the policemen. To stop Mr. Cheng's effort and separate him from other practitioners, policemen jailed him in an intensively watched cell.

The policemen tied him up, but somehow Cheng broke the ropes and ran out of the cell. He ran to the yard and cried: "Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is good!"

f. Forced to do heavy labour

The labour camp forces every Falun Gong practitioner to do labour. The policemen forced Mr. Cheng to sweep the cells and the yard. He had to do the work under the scorching sun for more than 10 hours every day.

To avoid being seen by others when beating Falun Gong practitioners, the policemen always jailed the practitioners that they were torturing in a solitary cell, and often changed the cell location. Since he could walk around when sweeping the yard, Cheng Huazheng always took this chance to look for practitioners who were jailed in secret solitary cells. He secretly delivered many daily necessities like bedding and clothing to those practitioners. He was often beaten by the policemen for doing it. Once, when policeman Yang saw Mr. Cheng delivering a quilt to a practitioner in a solitary cell, he held his clothes and dragged him around the yard. Whenever Mr. Cheng saw the policemen torturing a practitioner, he always stood up and tried to protect the practitioner. He was often beaten by the policemen for doing that. One of the policemen, who always beat Mr. Cheng, is Jing Jian.

4. Cheng's family appealed for him, but received no response

Mr. Cheng was tortured in the labour camp for a long time before his family knew about it. His family went to the labour camp many times, asking them to send him to the hospital. The labour camp refused to do so, and didn't allow Mr. Cheng's family to visit him. Cheng's sister-in-law and his daughter, who is also a practitioner and was disabled due to the persecution, went to the provincial level departments to appeal for Mr. Cheng. His sister-in-law was already 70 years old. The tension and the appealing exhausted her and she had been unwell for a long time. Appealing for her dad also exhausted Cheng Huazheng's daughter. None of the provincial level departments treated them seriously, and gave them all kinds of excuses why they could not send him to the hospital. Now, Mr. Cheng's wife, Wu Guiying, has to take care of her daughter and her husband, who is in an extremely weak condition.

The people who tortured Cheng Huazheng:

Policemen: Li (Political Head), Yang Renshou, Yu (Team Leader), Chen Ge, Jing Jian (Team Leader), Peng Tao (Team Leader), Ming Hong (Team Leader), Huang , Yun Changchun, Dai and Sun

Criminals: Wang Shuilun, Wang Suobiao, Ye Houzhong, Zhou Jifu, Wang Jian, Li Jialong, Liu Yong, Du Xin, Liu Changjiang, Guo Jiang, Li Zhongyong, Cao Yong, Feng Jianlin, Shu Xinghua and Huang Yingxiang

Zhongba Forced Labour Camp: 86-851-2549615, 86-851-2549203

The head of the fifth division: Song Xuefei

The deputy head of the third team of the fifth division: Li Jiliang

The head of the Instruction Department of Zhongba Forced Labour Camp: Liu Yirui

The head of Zhongba Forced Labour Camp: Qian Qingnan

Zip code: 551419

Note

1. "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.

2. "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.org/mh/articles/2006/9/22/138418.html