Persecution of Falun Dafa Practitioners at the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp in Hebei Province (Photos)

The Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp in Hebei Province is notorious for its persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Labour camp head Wang received awards, and all guards at the camp received a Second Class Merit Award. Groups of officials from all over the country were sent to this camp. Inspection groups consisted of government officials and groups of new workers. The Chinese people are told the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp is an exemplary advanced work unit.

I was held at this labour camp and witnessed the dark truth behind so-called "helping, educating and reforming¹" of Falun Gong practitioners who persisted in their belief in Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance.

On one occasion, high-level officials came to the labour camp to inspect the work unit. The camp authorities had made thorough arrangements beforehand. They divided incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners into two sections on the day of inspection. The first group of practitioners was assigned to sing and dance in the courtyard, and the other group sat in a large classroom to receive "ideological education." Some practitioners had just returned from twelve hours of overnight slave labour.

The inspection group didn’t arrive until noon. When the motorcade entered the courtyard, the dance group moved more vigorously, and the "education" class was conducted in an orderly manner. Some practitioners carrying a large basin with food on their way back from the cafeteria ran into members of the inspection group. The inspectors asked what was inside the basin and the practitioners answered, "Food for [Falun Gong] practitioners." The inspectors were shocked because there was nothing but black gooey fluid inside the bowl and said, "This is food for human beings?" After this encounter, the labour camp waited until the inspection groups left before starting a meal. The cafeteria for the several hundred practitioners is an abandoned and dilapidated warehouse about 330 feet from where the practitioners live. The practitioners had to carry the food from the cafeteria for each meal. One time the practitioners ran into an inspection group and hid the food in the toilet.

Ma Li, head of the women’s division, assembled some practitioners and told them, "First, Falun Gong practitioners are forbidden from revealing that they participate in manual labour, and second, they are forbidden from saying that verbal and physical abuse is used during brainwashing." The camp authorities also did not permit the inmates to record the actual 12-hour work shifts for which the inmates are responsible. Instead, six hours is a preferred entry in the records, and the most one could write down was eight hours. Whoever did not comply with this procedure would be punished with a sentence extension.

Gaoyang Labour Camp used many methods to "reform" Falun Gong practitioners, and they can be divided into two types. In the first method, several group heads are assigned to monitor one practitioner or several practitioners. The second method is tactless brutal torture.

The following are persecution incidents Falun Gong practitioners have experienced.

Practitioner Ms. Song Guixian held a hunger strike for fifteen months to protest the persecution while being held at the labour camp. She was shocked with high-voltage electric batons many times during that period. On one occasion, her face was black and blue and deformed from beatings. Despite her weak condition from the long-term hunger strike, the guards still forced her to sift sand. Male guard Fang Bao also repeatedly threw Ms. Song against a pile of sand before she started working. Ms. Song’s nostrils became deformed from long-term feeding-tube insertion. The inmates found some used sanitary napkins from the women’s toilet and shoved them into Ms. Song’s mouth with encouragement from the guards.

Practitioner Wang Chunmei was held in a specially-made secret chamber for six days. The walls in this chamber are covered in slanderous and insulting words and cartoons. A loudspeaker and purple light are also installed in the room. The guards monitor activities inside the chamber from a room across the hall. We found that the source of the strange noise that disrupted the quiet of the night was actually the loudspeaker, which was being used while Dafa practitioners were being tortured.

Ms. Wang Chunmei was deprived of sleep while she was held in the chamber. The guards turned the loudspeaker to a very high volume to keep her from falling asleep. Her legs became swollen and numb. She could not stand up before she was taken out of the chamber and it took her a long time to regain the ability to walk. The guards also pressed wooden columns against her legs. One time a guard put snakes and geckos inside Ms. Wang’s clothing and shocked and fried the geckos with electric batons when they came out. He did it to intimidate Ms. Wang. Ms. Wang persisted in her belief in Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance and was placed under "Strict Control," which means she was watched around the clock.

Practitioner Ms. Xu Suxia was held in solitary confinement for several months right after she was brought into the labour camp. When we saw her for the first time, the flesh on her ankles had ulcerated, and there were blisters on her arms and hands from repeated electric shock. She was dragged outside one winter night and handcuffed to a tree for several hours. They also left her in a room without any heating system for several days. She persisted in her belief in Dafa. She was locked in a room for more than twenty days without any quilt or bedding. She slept on a wooden board. A male guard pushed his feet down onto her chest until she almost suffocated.

Practitioner Ms. Xiao Changying, in her thirties, was held in solitary confinement for several months. She was savagely beaten and shocked with electric batons many times. A division head had once boasted, "Hu Dao [another guard] violently shook Xiao Changying’s head while cursing at her." I also was subjected to verbal insults from Hu Dao and I felt he did not behave normally.

Practitioner Ms. Wu Guifang was handcuffed in an old warehouse for several days. The guards who watched her wore thick coats and used a heater. Another time, the persecutors handcuffed Ms. Wu to the metal flagpole in the middle of the courtyard. The guards wore military coats and they kept stomping their feet because of the freezing cold, yet Ms. Wu wasn’t wearing any heavy clothing and was handcuffed from morning until curfew at night.

Practitioner Ms. Li Wenping was held in the warehouse for three days. Her hands were tied to the two metal rings affixed to the floor. She was forced to squat and could not move her back or legs. She didn’t sleep or wash herself for three days. Her legs were numb afterwards and she could barely lift them. She tripped frequently when walking.

Practitioner Ms. Li Jianying went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Every day, two inmates grabbed her arms and dragged her around. They pulled her down the stairs with her head pointing downwards. Her body scraped against the concrete steps. They dragged her up and down the stairs twice each day, causing her to become severely bruised. Her condition deteriorated quickly, and the authorities then released her to avoid being held responsible.

The first time I saw practitioner Ms. Chen Hongping, she had difficulty walking and needed help getting to the restroom. One of her legs dragged listlessly on the floor and the other leg was deformed. Another practitioner told me that her disability was the result of torture. I had not seen her for a few days. When I met her again, she was emaciated and pale. Soon, we heard she was sent away as she was dying. We later confirmed her death.

Practitioner Ms. Zhang Xiumei was shocked with electric batons many times. The guards slapped her face with hard-soled plastic shoes and forced her to raise her arms and lower her head below her knees. Her face became severely swollen after one day of torture. She refused to read slanderous articles, and she recited Dafa articles. The guards gagged her with dirty towels and handcuffed her to a bed railing. Once when the guards couldn’t find a towel, they ordered the class head, an inmate, to dip Ms. Zhang’s own towel in filthy water and put it into her mouth.

She was carried into a crop field during the Sixteenth Party Congress and several police officers took turns shocking her with electric batons. Her legs turned black and blue and were swollen, and it was difficult for her to even get into bed.

Practitioner Ms. Li Jinsheng was in her fifties. The guards locked her in a room for doing the Falun Gong exercises. They handcuffed her to a wooden board for six days. During this period they purposely dislocated her shoulder(s). After six days, they placed her under around the clock watch.

Practitioner Ms. Liu Shuzhen underwent forced brainwashing and wrote a guarantee statement to renounce Falun Dafa. She later declared that the statement was void and she would continue to practise Dafa. She was locked in a room on the top floor and was watched and handcuffed around the clock. The guards taped her mouth to prevent her from shouting "Falun Dafa is good!"

Practitioner Ms. Jia Rongjuan persisted in Dafa practice and was brutally tortured. One day late at night, screaming was heard coming from Room M in the West Building, and nearly every practitioner in the yard heard it. Several days later, Ms. Jia appeared in the toilet. She had difficulty walking and the inmates who were assigned to watch her were angry toward the guards for the atrocity inflicted on her. The inmates revealed the truth about her torture. They pulled up her clothes to show us her wounds. Her entire back was covered in black dots and some of her flesh was charred from electric shocks. The guards had simultaneously shocked her with five electric batons. Division head Yang Zemin personally directed and participated in this crime.

Practitioner Ms. Cui Xiuzhen, 60 years old, was dragged out and tortured overnight for more than ten days straight and was always carried back the next morning. The guards pushed her head into a basin of pepper powder. They also pinched her nipples, shocked her with electric batons and savagely beat her. Her body was covered with wounds and she had difficulty walking after only a few days. She was tortured this way repeatedly for days and even months on end.

One time the guards dragged out Ms. Liu Yuling, in her 60s, and shocked her with electric batons. She lost consciousness and became incontinent. She was rushed overnight to the Gaoyang County Hospital and was in critical condition for two days.

Practitioner Ms. Wu Shouzhi had both feet shocked with six electric batons at the same time, and suffered a mental collapse. She was handcuffed to a bed for several months, and her family was not allowed to see her. Her family eventually bailed her out and sent her to a hospital.

Practitioner Ms. Zhang Xiuying had her face shocked with electric batons, which caused deafness.

I was also beaten and shocked with electric batons. One time a male guard ground on my naked toes with his army boots until the skin came off. I was locked in solitary confinement. The guards pointed at the floor and said to me, "This is hell on earth. We simply have to make you feel you are better off dead! You can’t die now, even if you want to. You can die only if we allow you to die, and you won’t be able to die if we don’t let you die. If we beat you to death, it’ll be counted as suicide. We won’t let your husband see your body, because we’ll cremate it on the spot. Afterwards, we’ll tell your husband to come get your ashes, and he will have to pay for the cremation!" He also said with a big smile, "Your husband won’t dare to say anything to anyone!"

I have only exposed a part of the persecution of Dafa practitioners. Several hundred Dafa practitioners have been held at the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp in the past few years. I merely wanted to use the aforementioned examples to testify to the countless atrocities committed there.

Yang Zemin, guard at Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp	Ye Shuxian, guard at Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp

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")

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/11/1/141489.html