Partial Description of the Persecution of Practitioners in Qianjin Prison, Beijing

Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned in three prison districts of the Qianjin Prison in Beijing: the First, Ninth and Twelfth Prison Districts. There are approximately 150 practitioners imprisoned there. In January 2006, after several practitioners in the Twelfth Prison District were found to be distributing Teacher's [Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa] articles or reported to the authorities after communicating "sensitive information," they were confined in a small cell. Many other practitioners stood up to protest and intervene with the warden by explaining the facts about Falun Dafa. On March 9th, an entire squad of armed guards was stationed in the prison hall. Every prison door was guarded. Seven practitioners were taken away. It was later verified that these seven practitioners were taken to the Eighth Prison District and interrogated in isolation. On March 11th, Ma Ang, Ma Jin, Tang Jizhang (whose arms and legs are disabled) and several other practitioners were again thrown into a small cell. Their hands and legs were all cuffed together while in the small cell.

The following is a description of the persecution of several practitioners during imprisonment, interrogation, or other times in the prison and forced labour camp.

Mr. Pang You, a Beijing resident, was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment and is currently in Qianjin Prison. In 2000, he was imprisoned in the Seventh Division Prison in Hangu because Qianjin Prison had not been built yet. During his term of confinement, his hands and legs were cuffed and chained together with metal chains. He could barely walk with a bent back and it was even harder to go to the washroom. At the same time, he was forced to stay awake for several days in a row. Whenever he dozed off he was awakened or had cold water poured on him. During the day, he had chains secured to his neck and was dragged around in the courtyard. Due to such circumstances, he began a hunger strike. The prison guards made him wear metal clothes to secure his entire body, legs. and arms while they force-fed him. At the same time, they beat his legs with electric batons.

Mr. Gao Lijun, a resident of the Shunyi District of Beijing, was sentenced to seven years of and is currently in Qianjin Prison. In 2001, he was sent to Hangu Prison, where he had to stand for prolonged periods, often for more than a dozen hours at a time, under the scorching sun. His legs swelled from the torture.

Mr. Wang Weiyu, a doctoral student at Tsinghua University from Tai'an City, Shandong Province, was sentenced to eight years and is currently in Qianjin Prison. Previously, he was imprisoned in an unknown place in Daxing City for six months and twelve days. During this period, he suffered a myriad of torture and humiliation. He was interrogated and forced to submit to the authorities' demands. The guards used electric batons with ten thousand volts to shock Mr. Wang all over his body, until almost every part of his body had been shocked. They pressed an electric baton onto his body and held the switch until the power was used up and then used another baton to shock him again. In this way, they used three batons to shock him continuously. They also used police batons to hit his head to the extent that they bent some of the batons. Some guards also jumped up, bringing their elbows down on his head. Mr. Wang's wife was forced to live in exile and contact with her has been lost. She has not returned home to date.

Mr. Xu Huaquan from Hubei Province, a Masters graduate from Beijing University, was sentenced to eight years and is in Qianjin Prison. After being arrested by policemen from the Haidian Police Station, he suffered brutal torture. Five or six officers pinned him down and burned the left side of his chest with lighters. A palm-sized scar is still visible and his nipple was destroyed. While in Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp, he was stripped of his clothes and forced to stand under the scorching sun, causing heat bumps to form all over his body. According to his own testimony, he has seen other practitioners tied to a bed so that they were suspended in mid-air and then chopsticks were inserted into their mouths and cold water poured down their throats.

Mr. Jiang Hai, a resident of the Yanqing District in Beijing, was sentenced to nine years of and is currently in Qianjin Prison. During the interrogation process, he was shocked with electric batons by the guards. According to his own testimony, with the exception of his eyes, no part of his face was left unhurt. His wife, also a practitioner, was sentenced to two years of forced labour. She died in April 2005, just three months after being released.

Mr. Zhang Yanbin, a military officer from Beijing, was sentenced to eight years and is currently in Qianjin Prison. He was held in a small cell. As he refused to submit, he suffered inhuman torture. He had to stand for more than 20 hours each day and slept very little at night. He had to stay up until 3 or 4 a.m. and get up by 5 a.m. He was even awakened many times in between. He was tortured until he became half-conscious. Sometimes, at the instigation of the guards (otherwise they would not dare to do so for fear of accumulating demerit points that go against decreasing their prison sentences), criminal inmates would grab his arms and legs while pushing his buttocks to the ground. Sometimes, two criminals pinned down his legs and torso while another criminal used a toothbrush to rub his private parts.

The Qianjin Prison staff has implemented a policy of strict supervision of Falun Gong practitioners. Besides having surveillance in every room in the prison, the primary method used is to have each practitioner monitored by a criminal inmate, also known as a "prison monitor." There are four main guards who have severely persecuted practitioners: instructor Chen Jun (police chief), instructor Meng Fanguo, team leader Chen Hongbin, and team leader Zhang Honghai.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/11/21/142834.html