I Was Brutally Tortured in the Gansu Province Women's Forced Labour Camp

At the end of 2001, the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) persecution against Falun Dafa practitioners was the most rampant. At the same time, the Gansu Women's Forced Labour Camp intensified its persecution against practitioners, as well.

On December 27th, 2001, the camp worked with the local “610 Office¹” and political legal commission to give us “compensation”. That day, the guards took us to a conference room and asked us to accept their “compensation gifts.” We had been tortured by drug offenders and guards and forced to do intensive labour because we practised Falun Gong. Now the camp wanted to “compensate” us? This had to be another one of their sinister traps. None of us accepted the gifts.

Seeing that it didn't work, Captain Fan Yurong (female, in her 30s) ordered drug offenders to handcuff me. When I asked why, they told me that it wasn't my place to speak and I should ask Jiang Zemin if I had questions. They cuffed me to a bed frame so that my toes barely touched the ground. I was only allowed to go the the toilet three times a day. I was given only a small piece of bread for each meal. The drug offenders took turns monitoring me and wouldn't let me fall asleep. I was hung that way for seven days straight. Fan asked me to admit that I made a mistake by not accepting the gift. I refused. They hung me up for another seven days straight. After they let me down, they wanted me to narrate how I refused to accept the gift and the drug offenders would take down my statement. I didn't think anything was wrong with this, so I told them. Then they wanted to put on the statement that I “admit” practising Falun Gong was wrong. I realised I was set up. The captain then pressured the drug offender to put words that slandered Falun Dafa at the end of my statement and read it in public.

I strongly protested and asked them to give me the statement, and went on a hunger strike. Captain Fan ordered 4 or 5 drug offenders, including Li Lizhu, to pin me to the ground and cuff my hands behind my back, with one of my arm up and the other down. I screamed from the pain. They then cuffed me to the bed frame. I was locked in a position in which I couldn't stand, kneel down or squat. I was forced to change my body position and reposition my legs constantly. Even the drug offenders felt sorry for me and shed tears. They took turns massaging my arms and wrists. A few hours later they told me the handcuffs had cut into my flesh. At night, I wanted to go the the toilet, but they couldn't find the guard with the key for the handcuffs. On top of all the pain, I had to hold back my urine for the next 15 hours. After they unlocked the handcuffs, my muscles had stiffened and I fell to the ground in the same position I had been in with the handcuffs on, and I passed out. Fan ordered drug offenders to beat me. My wrists and hands were badly cut by the handcuffs and the front part of my shoes were scrapped off because I had to constantly move my legs when I was cuffed to the bed. After I woke up, they cuffed me back to the bed for another seven days. Twenty-one days later, my legs and arms were so swollen that I couldn't move. Still, I was forced to run on the drill field and stand for a long time. They later asked everyone to squat down to answer to the headcount; I couldn't because my legs were swollen. The guard forced me to squat anyway. I felt the flesh on my leg tear but I didn't pay much attention to it since I was in pain everywhere. After I got back to my room at night, when I tried to pull my pants up to examine my leg, I found that my pants were stuck to my leg because of the blood. There was a 3-inch-deep cut on my leg.

Fan called me into the duty room and asked me if I still wanted my statement back. I told her I did, because that wasn't what I said. She slapped me and scolded me with extremely harsh and dirty language. During those days, whenever people came to inspect the camp, Fan would lock me in solitary confinement beforehand and have me lay on a cold concrete floor without the heater turned on during the coldest month.

Starting January 18th, 2002, a prison guard forced me to stand outside of my room at night. The night was very cold and I wasn't allowed to wear warm clothes or closed-toe shoes. The drug offenders took turns monitoring me and made sure that I didn't doze off. In the morning, I still had to do labour intensive work. One of my hands was infected. It became swollen and went numb. My other hand often got smashed when I tried to lift rocks. This daily sleep-deprivation and intensive work cycle continued for about a month.

By the end of March 2002, the torture intensified because we were about to finish serving our “terms.” It was like they were trying to kill us. Because I was forced to stand outside of my room some nights, I would hear screaming from somewhere late at night. Those screams were so miserable that it broke my heart. The guards often dragged practitioners to a secret place and tortured them. Fan once ordered drug offenders Wang Ping, Ma Shulin, Liu Guimei, and Li Lizhu to handcuff practitioner Ms. Mao Caizhen and hang her up. The prisoners used electric batons and other weapons to beat her until she lost consciousness. The prisoners would then revive her with buckets of cold water and continue the beating. They gagged Ms. Mao's mouth with a dirty sock so that she couldn't make a sound. The prisoners took turns beating her until she had bruises and cuts everywhere except for her head. That scene was unbearable to behold.

Practitioner Ms. Zhang Aiping was taken to a secret place and tortured for a night. I heard her miserable screams but couldn't tell where it came from. She signed the“Repentance Statement²” prepared by the camp. The very next day, she was forced to read it in front of everyone.

Things like this happened too often.

The Gansu Women's Forced Labour Camp, in order to avoid responsibility for the crimes it committed and to make up more propaganda against Falun Gong, had local gangsters from my hometown spread the rumour that I tried to commit suicide in the camp. When I left the camp, many people who knew me asked me about the alleged suicide attempt. I told them I would never attempt to commit suicide. If I had died, it would have been because I was tortured to death. The Jiang Zemin regime made up stories and lies about practitioners committing suicide to frame Falun Gong. The self-immolation at Tiananmen Square was the most wrongful case in human history staged by Jiang's regime. Almost three thousand of my fellow practitioners died because of the brutal torture and persecution. Jiang's regime will one day receive the punishment they deserve.

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. Repentance Statement: In this statement the practitioner is forced to admit remorse for practising Falun Gong, promise to give up Falun Gong, and never again associate with other practitioners or go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/3/14/150749.html