Recently Learned Facts of Persecution at Baoding Forced Labour Camp in Hebei Province

In Hebei Province, most practitioners who have been sent to forced labour camps are either in Shijiazhuang City or Baoding City. Labour camps in other locations have already been dissolved.

More than one third of the practitioners detained in Baoding Forced Labour Camp are from Tangshan City, Qinghuangdao City, Langfang City, Chengde City, Cangzhou City, Hengshui City, and other areas. Police at Baoding Forced Labour Camp are utilising a new kind of electric baton capable of prolonged attacks with 15,000 to 20,000 volts.

Baoding Forced Labour Camp at one time detained almost 2,000 practitioners, but now less than 400 are held there. It has recently established a special team in charge of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners, internally called "the special team," but externally it's called "second company." There are thirty-plus male practitioners being detained in the second company. The female company detains about forty-plus female practitioners.

Recently Learned Facts about Baoding Forced Labour Camp

Dafa practitioner Mr. Li Xiangwu, an employee of Chengde Power Systems, in May 2006 was transferred from Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp to Baoding Forced Labour Camp. Because he sent letters to the labour camp director and the political committee member explaining what was going on in the camp, under the direction of guard Wang Lei, who was not happy about those letters, Mr. Li Xiangwu was pushed to the ground and tortured by a few criminal inmates with electric batons for half an hour.

Laiyuan County Dafa practitioner Mr. Yang Shengli, a graduate from Hebei Agricultural University, was hit in the face by Li Qingwen, an inmate on duty. After that, this inmate was encouraged by guard captain Zhang Zhanqiang, who told him that next time it would be better not to hit any part of the body that could easily be seen. Li Qingwen's family resides at the Baoding power plant dormitory.

Criminal inmates are always encouraged by guards to torture Falun Gong practitioners. One day Li Qingwen beat practitioner Kang Yansu for two hours. Another criminal, Liu Yifan, forced practitioner Pang Guoxing to smoke, otherwise he would be beaten. Practitioner Wang Xin was poked in the legs with needles and was forced into a cold shower in the winter.

Dr. Liu Zhilin, a practitioner employed by Laiyuan County hospital, and a firm believer in Dafa, has been locked up, isolated and strictly controlled in the labour camp.

Mr. Lin Shiseng, a former college president, in his sixties and a practitioner from Gaoyang, was not allowed to sleep for five straight days and nights.

Baoding Dafa practitioner Yang Jianliang was tied to a bed for 5-6 days. He was also hit with electric batons and force-fed.

When Dafa practitioner Tian Gang was first arrested at the Beishi District Public Security sub-bureau, he was sentenced to one year in a labour camp. After transferring him to Baoding City Public Security Bureau, they tried to force him to kneel down on a mop, but he refused and kicked it away. He was then sentenced to three years in the labour camp, where he was severely tortured with electric batons.

Qingyuan County Dafa practitioner Wang Laochou was arrested in March 2005 and sent to a forced labour camp. He was once tortured by guard Liu Yuesheng with an electric baton until he was at the brink of death.

Dingzhou Dafa practitioner Wang Chunde was shackled for ten months, from September 2005 to June 2006. When family members came to visit him, he was not allowed to touch them, as he was only permitted to talk to them through a net divider. Each family member had a guard standing behind watching. Every time Dafa practitioner's families visited, other company's commanders were called in to help with the monitoring. Family members are always in a situation that they are circled and searched.

"Taking the Blood Test" in Baoding Forced Labour Camp

In December 2005, every Dafa practitioner detained in Baoding was given a skin test first and then about 10 millilitres of blood was drawn. A folder was established for each practitioner with charts listing many items, including eyesight.

There was an incident in 2005, where the labour camp was confronting an "important investigation." Guards said that to deal with the investigation would take lots of money. But the labour camp was short of money at the time. In order to solve the problem, they took 200,000 yuan¹ from the "persecuting Falun Gong fund." We have no idea how much this fund really has, but certainly it wouldn't be a small amount. Guards were heard saying that the 610 Office² had a special fund for the "persecuting Falun Gong team," but the fund assigned to slave-labour production was comparatively much smaller, only ten thousand yuan in 2004 for a company detaining more than 50 practitioners. This means that guards could torture practitioners as much as they'd like without worrying about hurting them so much that the quota for slave-labour production could not be met.

In 2002 the reward for "transforming³" a Dafa practitioner was 400 yuan according to one policeman. In October 2003 Hebei Province transferred 12 non-transformed practitioners to a so-called "Hebei breaking solid-practitioners class," in which the reward for "transforming" a practitioner was ten thousand yuan. In May 2004, the 610 Office gave the so-called "breaking the solid" class half a million yuan for expenses and rewards. The guards could not resist the temptation, so they rampantly tortured Dafa practitioners.

Persecuting Dafa Practitioner Jing Qi

Xu Shui County Dafa practitioner Jing Qi was imprisoned in the labour camp beginning in March 2004. For the past few years he has been strictly controlled and isolated, and family members have not been allowed to visit him for twenty months (from November 2004 to August 2006). In order to "transform" him, police coerced his wife to divorce him. On November 26th, 2004, the labour camp put out a so-called "exam," the real purpose of which was to force practitioners to slander Teacher Li [Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa]. Jing Qi did not answer the questions as required, so he was immediately punished by being forced to stand from eight o'clock in the morning to four o'clock in the afternoon, followed by the police instructor Liu Yuesheng's torturous beating from one end of the corridor to the other and then back. This back and forth beating occurred twenty to thirty times until he was too tired to do it any longer. Jing Qi still firmly said, "I am right, I am not wrong." What Jing Qi said sent Liu Yuesheng into a state of frenzy and he began shocking Jing Qi's body everywhere with an electric baton for more than five minutes, causing his skin to blister. What was even worse was when police officer Song Yahe suggested holding up Jing's clothes so the sound would be muffled. Liu Yuesheng took the suggestion and began applying shocks around the area of the heart for more than one minute. The shocks were 150,000 to 200,000 volts. Jing Qi's heartbeat became faster, endangering his life. Since then his heartbeat became abnormally fast and he vomits after eating. Liu Yusheng said that he was pretending. Ten days later, the camp's doctor Du Baochuan came to check up on him, and two days later he was sent to Baoding City Second Hospital for an emergency medical checkup, including an electro cardiogram, blood tests, and other tests. Jing Qi, during the years 2005 and 2006, was still inhumanly tortured, and he was isolated with no communication with others allowed. In 2005 he was forced to sit on a wooden board without moving for ten hours a day for ninety days.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

2. "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.

3. "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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/3/28/151669.html