I Became Disabled in Jiamusi Forced Labour Camp in Heilongjiang Province

My name is Lu Demei. I'm a Falun Gong practitioner from Hebei City, Heilongjiang Province. During my detention at Jiamusi Labour Camp in Heilongjiang Province, I developed hemiplegia due to torture. I was carried out of the labour camp by my family members.

On January 25th, 2005, I explained the facts about the true nature of Falun Gong to a person called Liu Lijie. Unexpectedly, Liu reported me to An Hefang, the director of Yuefeng Factory where I work. An Hefang immediately called the police station. Tian Gang and two other police officers came and took me to the 610 Office¹. The head of the 610 Office, Guo Shujun, sent police officer Zheng Wenshan and others to ransack my home, took all the Dafa books and materials, and left a mess. They detained me at the detention centre for a month and five days and extorted more than 1000 yuan² from my family as so-called "room and board fee." Then they sent me to Heigemu Labour Camp in Jiamusi for two years of forced labour.

In the evil den that is Heigemu Forced Labour Camp, the food and living conditions were horrible. We were only given soup for all meals, with nothing but a few vegetable leaves or chunks of turnip in the soup. One day, I even found a dead mouse in the soup. Besides the horrid living conditions, we were forced to do 10 hours of labour every day. To do the labour, we were forced to sit in a dark, cold workroom for a long time and no one was allowed to move or talk. If one couldn't finish the task, one had to work overtime. And the guards would constantly beat and verbally abuse us every day. I was under intense mental and physical stress for a long time.

My health deteriorated in these circumstances, and as a result, my diabetes came back. On top of that, one side of my body became numb, and others had to support me when I walked. Despite this, the guards didn't allow me to get bed rest. Instead, they ordered two to three people to take me to the workroom every day. Even if I couldn't do any labour, they ordered me to sit on the cold bench all day, and my hands and feet froze.

The team leader, Hong Wei, thought that I was pretending. One day, while practitioner Ms. Fan Xiaohua was supporting me, Hong Wei pushed her away, grabbed my arm, and shoved me against the wall. When I could not hold up any longer, Ms. Fan Xiaohua would come and stand by me to support me. The guards didn't allow me to have a medical exam until two days after that. The results showed my blood sugar level was as high as 18, which resulted my having very serious hemiplegia. The guards, though, didn't tell me of the results, nor did they release me. To extort money from my family, they made me take injections and medicine, which didn't work.

In the end, I could not walk whatsoever, even with support. One day, I was lying on the bench in the workroom, and the guard on duty, Zhang Yan, pushed me to the floor and kicked me. To earn credits from Zhang Yan, inmates Zhang Cuimei and Hu Zhanfen then dragged me to the dining hall. The next day, guard Hong Wei dragged me to the dining hall again. One day when I was reading Teacher's [Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Dafa] article, guard Li Bo took it away.

I was so sick that I could not take care of myself. Other practitioners had to take care of everything for me, including washing my face, hair, and clothes and helping me use the bathroom. The hospital's diagnosis suggested medical parole, but the labour camp authorities delayed it again and again. They did not release me until my condition became even worse. They also extorted more than 10,000 yuan from my family before allowing them to come get me.

I was carried out of the labour camp by my family members.

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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/4/29/153767.html