Wanjia Labour Camp Uses Persecution of Falun Gong to Extort Money

I am 54 years old and use to work as an accountant in a factory. Before I began to practice Falun Gong, I suffered from fifteen or sixteen diseases and the doctor had told me that I only had a few years to live. About two weeks after obtaining Dafa in August 1996, my health had improved dramatically; the diseases were all gone and I felt very energetic. My improved health due to practising Falun Gong saved more than 5,000 Yuan [Chinese currency, the monthly salary for an average Chinese urban worker is about 500 Yuan] of medication every year for the country [In state-run workplaces. Medication expenses at one time were covered by the state; however, the policy has since changed]. Falun Dafa gave me a new life and purified my mind. At work and at home, I conducted myself in accordance with the instruction of Dafa: always putting other people first, and following the principles of the Fa, "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance."

Since July 20, 1999, Falun Gong has been slandered and defamed. I wanted to speak with Chinese authorities from the bottom of my heart, and say that "Falun Dafa is good, I have personally benefited from it." With this motivation, I went to Beijing twice to appeal to the government to stop persecuting Falun Gong. I was fined 200 Yuan after I came back from appealing in Beijing on July 22, 1999. The second time I appealed was on November 25, 2000, and I was forcibly taken back by the Jidong Public Security Bureau. The Politics and Security Department in Mishan extorted 2,500 Yuan from my family.

On November 1, 1999, the local police detained me for 26 days because I continued to practice and study the Fa. Later my husband was forced to write a "guarantee statement of not practising Falun Gong" for me, and then he had to pay them 156 Yuan for my meal expenses and 6,000 Yuan to bail me out.

From March 6 to 14, 2000, I was forced to attend an anti-Falun Gong Brainwashing Class where I had to pay 200 Yuan. From March 14 to May 10, I was sent to Mishan Detention Centre, where I was forced to pay 360 Yuan as a so called "meal expense." From May 10 to August 8, Mishan Politics and Security Department transferred me to a temporary shelter in Jixi for ninety days and forced me to pay 1,200 Yuan. After that I was released, and the Mishan Politics and Security Department once again forced me to pay 3,000 Yuan.

From November 29, 2000 to January 8, 2001, I was detained in Mishan Detention Centre and forced to pay 234 Yuan for a "meal expense." In the period of my detention, I was chained up for practising Falun Gong. To protest the illegal imprisonment, I went on hunger strike three times, fifteen days each time. The police force-fed me by inserting a hard tube through my nose. They tortured me for more than one hour by repeatedly inserting and pulling out the tube. Blood poured out of my nose; they almost inserted the tube into my trachea, which can be fatal. After the force-feeding, they handcuffed me, put me in shackles and chained my hands and feet together. I was tied up this way for seven days. I could not even take care of my daily hygiene needs, and even needed other practitioners to help me to use the restroom.

On January 8, 2001, The Politics and Security Department of Mishan City Public Security Bureau transferred me to the seventh group in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province. I was imprisoned there until December 14, 2001. Because I persisted in my righteous belief in Dafa and refused to write a statement denouncing Dafa, the head of the disciplinary guards and inmates beat me. On February 1, 2001 (the eighth day after the Chinese Spring Festival) when we were having breakfast in the dormitory, more than 200 policemen encircled us and took away two practitioners because they were accused of reciting Teacher Li’s Hongyin (poems) on the way to the dorm. We refused to leave the dorm and asked the police to release the two practitioners. The police then dragged us out by our hair, and beat and kicked us. We were dragged all the way out from the second floor of the dorm to another building, then down to the outside. Once outside, I cried out loud, "Falun Dafa is good." The police dragged me by my hair into an isolated cell in the seventh group; where there were 29 practitioners confined separately in solitary compartments and forced to stand facing the wall for seventeen to eighteen hours every day. If a practitioner talked, they would use duct tape to seal her mouth or tightly tie her up in a very painful posture. If anyone practised the Falun Gong exercises, they would cuff her to the door. At the very beginning, they did not give us blankets. The two meals we had every day were less than half a bowl of very watery corn soup. We went on a hunger strike on the second day. After four days of being on hunger strike, they gave us three meals a day with cornbread. My first confinement in a solitary cell lasted for 38 days. I was forced to sit on a special iron chair, which was a torture instrument, for six days and nights. I was deprived of sleep. When I was released from the chair, I could not walk. I was cuffed to a door for eight days and five nights (twice for two days and nights, the longest time was 72 hours). The rest of the period of my confinement I was forced to stand facing the wall for seventeen to eighteen hours a day. I went on a hunger strike twice for eight days. At the end, only six of us were still locked in the solitary cells. On the fifth day of the hunger strike, we were suddenly released and put back with the group. Because I did not co-operate with the labour camp's rule of "No studying or practising Falun Gong", the guard beat me, tied me up and hung me up. The second time I was locked into the solitary cell lasted for 41 days.

I was detained on the first floor after I was released from solitary confinement. Ten criminals were sent over with the arrangement of watching us 24 hours a day. Four days later, we (six practitioners, including me, who had been confined in the solitary cells mentioned above) were sent to the classes on the second floor. I was locked up in the "North 3rd Class". Because I continued studying the Fa and practising Falun Gong, I often faced beatings and harassment from the guards. They did not allow me to use the restroom, and they dragged me and pulled me around. They punished me by forcing me to stand in the hallway. The treatment I received was commonplace in this labour camp.

Three times (for a total of forty hours), the team head Lin tied me up and hung me in a corner of the storage building. One of those times I was hung up in a very painful position for 24 hours. I was first forced to sit on a high chair while both my hands were tied up behind my back. The other end of the rope was tied to a heating pipe. Then they took away the high chair. I could not squat down or stand up. My both hands became black and blue and swelled up severely. The pain was so harsh that sweat ran down my face. While hung like that, the criminals who had been ordered to watch me asked me fiercely to co-operate with the labour camp's so called regulation of "No studying or practising Falun Gong." At that moment all I thought about was that I would rather die than follow any of their requirements. Over the one year of my time here, I protested the guards' physical and mental torture, cell searches and body searches, and requested my unconditional release. I went on hunger strikes many times, for a total of ninety days. The longest hunger strike was 34 days. I was force-fed and given an injected intravenous infusion more than 30 times.

I was unconditionally released on December 15, 2001. I did not write any "guarantee statement" denouncing Falun Gong. I was illegally detained for appealing to the government to stop persecuting Falun Gong. Having been denied the ability to work for more than two years, I had gone without any income. I was expelled from the Party. From July 20, 1999 until now, I was illegally detained and put into a forced labour camp for 558 days. My family and I were extorted through fines totalling 13,950 Yuan, not including the money my family spent to try to help me through relationships.

Jiang's followers have used the persecution of Falun Gong to relentlessly extort money to put in their own pockets.

Source: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/4/15/20963.html
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/4/2/27733.html