The Persecution of Practitioner Li Ruixia at Harbin Women's Forced Labour Camp for Drug Addicts

On June 28th, 2002, Ms. Li Ruixia and two other Falun Gong practitioners went to Beijing and unfurled a banner in Tiananmen Square to appeal for justice for Falun Dafa. They were then arrested and locked up in Qianmen Police Station in Beijing. The Daqing Office brought them back and handcuffed them to a bed for five days until people from the Zhaozhou Police Department and Ms. Li's employer brought them home.

On the way home, the police handcuffed the three practitioners together, and then handcuffed them to the bunk bed on the train at night.

The three were then put in jail, where they went on a hunger strike to protest the arrest. Policeman Wang Zhongjin verbally abused the practitioners and brutally force-fed them. He used the jail cell key plate to pry open their mouths and force-fed them with a powdered milk and salt water mix. The practitioners were held in jail for two and a half months, and were sentenced to two years of forced labour afterwards. They were sent to Harbin Women's Forced Labour Camp for Drug Addicts.

On the day of their arrival at the forced labour camp, the police and former practitioners who had renounced Falun Gong took turns trying to "transform¹" them. This went on past 10:00 p.m.. Because Li Ruixia did not acquiesce, guard Zhang Chunjing tied her to the chair with a rope. They woke her up at 5:00 a.m. each day and kept her up late into the night. They took turns to attack her, and they would not give up until she complied and wrote the three statements².

Practitioners are deprived of all rights at the labour camp. They are treated inhumanly and subjected to all kinds of tortures and abuse. The following is an account of some of the persecution experienced by Ms. Li Ruixia and other practitioners at Harbin Women's Forced Labour Camp.

A. Daily torture and mistreatment

1. Solitary confinement

Once, Li Ruixia was sent to solitary confinement and forced to sit on a metal chair for six days after she was caught distributing Dafa articles. Her legs swelled up terribly as a result. The guards attempted to conceal their crimes by not letting Ms. Li go back to the group until after her swollen legs had gone down. During her solitary confinement, she was fed with only a bit of porridge and half a bun every morning. There was no lunch. Dinner consisted of a bit of rice, barely enough to keep her alive. They did not let her use the toilet, and withheld water from her. In addition, they fined her 100 yuan³.

Once, Captain Li Quanmin and policeman Dong Shaoxing worked together to try to coerce practitioners to insult Dafa and Teacher, and interrogated each of them. Ms. Li did not cooperate and was dragged to the broadcasting room, where she was immediately slapped hard a dozen times. She was then dragged to the cell for solitary confinement for six days.

Later, Li Ruixia was again put in solitary confinement several times. They handcuffed her to a rail and forced her to stay in a squatting position for six consecutive days and nights. She was not allowed to move. A convicted criminal inmate watched her and beat her whenever she moved.

The longest time that Ms. Li was in solitary confinement was nine days. The guards handcuffed her hands behind her back and then to a heating pipe in the classroom. They kept her in a position in which she could neither stand up straight nor squat down.

During the SARS epidemic, Ms. Li happened to be in solitary confinement. The cell was sealed, with the toilet in the room. They did all the sanitising outside the cell, but did nothing inside. One needed permission to use the toilet. Once when Ms. Li reported that she needed to use the toilet, Captain Zhang Li told her to wait, and Ms. Li waited for a whole night and was still refused the next morning.

2. Harassment and beatings

Once in a brainwashing session, policeman Jiang Zhou had everyone sing along with him. He said that Li Ruixia sang too softly, so he ordered her to sing solo. He then said that she still did not sing well enough, so he had her sing in the hallway. Later, Jiang took Ms. Li to the office and slapped her as soon as they walked into the room. He beat her and then brought her back to the classroom.

Once, because Ms. Li did not comply with orders to write her "homework", the guards forced her to squat and handcuffed her to the bed rail in the cell. They withheld her dinner. Some practitioners felt sorry for her and gave her some food. Policewoman Wang Haiying found out and summoned everyone out of the cell and ordered them not to feed her.

One night, while the practitioners were working, practitioner Wei Jun tried to finish writing up an appeal paper that she had been working on during the day, but was discovered by the team supervisor Zhang Li, who was in the monitoring room. Zhang led a group of policemen toward her to seize the paper. In desperation, Ms. Wei handed it to Li Ruixia, who was standing nearby. Ms. Li stuffed the paper in her mouth. Zhang pushed Ms. Li over backwards, forcing her back to arch 90 degrees over a box. He choked her with one hand while inserting his fingers into her mouth, trying to grab the paper. The impasse lasted for a few minutes, and he finally let go when Wei Jun signalled to Ms. Li to give up. Zhang turned in the saliva and blood-stained paper to the captain, and interrogated Wei Jun all evening until midnight.

Once, supervisor Li Zujie ordered policewoman Wan Dan to cut open Ms. Li's overcoat and her quilted underwear, under the pretext of looking for Dafa articles. During the search, Li Ruixia was ordered to remove her bra and underpants, and even the tampon she was using was checked. This is a common form of abuse and harassment of practitioners.

B. Forced labour

The labour camp forced practitioners to work extremely long hours. The worst case was when they were ordered to work in the basement mending flax cloth. They worked 14-15 hours a day for a month. Some practitioners were so tired that their eyes would not stop watering. The ventilation in the basement was very bad. In the hottest summer days, the practitioners felt suffocated and had difficulty breathing, and they asked the guard to let them take a break. The guard asked the supervisor but was refused. A while later, the guard himself felt dizzy, nauseous, and short of breath, and complained that he could not hold on anymore. Only then did the supervisor let them take a break.

Aside from mending flax cloth, the practitioners also sorted leaves, chopsticks, toothpicks, and had to make handicrafts. Sometimes they had to work through the night.

C. Terrible food

For meals, the dishes were all thin soups, though on the blackboard, it always listed a great menu. Often there were only one or two pieces of chicken bones or the waste parts of the chicken in the soup. It smelled bad and some practitioners could not eat it.

In June, the foul smell of pickled cabbage in its urn could be detected a long way away. The cabbage had maggots in it, but they still added it to the soup to feed the practitioners.

In July and August, all the dishes consisted of worm-infested vegetables that the practitioners had planted. The soup had black insects and green worms floating on top and some practitioners refused to eat it. Guard Ning Lixin took offence to this, and every meal became a confrontation. A group of police circled around each table and checked to see who was not eating the soup.

At first, the buns were made of refined flour. Later they changed it to a rough corn bread that had bugs in it. Some practitioner asked policewoman Liu Zujie, "How come the quality of our meals has degraded so much?" Zhu replied, "It is a regulation from the higher authorities. It will be like this from now on." Later, practitioners resisted this form of persecution by going on a hunger strike. The staff later restored the quality of the flour.

Examples of persecution of Dafa practitioners at Harbin Forced Labour Camp are too many to cite. The above are just a small number, the tip of the iceberg.

Note

1. "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")

2. "Three Statements": Practitioners are coerced under brainwashing and torture to write "Repentance Statement," "Guarantee Statement" or 'Dissociation Statement" as proof that they have given up their belief. In the 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.

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

Chinese version available at www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/11/16/166673.html