Shenyang Prison Is a Hell on Earth

Huge Profits from the Slave Labour of Prisoners

Prison No. 1 in the Shenyang City Prison complex houses between 2,500 to 2,600 detainees (excluding 300 prisoners directly under the supervision of the Liaoning Prison Administrative Bureau). The district supervisors negotiate manufacturing contracts calculated on a return of 450 yuan¹ per month per prisoner. Outside contractors set up factories in the prison, while the prison provides the free labour. The prison makes 1.125 million yuan - a huge profit - every year from this cruel slavery of the prisoners.

The Guards Have Total Disregard for Human Life

A released prisoner said that he was very afraid of being sick while in prison, because the vicious guards will pour cold water on sick prisoners and their blankets, even during winter, if they think that the disease has tainted the blanket. There is a high probability that this action will kill the sick prisoner. The guards act as if human life is worthless.

Since 2003 in the Shenyang No. 1 Prison, at least 40 people have died from unnatural deaths; some were starved to death, some died from boiling water poured onto their bodies, some were unable to stand the torture and committed suicide, and more prisoners died due to being given no treatment for their illnesses. For example, small lesions on the skin develop into more serious conditions which eventually become incurable, often resulting in the prisoner's death. However, the prison officials stated that the causes of death of all of these people were due to normal illnesses. Many families are not allowed to see the corpses of their dead relatives.

In the past, there was a prison practice that when someone died, other prisoners would be summoned to carry their corpse out. After carrying the body away, the prisoners would be given a bottle of liquor and some pork to enjoy themselves with. During the times when no one died, these prisoners turned their attention on the patients. At first they looked for those who were bedridden, starving them, pouring cold water on them, or beating them to death. Later on, they didn't want to make the effort of performing these acts, so they simply fed the patients lethal medicine. Basically, no one would be able to survive three days under their control. This is their value of a human life - a bottle of cheap liquor plus a little pork meat, in the so-called "humanised prison" system the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime.

There are four prisoners who are murderers; every one of them is accountable for at least four to five deaths of elderly and sick prisoners in the prison. These killers visited every room, and if anyone was not to their liking, they would announce, "I'll drink you in these upcoming days!" This meant that he would kill this person in exchange for liquor. This "announcement" is equivalent to being sentenced to death. In a few days, this person's murder would translate into smoked pork and liquor in the mouth of the killer. However, the prison police demonstrated indifference, and allowed these crimes to occur. They were actually pleased to see the murderers harming people as a routine occurrence, and these activities were treated as stimulating entertainment.

The elderly and sick prisoners in the hospital area in particular, are regarded as burdens to the prison because of their inability to make money for the prison. Therefore, the guards participate in planned mutilations of the prisoners, which has caused cruel, unnatural deaths every year.

Strictly Controlled Grouping - the Main Process for Persecuting Falun Gong Practitioners

Strictly controlled grouping of the prisoners is the main process with which the prison administration and guards persecute Falun Gong practitioners. The groups consist of two parts: one is "collective training," the other is isolation in a small cell.

So-called collective training involves forcing people to sit on a chair from morning until night, reciting the "prison code of conduct." At present, the chairs are like tall stools, while in the past, the chairs were made up of two wide battens, with the sole purpose of torturing people.

Confinement involves isolating people in a small, dark room, completely separating them from the outside world. There are 11 confinement rooms, including 9 small rooms which hold one to two people, and two larger rooms which hold more than 4 people.

The confinement rooms are cold and damp, and completely dark with only a small window of 20 cm, which is opened only when meals are served. In the summer, these isolation rooms can be as hot as a steam box. In the winter, it is so cold that water drops freeze instantly after falling to the ground. People wearing warm jackets and trousers still shiver from the cold.

The most common means of torturing people in the strictly controlled groups is to starve people. Prisoners receive only 100 grams of corn soup, sometimes served cold. If there are any objections or slight resistance from a prisoner, he is immediately handcuffed and shackled, or even more seriously, he will be strung up with both hands handcuffed and the arms stretched out. After one day, the arms will be swollen and completely incapacitated. However, the prisoner will be stretched that way for four to five days.

All Falun Gong practitioners have been placed in the strictly controlled groups. Some were locked in these cells as many as 10 times, anywhere from 15 days to three months. Sometimes practitioners have been locked up for two to three months, released, and then immediately locked up again.

The vicious guards are even more cruel to the Falun Gong practitioners who participate in protest hunger strikes. Four or five individuals hold down the prisoner's limbs and insert a very rough and long tube through the nostril all the way to the stomach. The prisoner's oesophagus and stomach are often injured and bleeding, and food often goes into the trachea, causing suffocation and death. Therefore, the guards usually draft a death report in advance, in case a practitioner dies during forced-feeding. By signing the report, the prisoner's murder is recorded as natural death.

Cases of Persecution of Dafa Practitioners

Falun Gong practitioners are good citizens who follow the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance," yet they are locked up in the darkest places, suffering from injustice and the most cruel, unbridled persecution.

Falun Gong practitioner Han Dequan began practising Falun Gong in 1995. He was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison because he had distributed leaflets explaining the truth about Falun Gong so that the Chinese people could understand the unreasonable persecution and what Falun Gong is really about in November 2001. He repeatedly suffered from inhuman torture. Prisoners Wang Weihai, Liu Tiefeng, and Sun Lei were directed by the prison guards to beat Han Dequan until he was near death. Wang Weihai not only danced back and forth on this elderly man's abdomen, but pinched Mr. Han's testicle forcefully, causing him unbearable pain and almost killing him.

Falun Gong practitioner Li Xinliang was beaten three times because he practised the Falun Gong exercises in prison. On one occasion he was unable to bend his body as a result of being so badly beaten.

Falun Gong practitioner Zeng Qingtao, 34 or 35 years old, from Dandong, graduated from the Beijing University of Finance and Economics. The guards didn't allow him to sleep for four consecutive days, and he was hung up, beaten, starved, soaked with cold water, and painfully scratched on the arches of his feet.

Falun Gong practitioner Li Huailiang was held in the Shenyang No. 1 Prison in November, 2003. The vicious guards incited prisoner Wang Qian to thrust a large steel pin into Li Huaiguang's fingers in order to force Mr. Li to write the three statements².

Falun Gong practitioner Wang Shusheng suffered from a serious decline of binaural hearing, and his left hand was fractured after he was continually tortured in 2006.

Falun Gong practitioner Sun Yongheng was jailed in a small cell in the No. 1 Prison in November 2005. A vicious guard nicknamed

"Elephant" stomped on his head and ordered prisoners to handcuff Mr. Sun, and force him, wearing only underwear, to lie on the freezing floor tiles for several hours. The floor temperature was 10 degrees below zero, which resulted in an attack of acute appendicitis, leaving Mr. Sun close to death. He was then taken to a hospital for emergency treatment.

Falun Gong practitioner Song Yuhong is from Dashiqiao, Yingkou City, Liaoning Province. He began to practice Falun Dafa when he was in prison and was locked up in a dark, damp, 2-square-metre solitary confinement cell for more than 30 days. During this period of time, he was forced to strip naked, and suffered many acts of humiliation only because he protested to the prison administration to report the serious persecution carried out on Falun Gong practitioner Wang Shusheng. Later, Mr. Song was transferred to Linyuan Prison for fear that information about his persecution would be made public.

Falun Gong practitioner Zhang De was transferred from Wafangdian to the District 6, No. 1 Prison in Shenyang City at the end of December, 2007. During a roll call, a prisoner in charge did not think that Mr. Zhang sat upright enough and violently beat him, which resulted in Mr. Zhang suffering rib injuries and swollen testicles.

A Falun Dafa practitioner surnamed Lan, over 70 years old, was jailed in the senior and invalid district of the No. 3 Prison at the former Shenyang City Prison in December, 2002. A vicious prison guard ordered a prisoner, nicknamed "Big Dummy," to pour cold water on Mr. Lan's head. Mr. Lan immediately fell to the ground and suffered from diarrhoea later. The prison was fearful of public exposure of this cruel persecution, so Mr. Lan was sent to a hospital in the No. 3 Prison. Mr. Lan was eventually tortured to death.

Note

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

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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/1/16/170426.html