Brutality in Xindian Women's Forced Labour Camp in Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province

Authorities at the Xindian Women Forced Labour Camp, Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province used many different tactics to abuse Falun Gong practitioners.

1) Long work hours

The labour camp guards sent all newly arrived practitioners to Team One. The officials ordered everyone to memorise the "Team Rules" and "Newcomers' Education" within a designated time. Anyone who failed to meet the requirement was forced to stand for extended periods of time in a certain area and was deprived of sleep. Nevertheless, everyone still had to show up for work the following day. Breakfast was at 7:00 a.m., and then one had to work until 12:00 p.m. followed by having to stand until 2:00 p.m., when work resumed. The work shift continued until 10:00 p.m. or even midnight.

2) Torture

a) Sleep deprivation, and denial of bathroom use, forcing people to relieve themselves in their clothing. If they dirtied the floor as a result, they were forced to clean up with their clothes.

b) Starvation, various freedoms being withheld, all conversation and meetings forbidden, being deprived of personal hygiene facilities, and being made to stand facing a wall: All of these are methods employed with Falun Gong practitioners, including many that are worse than those imposed on death-row inmates. They deprive practitioners of their most fundamental human rights.

c) Forced to sit on a bench. Almost all practitioners have been through this. Under supervision by guards, six or seven criminal inmates take turns keeping each practitioner under surveillance. The practitioners are forced to sit on a bench every day for two weeks or even one month without a break.

3) Psychological torment: The labour camp guards put practitioners into a brainwashing session and coerce them to recite the prison rules, sing Communist songs and read slanderous books. The guards also order collaborators to brainwash practitioners. If the practitioners refused to "transform¹," the collaborators beat and insult them.

Practitioner Ms. Liu Yinghua once tossed a note to a visitor with the message "Falun Dafa is good." This resulted in a three-month extension of her forced labour sentence. In August 2007 alone, the labour camp officials extended terms for 13 practitioners, using various "justifications."

4) Forced hard labour

All practitioners have to work 11 to 12 hours per day.

Practitioners Li Runfang and Xin Enhao refused to comply with the work schedule. For this they were detained in solitary confinement cells for extended periods of time, and their terms were extended accordingly. Ms. Li Runfang is a handicapped woman and has an artificial leg. Police punished her by making her stand for a long time, so she shouted openly, "Falun Dafa is good" and "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance." As a result, on August 20th, 2007 the guards forced drug addicts Qi Yuhui, Zhang Limei and Yuan Hong to violently beat her. Afterwards, Li Runfang was detained in a solitary confinement cell from August 21st-30th, 2007. Upon being released from that cell, her body was full of purple bruises. The criminal inmates had broken a thermos bottle and used the glass shards to cut an inch-long, deep wound on her leg. They held Li's hand, dipped it into the blood and wrote words slandering Falun Gong.

5) Encouraging Other Inmates to Persecute Practitioners:

Some drug addicts did not work. Their jobs were to monitor and torture Falun Gong practitioners. They also assisted the guards in force-feeding practitioners who were holding hunger strikes. These criminals could beat practitioners arbitrarily, forbid them from talking to each other, and isolate the practitioners. One way to achieve their goal was to lock one practitioner into a one-square-metre steel cage, deprive her of sleep around the clock, reduce her meals to a minimum, and work in shifts to exhaust the practitioner. Guards and criminals took turns torturing practitioners and coercing them to give up Falun Gong.

Sixty-seven year-old practitioner Ms. Liu Ping suffered from hypertension, and fifty-two year-old Gao Yinlian had heart disease and hypertension. Despite their medical conditions, the guards and criminals did not spare them from extended torture. The long-term mistreatment made them extremely weak. They frequently lost consciousness during the day, but the evildoers showed no mercy.

Ms. Li Xiulian is a practitioner from Datong City. This was her second incarceration at this camp. While locked up in a detention centre, she went on a 10-day hunger strike to protest. The police transferred her to the labour camp where she continued her hunger strike. Drug addict Liu Huifang and another drug addict inmate were assigned to torture her. They decided to force-feed Li Xiulian. When they failed to get cooperation and the food spilled onto abuser Liu Huifang's clothes, Liu was so furious that she slapped Li's face repeatedly.

In March 2005, practitioner Ms. Niu Lanyun was force-fed in the Women's Forced Labour Camp. Guard Liu Zhongmei ordered drug addicts Wang Yong, Lian Li, Li Yuping and Na Xiaoyan to give Niu Lanyun a hard time. The four dragged Ms. Niu to the labour camp clinic twice a day for force-feeding, and then repeated the routine in the jail cell. They pinned Niu Yulan to the floor, pried open her mouth with a spoon and grabbed her jaws so they could inject food into her throat. This horrible practice made her mouth bleed and her hair was pulled out and spread everywhere on the floor. The guards did not want to hear Niu Lanyun's protest, so they told the criminals to gag her with a towel and handcuff her arms behind her back. More than 70 days of extended torture made Ms. Niu very skinny and weak. The guards did not want to see her die at the camp, so they ordered her family to pick her up. After three months at home, guards Liu Zhongmei and Chen Chunxiang took her back to the camp and continued torturing her for another 40 days.

On October 15th, 2006, practitioner Ms. Liu Taojiang was sent home after she sustained severe injuries resulting from violent torture. One month later, just as Ms. Liu was able to walk again, the evildoers took her back to the labour camp. She went on a hunger strike that lasted more than a month. The camp guards did not want her to die at the camp, so they sent her home again along with a "critical condition" warning. Her condition improved somewhat following two weeks of rest. Labour camp persecutors then picked her up again and are detaining her to this day.

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")

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/1/21/170759.html