Chongqing Women's Forced Labour Camp Cruelly Tortures Falun Gong Practitioners

Chongqing Women's Forced Labour Camp cruelly tortures the Falun Gong practitioners detained there, physically abusing them with all kinds of methods and forcing the practitioners to do hard labour.

All the detained Falun Gong practitioners in Chongqing Women's Forced Labour Camp receive the same treatment: first, they are detained in a small cell, which is a room about three square metres covered with foul-smelling black plastic cloth (including the floor), with only a vent about measuring 13'' x 22''. Practitioners are forced to squat or stand. Two drug addicts monitor every practitioner. Some practitioners who have gone astray and left Falun Gong due to the intense pressure of the persecution, also attempt to wear down the confined practitioners' wills.

Those practitioners that still firmly believe in Falun Gong and who remain steadfast are subjected to "soft punishment." Among the "soft punishment" techniques is one in which the practitioners have to hold a plastic bag filled with dry sand weighting 23 pounds and then have five bowls of water poured in; they are then forced to stand in the hallway or on the drill ground. There are also abuses called "walk like a duck," "cow dragging a car" (two drug addicts raise up the practitioner's feet and the practitioner has to use her hands to "walk" on the ground), and "lie down like a tiger" (where the practitioner has to stretch her hands and feet on the ground with the stomach facing up; persecutors pour cold water on the floor in the winter, and if the practitioner becomes exhausted, she will have to lie down on the wet floor, soaking her whole body).

Practitioners do forced labour every day. They get up at 6:00 a.m., brush their teeth, do morning exercise, have breakfast and then do forced labour with no breaks the whole day. They will finish the whole day's work at 9:30 p.m. at the earliest. If there is an urgent job, they usually have to work until 2:00 - 3:00 a.m. or even the whole night. When they sew mobile phone covers, they do not go back to their bedrooms for a whole week. If the practitioners refuse to work, they are punished by being forced to stand until 2:00 - 3:00 a.m. If they do not comply with the standing punishment, they are beaten with their hands and feet bound and their mouths taped, then dragged somewhere where no one can hear the noise. If practitioners are heard talking and exchanging ideas while standing in line or washing dishes, they are punished by being forced to run at least five laps. Some practitioners are punished by being forced to run between a hundred and one thousand laps. One time, two practitioners were forced to eat the leftovers for a whole week (the leftovers from the whole group of about 200 people, including food that was thrown away and food that was spat out). Practitioners have to do labour for about 15 hours daily. Every day they are only allowed 10 minutes to brush their teeth and wash with less than a half basin of water. They are allowed to take a bath twice a week with a basin of water, which includes the water used to wash their clothes; sometimes they are allowed a basin of water in the summer and two basins of water for holidays.

Although the work hours are very long and extremely exhausting every day, after the practitioners go back to their bedrooms, they still have to copy the "homework" that the prisoners who are monitoring them receive from the prison authorities. At first, the head of the group needs to copy the "assignment" and then the rest have to copy each other's. The content is about politics, morals, etc. The assignments may be a couple, or over ten articles.

If an official inspection group comes to visit the camp, they have to get it ready the day before. This involves moving all the finished products, partially-finished products, products that were made by the practitioners and the raw materials to the top floor and lock it up so the inspectors will not see them. The labour camp also instructs the prisoners in the manner of responses they have to give if they are asked certain questions. For instance, if a representative asks them how much they work every day, they have to answer, "We work six hours every day, spend half a day studying and another half day working." When an investigation group comes, the labour camp authorities make the practitioners stay inside the classroom. So for any kind of investigation group, the administration ensures that everything always looks good on the surface.

In the Chongqing area, some male practitioners exposed the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in the detention centre, the labour camp and the prison. If a practitioner refuses to stand in military stance as required by the guards, the guards trample the practitioner's toes with their heavy shoes and do not allow them to take a bath. In the winter, even the practitioners' personal monitors and the guards could not stand the smell and applied for permission to let the practitioners take a bath. After a practitioner went to the bathroom and took off his shoes, all his toes had lost their toenails. Even the guards were moved to tears when they saw this.

Another practitioner did the Falun Gong exercises and was forcibly placed on a board that had nails driven into it. Another older woman was hung up and four accomplices kicked her like a ball while her feet and hands were shackled. Later, when her family came to pick her up, she could not walk by herself or move at all. Her family members could not recognize her as she had become so skinny.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/2/24/173026.html