Chen Zihui Tortured at the Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp in Harbin City

In 2002, police detained Chen Zihui at the Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp in Harbin City, where practitioners were forced to watch videos defaming Falun Gong. Each practitioner was assigned a so-called "coach." Practitioners were tortured, cheated, brainwashed and cursed, and many were tortured to death or disabled. Practitioner Chen Zihui was tortured several times. He had to be taken to a hospital at the brink of death. Li Hongbin and Zhang Tao were tortured to death. More details follow.

Mr. Chen Zihui, in his sixties, lives in Aiguo Village in Ninyuan Town. In November 1994, a friend of his introduced him to Falun Gong and he was resonated with its extensive and profound principles, Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. He was convinced that this is what he had always been seeking. He started to practise and experienced great improvements to his physical health and state of mind.

One day in September 1999, a couple of months after the persecution started, Chen Zihui went to Beijing to appeal. He was arrested by town government officials and the police who were waiting in Harbin when he arrived. He was taken back and imprisoned at the detention centre. Three months later, they set him free.

On the first day of the Chinese New Year in 2000, Chen Zihui was arrested again and released one month later. On December 19th, 2000, Chen went to Beijing to appeal again and was arrested at Tiananmen Square. He was sent back and sentenced to one year in the Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp. In September 2001, he was released due to illness.

On April 12th, 2002, police and village officials rushed into Mr. Chen's home, detained him and sent him to the County Detention Centre. Four days later, he was sentenced to three years of forced labour. He was first sent to the Wanjia Labor Camp and six days later to the Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp.

Mr. Chen was in division one of the Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp. He had been imprisoned there one year ago and the guards knew him. One of them threatened, "Chen Zihui, you are back again. Now the situation has changed and we will not treat you like before." Mr. Chen thought: No matter how the situation has changed, nobody can handle me.

In the labour camp, each practitioner was watched by an inmate who was assigned to monitor and torture them. The guards there are especially cruel. It was a living hell. Mr. Chen was later transferred to division three.

While in this division, Chen Zihui, Li Hongbin (from Archen), and Li Jingcheng (from Wuchang City) didn't cooperate with the guards, thus guards tortured them. They first knocked down Li Hongbin and dragged him downstairs and then did the same to Li Jingcheng. Li Jingcheng's head continuously bumped against the stairs. Then they ordered Chen Zihui to squat on the ground but he didn't obey. They locked Mr. Chen in a solitary confinement cell and put him in an iron cage and tortured him with the "Big Hang Up." Mr. Chen's hands were locked at the top of the cage, his body stretched out straight, and it was impossible for him to squat. In the meantime, Li Hongbin was locked into another iron cage and was also tortured with the "Big Hang Up."

To protest against this maltreatment, Chen Zihui and Li Hongbin started a hunger strike. Guards tied them onto the chairs and others held them down. They forced a tube into their noses and force-fed them. Each time, Mr. Chen would vomit everything afterwards. Various substances were used so that the force feeding was not nutritious, but rather, a grotesque form of torture. Mr. Chen had diarrhoea after each bout of force feeding. Sometimes they used salt water that irritated the stomach badly.

Several days later, Li Hongbin was ravaged and was at his last gasp and Chen Zihui had lost consciousness. Seven days later, late at night, a group of guards went and carried Li Hongbin away from the iron cage. It was said that Li Hongbin died mid-way to the Wanjia Hospital. In order to conceal their crime, the guards from the Changlinzi Labour Camp asked the doctor at the Wanjia Hospital to give Li Hongbin an injection. The doctor said, "But he's not breathing. Why give an injection?"

Worrying that Mr. Chen might also die, the following day, guards gave Mr. Chen an injection consisting of salt water and dextrose. The day after that, Chen was sent to the Wanjia hospital for emergency treatment.

The Wanjia Hospital is located inside the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp and the doctors there are responsible to treat the prisoners of all labour camps in Harbin City. Many practitioners are abused here, in the name of "treatment." The conditions there were vile. Beds big enough for three were loaded with five people. The patients had no choice but letting their feet hang over the bed. The bedding was very dirty and was full of bugs. Patients only received half a bun as a meal, which was not nearly enough. Doctors in that hospital beat practitioners freely, and did not care whether they were dead or alive. One month later, Chen Zihui was released from the hospital and sent back to the Changlinzi Labour Camp.

After a while, Chen Zihui conducted another hunger strike and his life was again in danger. His blood pressure rose very quickly. He was sent to the Wanjia Hospital again. A doctor (last name Jiang) said, "I will let you have a hunger strike, and I will see how you do it," and slapped Chen ferociously. In the hospital, Mr. Chen went on a hunger strike and the doctors force-fed him. They forced his teeth open with a small iron scoop and broke three teeth. They also told prisoners to beat Mr. Chen and they broke one of his ribs.

Twenty days later, Mr. Chen was sent back to the Changlinzi Labour Camp and then transferred to division two. Soon afterwards, he was transferred to division five, which is the most notoriously cruel division in the labour camp. The division leader Zhao Shuang is outrageous and vengeful. Under his leadership, guards tortured practitioners in just about every way imaginable. In order to "transform¹" practitioners, they forced them to squat from 5 am to midnight. Besides that, they also tortured practitioners with the big hang up, electric shocks, pricking them with darts, allowing mice to bite them, pinching and rubbing their testicles, and push-break.

The "push-break" is a where they push someone to the ground. A guard rides on top of the practitioner's body, with feet or knees against the practitioner's lower back, while at the same time pulling the practitioner's arms up and back. Some practitioners' arms were broken from this torture. This torture is excruciating.

Once guards forced Mr. Chen to stand in a corner facing a wall and told prisoners to throw darts one by one at his back. Mr. Chen's clothes were torn and he was bleeding and in great agony. To protest this inhuman torture, Mr. Chen and other practitioners went on a hunger strike together. At the beginning of the hunger strike, Mr. Chen's life was in danger because his blood pressure rose extremely high and he was sent to the Wanjia Hospital the third time.

At the end of November 2002, Chen Zihui was sent to the Wanjia Hospital the fourth time because of a hunger strike. Once a doctor saw Chen Zihui, he said, "Ok! You have come again. Wait and see how I will treat you." He immediately brutally beat Mr. Chen regardless of his critical condition.

On the third day, Chen Zihui learned that Zhang Tao, a practitioner from Shuangcheng City, was in ward 314. He went there to visit Zhang Tao even though he was very weak. At that time, Zhao Tao was at the brink of death, couldn't eat anything, and could only lie on bed, and his tone was very weak. The hospital authorities knew his situation very well, but they simply ignored him and did not treat him. Zhao Tao died three days later.

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://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/2/15/172468.html