Cruel Torture Methods Used in Fangqiang Forced Labour Camp

Jiangsu Province

Since July 20, 1999, the Jiang regime has slandered and persecuted Falun Dafa and Dafa practitioners. One of their main tools is sending practitioners to forced labour camps. We will expose in this article some of the methods utilized by Fangqiang Forced Labour Camp in Jiangsu Province in their attempt to force practitioners to give up their belief in Falun Gong over these past two years.

1. Savage Torture

In the forced labour camp, the guards' bonuses, performance reviews and promotions are closely related to how well they do in forcing practitioners to give up Falun Gong. Therefore, the police view those determined practitioners as a thorn in their side. It is all too often that the police make trouble for the practitioners and beat them up. Once, a practitioner was so weak that he was not able to carry as much wheat as others. On his way to the warehouse the police beat him up with a baton and injured him. To conceal this act, the police postponed his treatment and waited for the injury to heal by itself. In addition, the police suppressed the practitioners' joint appeal letter and forced some criminals to lie by saying that the police didn't beat that practitioner. A practitioner in his 60's asked why the police tortured practitioners with four batons at a time. As a reply, seven or eight policemen at once held him on the ground and beat him with six batons for 20 minutes. The police even burned him with a cigar and stomped on him with boots.

After a practitioner announced that his letter renouncing Dafa was null and void, he was tortured with an electric baton for 5 hours.

2. Enslavement

To put pressure on practitioners, the police assign the most strenuous and undesirable work to the practitioners. They don't make any exceptions, not even for practitioners who are over 70. In the early morning cold, a 68-year-old practitioner was ordered to take off his shoes and socks, and stand in cold water in order to clean up the ditch. The criminal inmates are allowed to carry the garbage barrels on their shoulder, but practitioners were ordered to hold the garbage barrel with their hands. Quite often the garbage would spill out and get all over the practitioner.

3. Tight Supervision

To further limit practitioners' freedom, the forced labour camp officials picked out some criminals who desperately wished to reduce their sentence. They assigned two criminals to each practitioner. They have to do everything together, in order to prohibit practitioners from speaking with each other, studying the Fa or doing the exercises. To reduce their sentences, those criminals actively monitor practitioners. They often abuse and beat the practitioners. One practitioner openly did the exercises to protest the persecution. When he was reasoning with the police, the criminal who monitored him beat him up right in front of the police. His mouth was beaten to a bloody pulp. Out of spite, sometimes the police even encourage or instigate the criminals to beat the practitioners. Because a practitioner tried to stop CCTV's slanderous "Focus Discussion" programme from playing, the cell's leader was instructed to organize all criminals in the cell to beat up that practitioner during the evening break. Some criminals burned the practitioner with cigarettes, and some hit him with stools. As a result, the practitioner was injured in multiple places. Afterwards, the cell leader was only punished in name. Several months later, the cell leader was rewarded with a reduction of five months in his sentence.

4. Rotating Brainwashing Teams

Several policemen who specialize in brainwashing take turns on the practitioners. Everyday practitioners are only allowed to rest for 1-2 hours. When a practitioner was sleepy, exhausted and unable to concentrate, these policemen would continually interrogate the practitioner to look for a gap in his various reactions. After a few days or as long as several months, some policemen were transferred away from the steadfast practitioners to avoid being convinced by those practitioners.

5. Psychological Attacks

The police take different approaches to psychologically exploit practitioners' weaknesses and wear down their willpower. Their eventual goal is to obtain a Guarantee Letter, Regret Letter, and an Exposing Letter. For example:

• Threats - The police would seize a criminal randomly and brutally shocked him with an electric baton. He would then say, "The battle with Falun Gong is a life-and-death political struggle. What is meant by life-and-death? " "Do you want to get out alive?" "How many electric batons can you withstand?" "Are you afraid of hardship? Are you afraid of the heat?"

• Subtle attacks - They would say, "Falun Gong practitioners can be categorized into these kinds of groups." "Those who insist on practicing Falun Gong, they only have these few possible outcomes."

• Sentimental Pressure - Calling family members and coercing them to cry and kneel in front of the practitioners.

• Frequently changing practitioners' cells and cellmates. The criminals they choose are more and more violent and unbearable.

• Physical and mental attacks at the same time. Criminals take every chance to beat practitioners, and then former practitioners who have turned against Dafa are sent in to attack mentally.

• Using physical comforts - Those who turn against Dafa are given privileges to live more comfortably, while those who do not give in are persecuted more severely.

• Deception, the police would tell the practitioner, "If you write a guarantee letter, you can go home in 10 days." After obtaining the guarantee letter, they would entice the practitioner to write the regret letter and the exposing letter.

For over two years in the forced labour camps, practitioners have upheld the standard and mighty virtue worthy of Dafa practitioners. Many criminals have now understood the truth of Falun Dafa and […] the environment in the forced labour camps has improved. […]

Source: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/5/5/21689.html
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2002/4/27/29179.html