Gross Physical and Mental Abuse in Wumaping Prison, Sichuan Province

Wumaping Prison, surrounded by high walls and electric fences, is located in Leshan City, Sichuan Province. Posts in lookout towers scrutinize the compound, which is completely isolated from the outside world. The prison is structured as follows: there are six prison administration sections, including the education section, the prison politics section, the production section, and the investigation section. Everything that happens in that facility is dealt with in the section. Each prison ward is subdivided into several teams, such as the solitary assembly team, the strictly controlled team, the supervision post, the mutual supervision team, and others. Justice Department rules have ordered that victims must follow rules such as so-called "six grouping" and "six fixing"--going to the toilet as a group, watching TV as a group, going to sleep as a group, and other edicts. People are together 24 hours a day, like being held together with an invisible chain. For years, the prison heads, prison guards, and heads of the inmates have collaborated and caused many inmates to become injured or disabled or even caused their deaths.

1. Persecution and abuse begin in the admission team

Officials in this prison have their own rules and regulations in addition to those from their superiors. "Regulations for New Prisoners in Wumaping Prison" is one such example. It designates a prisoner as belonging to one of four classifications: A, B, C, or D. Prisoners are treated and tortured accordingly. The regulations also specify a time-table to change the methods used on the victims. Some methods are given fancy names. For example, one is called "Saving Food." If a prisoner is seen dropping a morsel of food, he or she will be ordered to pick up what was spilt in addition to have to pick up the garbage on the ground and eat all of it immediately. Prisoners are ordered to finish a meal within a certain time, counting down the seconds; otherwise all food left uneaten will be taken away and fed to the pigs. Raising pigs is one of the ways the prison guards earn extra income.

Another fancy method is called "Militarized, standardized and digitalized management." Even washing the face or going to the toilet are counted in seconds. If the prisoner can't finish in the toilet within the regulated time, he or she will be forced to leave the toilet with soiled underpants and continue to be subjected to military-style training.

According to regulations, although new prisoners should only remain in the Admission Team for two or three months, if someone's demeanour does not please them, the prison guards can wilfully increase the length of stay. Practitioner Mr. Wang Yuanhong, 78 years old, from Gulin County in Sichuan Province has been held in the Admission Team for more than two years. More than 20 practitioners, including Mr. Wei Lang and Mr. Li Younan, have been held there for more than six months. While in this team, it is forbidden to take a shower or wash one's clothes. Living under such conditions for several months, one stinks and the skin starts to degrade. The military training, such as standing or sitting, is considered a failure unless there are prisoners with swollen legs and those who are falling down or dying from the extreme pain of sitting cross-legged. If one's posture does not meet their standard, the prison guards and inmate heads beat and kick the person, which is called "correction."

Torture is widely used during all kinds of activities, such as handling internal affairs, formation training, routinely reporting status to prison guards, singing songs praising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and reciting "Regulations for Inmates' Behaviour." Inability to meet even a minimum of the set standard is an excuse for torture. One can be deprived of sleep and will have to keep a constant position called "flying an airplane" for 24 hours. The victim's limbs are stretched in a position touching a wall closely (with the arms and legs stretched out like a butterfly) or keeping the position of "up-side down" with one's head touching ground and both hands straight up, and other types of painful positions. The victim is given "self-examination food" containing only 50g steamed rice and a little salt. In cold winter, he is stripped of all clothing or is only permitted to wear thin clothes. During the hot summer, one is forced to bake under the hot sun. Several people including prison guards, inmate heads and inmates beat the victims until they are bloodied. Prisoners are forced to flawlessly recite pages of the "Regulations" and sing songs in praise of the CCP. For years, many people in the Admission Team were tortured and became injured, disabled, or even lost their lives.

Besides being tortured, the prisoners were also subjected to daily forced brainwashing and were compelled to submit to political study. "Regardless of the reason for your prison sentence, the CCP laws tell us you must submit to our absolute control and you must absolutely obey us. So-called 'human rights' only exist in the Western world. Here, you are just chickens, pigs, or sheep that can be slaughtered at will. This is your status. This is the basis on which you must reform yourself physically and mentally." A prisoner has no autonomy and is made to sing the CCP propaganda songs and report his status to the prison guards. Our clothes had large holes cut into them as a mark. Prisoners were forbidden to write letters to their families. Letters from families were wilfully destroyed. Family members were forbidden to visit. All these tactics are intended to destroy one's spirit and to cause a mental breakdown. Some prisoners were even forbidden to speak with others. Many people became mentally deranged and many eventually had a mental breakdown. Following release from captivity, almost everyone more or less behaved abnormally for a long time.

For years, the Admission Team had a brainwashing centre where Falun Gong practitioners were pressured to give up their belief. Guards Gao Hu, Xiao Bin, Wang Yijun, and Gong Jinfu would designate several inmates to monitor and persecute a practitioner. They closely followed the practitioners 24 hours a day and subjected them to torture at their whim. Many inmates in the Admission Team were urged to persecute practitioners. If a practitioner intended to clarify the truth, one of the inmates would immediately start to beat him. If a practitioner protested the brutality, a group of inmates would beat him, and then he would be sent to the Solitary Assembly Team to endure additional mistreatment. Xiao Huizai and other many practitioners were detained many times in the Solitary Assembly Team because of it.

2. All the prison wards are dark dens of persecution

"Inmate Behaviour Regulation Details in Wamaping Prison" describes the details of abuse and mistreatment of prisoners, such as the section "Physical and Mental Reformation." Prisoners are forced to obey the "Inmate Behaviour Regulations" relating to speech and conduct at every moment. For example, prisoners are made to sing songs in praise of the CCP during the three daily meals and are forced to report their presence every half hour or even every ten minutes. Prisoners are often randomly picked to recite the "Inmate Behaviour Regulations." Their beds must be made neatly. They must wear special prison uniforms and must sign the daily "Behavioural Check" form. A seasonal inspection takes place every three months, and the semi-annual every six months, followed by the final inspection at year's end. There are also inspections on special holidays, such as on May 1st, October 1st, New Year's Day, and Chinese New Year's Day. There are also spur of the moment inspections.

These "inspections" are actually a means of harassing and punishing the prisoners. The inmates' personal belongings are turned upside down. The inmates are stripped of their clothing to comply with the inspection. They are made to line up, sing the CCP propaganda songs, and recite the "Regulations."

The inspections are more strict for Falun Gong practitioners. The prison guards and their collaborators¹ can conduct a body search at any time to search for Falun Gong materials and for a suspected letter involving Falun Gong or appealing to higher authorities. The guards and collaborators often beat practitioners during such inspections.

In order to keep the terrorizing pressure at a high pitch, officials employ another tactic. Besides the "strictly controlled" strategies of several higher officials, the prison authorities also set up their own so-called "strictly controlled" periods. Each day seems to loom under a dark cloud of one or more strictly-controlled periods, which makes everyone feel threatened.

The inmates are also forced to write so-called "thought reports," "study experiences," or "reform²" summaries. All kinds of brainwashing, exams, evaluations, and forms reflect the CCP's panicked fear of the common people.

Wumaping Prison, a huge area, is subdivided into ten wards and each ward into about 20 or 30 branches that extend up Wumaping Mountain. The prison was only allocated some construction materials such as steel and concrete. The inmates have to mine and produce other construction materials such as stone, bricks, and lumber, and they have to do the construction. Numerous inmates have died or had become disabled during the construction. They are treated like animals. Once an explosive device did not go off, and the prison head ordered the prisoners to check it out. The prisoners tried to beg off, saying it was too dangerous, but who could argue against the guards' raised guns and whips? As a consequence, the huge explosion instantly killed many prisoners! Their cause of death was recorded as "violating operating regulations." Who dares to question the responsibility for this?

This is just one of several examples of gross abuse in this prison.

Besides water and soil projects, countless instances of abuse and mistreatment and accidents have occurred in other projects, such as coal mining, excavations, brick making, preparing sand and stones, or picking tea leaves--all due to the gross disregard for and neglect of the safety of the workers. The facts are startling.

For years, to achieve higher social status and for personal profit, the prison officials have developed many projects, such as gem polishing and grinding, winding electric coils, and other profitable venues. They developed additional systematic tortures for financial gain, at the cost of the inmates' blood and sweat.

3. A prison inside the prison

Since its establishment, Wumaping Prison has had an inner compound called the Strictly Controlled Ward (also called No.4 Ward). One of its purposes is to persecute those who stand up to the abuses and torments. The other purpose is to research and gather experiences on how to effectively apply pressure on and terrorize prisoners and how to make different the torture methods highly effectively to achieve the best results. The experiences can then be relayed to other prison wards to earn awards from higher authorities.

There are three teams in Ward No. 4--the admission team, the strictly controlled team, and the confinement and assembly team, each of one being worse than the other. Several prisoners have been tortured to death and disabled in this ward. This ward has studied the cruellest torture methods and gathered the cruellest chief culprits and perpetrators. Inmates Gao Hu, Xiao Pin, He Qingquan, and Wang Yijun have publicly and brutally beat other detainees at will. The ward contains a brainwashing centre. Dozens of practitioners have been subjected to different tortures.

The "wheel" tactic is most often used. Several perpetrators take turns waking practitioners at night. During the day-time, several guards and others target one practitioner, slandering Falun Gong and torturing him in all kinds of ways to try to force him to give up his belief. Gao Hu, Luo Jiangshou, and other guards racked their brains to come up with brainwashing steps. Then other guards and "assistants" took turns implementing their schemes.

The practitioners are not allowed to get sleep or rest day and night. Gao Hu, Xiao Bin, He Qingquan, and Wang Yijun were personally involved in beating practitioners Zhu Zhaojie, Xiao Huizai, and Gong Wenyou. If necessary, the practitioners would be sent to the Confinement and Assembly Team for further abuse.

The practitioners are often criticized and denounced at organized public meetings where other detainees are forced to attack and slander the practitioners. Anyone who resists brainwashing or refuses to recite prison rules, sing CCP songs, write thought reports, write a reform summary, fill out forms, or participate in exams, etc. would be additionally punished by a stay in the Confinement and Assembly Team. Any so-called "movement" would end with more than ten practitioners detained in that group. The practitioners in that team are forced to work like slaves during the daytime and forced to do formation drills at night or be detained in a solitary confinement cell. Gao Hu often leads a group of guards to search the cells at will, making messes everywhere. Even the other prisoners often scolded, "Bandits came into the village again." Gao Hu would organize such a search every week.

4. All kinds of tortures

Each ward has an assembly team and confinement room. In order to mistreat practitioners more effectively, all assembly teams and confinement rooms are gathered and located in the No.2 Ward, located at the Baoshi Factory of Qingxi Town, under the Wuma Mountain, and in the Strictly-Controlled Ward (No.4 Ward), located at the top of the mountain.

To embezzle as much money as they can from prisoners, the abusers in this prison have been more and more ruthless. The prison head would carefully appoint those who could follow his orders. Those were the most vicious guards in his management team. He would also pick the cell heads. The head of the prison would stop by unannounced and say gloomily, "Why are so many people unable to finish the work quota? Is it not hot enough in here?" Or he might say with cold eyes, "Why there are so many people violating the rules? Not following my words will lead to death." His followers would immediately understand what kind of tortures should be applied.

The prison's "Assembling and Confinement Rules" baldly describe the standardized and numbered so-called rules and tortures.

Every activity is "standardized and numbered," including eating, going to the restroom, or sleeping. As to eating: one is forced to crawl on the ground like a dog. When the head count is done, the prisoner must raise the bowl; at the count of two, the bowl must touch the mouth; at the count of three, one starts eating and must stop at the count of ten. If counting is slow, counting once in one or two seconds; if counting is fast, counting more than once in one second.

All kinds of tortures are given fancy names. "Raising the temperature" means one is put on the flagstone in the heat of a summer day without clothes or shoes. The sun could blister one's entire body. "Lowering the temperature" means stripping off the prisoner's clothes in the winter and leaving him to freeze in the cold. "Swimming in the swimming pool" means they push the person's head repeatedly into the pool, resulting in choking, inability to breathe, and even bleeding of the lungs. "Showering with brushing" means to strip off the inmate's clothes and brush him with hard plastic or metal brush under the water, mangling the skin.

There is a torture called "Water dungeon" in the summer and "Ice dungeon" in the winter. A small, coffin-shaped room is filled with water, which will turn into ice in the winter. Another brutal torture called "flying an airplane upside down" is often implemented. "External injuries" include knocking out teeth, boxing the prisoner in the face and making it swell, and any other bodily injuries. "Internal injuries" include beating special parts of the body to damage the internal organs, resulting in extreme pain and even death, although there are no marks on the skin.

There are hundreds of methods of torture. Just with handcuffs or shackles, there are more than a dozen tortures alone. There is "the pipe," "carrying a sword in the back," or "embracing the legs." A victim can be told, "I can make you wish you were dead tomorrow, in three days, in three months or in half a year." Moreover, if the victim is supposed to die in the seventh month, then he must not die earlier, in the sixth month. He would be "rescued" in a hospital and then continue to suffer the excruciating abuse until the seventh month.

For years, the heads of the prison's different levels, including Yu Chengwen, Gao Hu, Xiao Bin, Xiang Qingquan, and Wang Yijun, have been personally involved in abusing, mistreating, and persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in order to gain political and financial advantages from upper level authorities. Dozens of practitioners, including Zhu Mingcun, Zhu Zhaojie, and Xiao Hui, have suffered from outrageous treatment in this prison.

5. The prison hospital--another den of death

Wumaping Prison Hospital is another den of death. Many detainees in different wards suffered there Deaths due to torture are attributed to disease, suicide, or self-inflicted accidents as a result of violating safety rules. False evidence, including lab exam results and treatment processes or medical records, are generated at will. The victims' families usually know about the underhanded dealings at the prison and everywhere else under Communist rule. They have nowhere to appeal to get justice and may bring more trouble to themselves. Therefore, they are afraid to appeal their family member's unjust death.

Seeing that the common people are easily bullied, the prison officials sometimes order the dead bodies to be directly thrown on the mountain without informing the victims' families. Besides false medical records and lies, the hospital authorities are also personally involved in tormenting detainees with medical experiments.

There is limited medical funding, and bail for medical parole is also limited. The authorities prefer that the undesirable victims just die. Just for appearances' sake, they do permit a minute number of bail-outs for medical reasons, but they amount to one or two per year and go to those among the three or four thousands prisoners who have "inside connections."

In the view of the prison authorities, those who are severely injured or have severe illnesses are regarded as burdensome and a lot of trouble, so they had better die earlier. Under orders from the prison head, some people are injected with unknown drugs or given drugs that can make their illness worse. Besides, no matter what condition the patients are in, only common drugs for cold or fever or saline solution are ever provided. The patients are in despair and are just waiting for death. At the same time, in order to speed up the process and make the patient mentally and physically break down faster, patients are tortured physically or mentally tormented, such as handcuffing them to to a bed, forbidding them to be outside to breathe fresh air and get sunlight, forbidding them to speak with others, and threatening them.

More than 50 Falun Gong practitioners have been detained at the prison. Because many practitioners were on persecution protest hunger strikes, they were subjected to brutal force-feeding, fed unknown drugs, handcuffed and shackled, and otherwise mistreated. In 2006, Yu Chengwen and Tian Yi secretly ordered all ward agents to force-feed the practitioners on site without going through the prison hospital. The hospital authority pretended to be unaware of this conduct. Moreover, a brainwashing session is held even in the hospital, targeting the patients there. In September 2006, Zhu Wei, who was just transferred to the prison, announced openly, "No release unless one is dead."

Under such mental pressure and medical tricks, Mr. Zhang Xincai died. Persecutors Zhu Wei, Tian Yi, Luo Jiangtao, and Wu Zhijie are responsible for his death. Mr. Jiang Yunhong was also close to death from abuse.

Related personnel at the Wumaping Prison:
Zhu Wei, Yu Chengwen, Tian Yi, Gao Hu, Wu Zhijie, Luo Jiangtao, Wang Yijun, Xiao Bin, He Qingquan

Note

1. "Collaborators": [former practitioners who have turned against Falun Gong under brainwashing and torture. They are then made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners.]

2. "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/2008/4/11/176252.html