The Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners at the Chongqing City Women's Forced Labour Camp

Chongqing City Women's Forced Labour Camp was previously located in Maojiashan, Chongqing City. In order to avoid investigation by international human rights organizations, it was relocated to Majiahe, Chongqing City.

The group that persecutes Falun Gong was renamed the "Yuxin School." This name has been used for some time, but an official signboard does not appear on the building. All visible signs of torture have been removed and all of the houses were cleaned and tidied. Many people visit, and it has become the country's "advanced unit." This hellish place is literally disguised as a "lovely heaven."

This "school" unlawfully imprisons over one hundred Falun Gong practitioners. The guards here don't use standard torture instruments, but instead use more vicious means to cruelly persecute the prisoners. They use a variety of ways to mentally destroy practitioners, including preventing them from relaxing for a moment, keeping their minds in a highly tense state around the clock, and gradually turning them into the walking dead, who mechanically follow instructions given by inmates or collaborators¹.

First of all, for each practitioner brought here, the inmate "boss" sends two trained collaborators (usually drug addicts) to conduct so-called training and consolidation. (The effectiveness of the training and consolidation is linked to the reduction or extension of the collaborators' prison terms.) Physical punishment alone includes extended standing while facing a wall, being deprived of meals, sleep deprivation, squatting for long periods of time, lying down with four limbs stretched, standing straight for extended periods, pulling a cart while in a harness, running, walking with feet spread wide apart, and being forced to drink water made from mixed food waste. All this is called "training and consolidation," but it is actually to persecute people and turn them into zombies who cannot think for themselves.

It doesn't matter whether the prisoners do well or not, or whether they cooperate or not. The entire process is essentially set up to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, and to crush the practitioners' wills. Meanwhile, some unknown drugs are put into the meals, and after eating, the prisoners are sleepy, disorientated, distracted and begin suffering from memory loss. They lose their thoughts and memory of Falun Gong.

When the practitioners reach this stage, the brainwashing starts. They are forced to learn documents, watch TV, and recite prison rules. They are locked in solitary confinement, and filled with a whole set of the Communist Party's crooked reasoning and evil theories.

During the brainwashing period, practitioners are not allowed to meet with anyone from outside, and they are kept awake for several days and nights. The collaborators cut their clothes into strips in front of them, then tell them to buy more with their own money. Collaborators also tell them, "Look how free we are. We can talk and eat in the workshop, when outside, we can have sex with a prostitute during the day and gamble at night. We beat, kill, steal--we can do anything. Our guard tells us that we are the most intelligent ones here. Only those that the guard chooses will be allowed to look after you. How can you complain if you continue to do that practice?" After living through ten to fifteen days of the "training and consolidation," a person no longer looks like a person.

A Falun Gong practitioner in Jiangjin was punished by being forced to squat for an extended time. Even with feet slowly rotting and holes forming on the soles, this practitioner was still forced to continue squatting in that position. Another practitioner from Tongliang, who was thirty-four, had only been there for a few days. After being tortured by collaborators Lin Falan, Chen Rong and Peng Zongxiu, this practitioner could not utter a word, nor get out of bed.

Yet another practitioner was dragged into a yard by several collaborators, including Liu Chengling. She was tortured until she passed out for over two hours. After regaining consciousness, she sat in meditation and shouted "Falun Gong is good!" The collaborators again bound her feet with straps, sealed her mouth with tape, and violently pulled her hair. That practitioner refused to "study," and refused to be "transformed²." She is still being cruelly persecuted.

Practitioners who fail the "training and consolidation" are put in solitary confinement and tortured there. Others who complete the training and consolidation will work in workshops. This is the second phase of this persecution, making the prisoners work for other's profit. For example in the confectionery workshop each practitioner is monitored and managed by two collaborators day and night. Depending on one's age, each prisoner has to wrap up 3.25-4.75 kilograms (7-10 lb.) of confectionery each hour. Younger practitioners have to wrap up over 60 kilograms (132 lb.) of candy per day while older practitioners have to wrap almost 40 kilograms (88 lb.) of confectionery. The unfinished quantity is accumulated each day and used as the excuse to extend the prisoner's term.

Practitioners work twelve hour shifts and have to work longer if they are not able to complete the task. They often work until 2:00 a.m., but the new day starts again at 7:00 a.m. There is a rule about sleeping. Practitioners are not allowed to sleep facing a wall, they must face towards inmates and collaborators. Practitioners who displease inmates or guards are subjected to physical punishment, spread over several hours, but physical punishment does not reduce the work time for wrapping candies. Talking is not allowed, as messages can be passed through talking. Glancing at other people is not allowed either, as signals can be passed by a glance. Breaking these rules results in physical punishment.

When prisoners are visited by family members, after the family has left, they are subjected to a strip search. Their clothes are taken away for an examination which usually lasts a couple of hours. In winter time they nearly freeze to death. People here are kept constantly busy "studying," being brainwashed, and labouring in workshops. They live in extremely poor conditions, and are strictly managed. They are so tortured that they are reduced to looking like skeletons.

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/2008/6/6/179828.html