Germany: A Falun Gong Practitioner Gives an Account of the Horrors of Masanjia Labour Camp in China

Eternal Hope

“As far back as two years ago, I signed my name here, demanding the CCP to stop persecuting Falun Gong, but the situation has not changed in the least.” Watching the Berlin Students in front of the Bolandeng Fortress and seeing scenes of the Chinese Falun Gong practitioners suffering cruel torture and live organ harvesting, a passer by expressed her suspicion and discouragement. A Chinese person suddenly said to her, “No, the situation is changing; it is just difficult to see immediately from abroad, please follow me.”

Relatives who are suffering persecution in China

She introduced this young person called Zhang Zhentong from Leipzig to this pedestrian. Zhang Zhentong came to Berlin to attend the anti persecution activities this week. At the rally, he told everyone about what his wife Wang Xiaoyan had encountered. Wang Xiaoyan is a Falun Gong practitioner, after being illegally locked up for two years and 15 days; she was released from the infamous Masanjia labour camp.

Zhang Zhentong was very happy that his wife would not be brutally persecuted again. “To hear the voice of my wife, I am happy. From the telephone I can feel that our daughter is full of joy because she can be with her mother again.”

During the time when Wang Xiaoyan was illegally arrested, Zhang Zhentong, who was far away in Germany, had no way to phone her or communicate by letter. He also couldn’t go to China, because as a Falun Gong practitioner, the possibility of being persecuted when returning to China was high. The eight year old daughter can only stay by herself at her father’s parents house.

A staunch believer

Zhang Zhentong described the torture that his wife experienced in Masanjia: “My wife was often beaten up, because she did not give up her belief and was unwilling to be transformed. The prison guards said to her: “We know there is no way to transform you.” Once for several days continuously she was chained to a double-decked bunk bed, with one hand on the upper deck, and one hand on the lower deck. She was simply unable to move. Later she protested by going on a hunger strike, and was force fed through a tube. Amongst the liquid food poured down her throat were included pharmaceuticals that were damaging to the nervous system.” According to his wife all of the Falun Gong practitioners who did not give up their beliefs were brutally persecuted.

Zhang Zhentong expounded on the so called “transforming” in other words the most major assignment of the labour camp in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Masanjia has been of ill repute since the beginning of the persecution for its cruel and torturous “transforming” of Falun Gong practitioners. They would carry out frequent brain-washing of every detained Falun Gong practitioner, and the practitioners were forced to watch videos and books that slandered Falun Gong twenty four hours a day, and would also experience the attacks of “transformation” personnel. As soon as practitioners fell asleep they would immediately be woken up.

The good effect of international support

Zhang Zhentong's wife was forced to work for at least thirteen hours every day. She had to get up at six o’clock in the morning, working from seven in the morning until at least ten o’clock in the evening sewing military uniforms, sheets and quilt covers for the Chinese army troops. However Wang Xiaoyan told the doctors that the guards did not dare to force upon the detained Falun Gong practitioners more over time forced labour, because the guards of the labour camp had personally received phone calls from abroad, and were afraid of being sent to court in the future.

They were also afraid because evil deeds were met with evil returns, because many of those in the same profession had been in car accidents or had come down with a sudden attack of serious illness. Xiaoyan herself saw with her own eyes that they received retribution in the reform through labour centres.

Calls from abroad and exposing the prison guards’ names and specific savage acts, made the prison guards not dare to force Falun Gong practitioners to do too much slave labour.

Because of close attention and pressure from the international community, it made for at least some changes at the Masanjia labour camp and more and more practitioners were released and the number of newly arrested practitioners who had been sent in decreased. Masanjia labour camp even attempted to buy some Falun Gong practitioners from other labour camps, in order to meet the quota of people set forth by the authorities.

Just before the Olympics, the CCP intensifies arrests of Falun Gong practitioners.

Even so in the last several months, the number of Falun Gong practitioners who have been illegally locked up in Masanjia prison has clearly increased. “My wife verifies that on the eve of the Olympics the CCP has intensified its arrest of Falun Gong practitioners”, Zhang Zhentong said.

According to a report by the Falun Gong information centre, since November 2007 in Chinas twenty provinces, and large cities and autonomous regions there have been at least eight thousand cases of Falun Gong practitioners being arrested. Amongst them it can be affirmed that thirty of them have not yet been allowed a hearing at a tribunal and then were sentenced to be locked up in prison for the most of two and a half years, and are experiencing brutal torture inside the labour camps.

“The very long lock up times show that this sort of putting in prison isn’t like what the CCP officials claim, when they say that this is for maintaining to “carry out a peaceful Olympics”, Falun Gong Information centre spokesperson Waltraud Ng points out “ Falun Gong practitioners would not bring about danger to the Olympics. The CCP is just using the Olympics as an excuse to put Falun Gong practitioners in prison throughout the year.”

The 20th and Hope

Since 1999, July 20th is a very sorrowful day for Falun Gong practitioners, because until today, Falun Gong in China still encounters persecution. Falun Gong practitioners in front of the Bolandeng Fortress use the form of using real people to imitate before ones eyes the labour camp, or cruel torture, or live organ harvesting, urgently calling on the unconditional release of all Falun Gong practitioners within China before the curtain raises for the Olympics. In the last several months there has been the worldwide collection of over a million signatures, which will be handed to the Olympic Committee on July 20th.

That pedestrian who had embraced a doubtful attitude also wants to sign her name again supporting the opposition of persecution. She joined in the team by the table waiting to sign their names and said smiling, “Maybe there is still a use for it”