Falun Gong Practitioners Brutally Persecuted in Guangdong Provincial Women's Prison

Guangdong Provincial Women's Prison is directly affiliated with the Guangdong Province Prison Administration Bureau. It is a concentration camp for the persecution of female Falun Gong practitioners in Guangdong Province. In 2002, the prison was moved from Shaoguan City to Zhuliao Town in the Baiyun District of Guangzhou City. It consists of eight divisions. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) spent a large amount of taxpayers' money to build the prison cells, workshops and office buildings equipped with advanced monitoring devices. Every day the prison forces about 3000 detainees to do non-paid labour and attempts to brainwash them.

Since 1999, the prison has spared no effort to persecute practitioners. They also cooperate with other prisons and labour camps in Guangdong Province in persecuting Falun Gong. According to incomplete statistics, the prison has detained more than 150 practitioners. It still receives and holds practitioners that are transferred from elsewhere in Guangdong Province.

1. Cooperation within the Guangdong Province Prison Administration Bureau results in a "dragon" pattern of persecution

Three or four inmates form a monitoring team, and three or four guards form a guard team. Both teams, the head of the division, the 610 Office¹ section of the prison, the warden, and the team from the 610 Office of Guangdong Province Prison Administration Bureau create a pattern of "dragon" persecution. They curse and physically abuse practitioners with deprivation of sleep, electric shocks, slave labour, etc. They also inject them with toxic drugs. The prison also instigates other inmates' hatred toward practitioners by depriving these inmates of their privileges in order to destroy the will of practitioners. As soon as a practitioner gives in, the prison continues the persecution by making them write guarantee statements of "repentance," "exposure and criticism," and "self confession." The prison forces the practitioner to submit to public criticism in front of about 800 people, practice other forms of qigong, and perform in programmes that defame Falun Gong. The practitioner also has to go to the fifth division to attend "concentrated study" for a month. Finally, the prison administration bureau comes to "check on and accept her" and then allow her to get a "term-reducing score" by doing labour. After that, the practitioner has to turn in her so-called "experience and understanding" and be questioned for an indeterminate amount of time.

2. Criminal Inmates monitor innocent detainees

The prison does not have enough guards to keep up the pressure, so it employs inmates to assist. The prison first brainwashes its other inmates to hate Falun Gong and then lures them with money and promises of power to follow the guards. Those in charge group inmates and practitioners into "mutual monitoring teams" and employ "implication" schemes that strictly monitor practitioners' behaviour. Anyone not "transformed²" is insulted and physically abused. The prison also encourages team leaders, building leaders, and other inmates who know no better into watching and helping to persecute those practitioners together. The inmates in "mutual monitoring teams" often have long prison terms, but monitor practitioners with much shorter prison terms, which itself is against the law. The prison administration is aware of the the laws but still encourages and gives countenance to it. It creates a bad climate. He Jing, a prisoner in the fifth division, beat practitioners.

3. Brutal torture methods and injecting drugs

High-voltage electric shocks are a common way to persecute a practitioner that perseveres in doing the exercises. The guards shock her with several electric batons at the same time. They force her to stand in waist deep water, insert electric batons into the water, and turn them on power.

Hard labour is a constant. The prison intentionally sets a high labour quota so that practitioners who have just arrived at the prison cannot complete the work. With the excuse of "making up labour time," the prison forces them to wash dishes. Usually these practitioners have to wash dishes for almost 800 people in the whole division. When it is done, it is close to the beginning of the afternoon work period, so they have to continue working. Ms. Ma Jianrong's hands festered severely from frequent contact with detergent and hot water. The guards took advantage of this to make her yield and write a guarantee statement. Guard Wei Xiaolei forced Ms. Cheng Lidong to clean all 12 rooms on that floor and threatened that no inmates on that floor could take noon naps if Chen was not "transformed."

Practitioner Ms. Xie Kunxiang was detained in the prison hospital for several months and injected with unknown psychiatric drugs.

All detained practitioners are deprived of sleep for long periods of time. The guards put a book on the practitioner's head, two pieces of paper under her arms, a piece of paper between her legs, and a piece of paper between her back and the wall. They take turns trying to brainwash her. During this period, the practitioner is not allowed to use the toilet or brush her teeth. At daybreak, she has to work. At noon, because she hasn't completed the task, she is forced to wash dishes for 800 people in the whole division. Prisoner Ou Shuxian blamed Ms. Xie Kunxiang for "stubbornness" and purposely poured hot water on Ms. Xie's chest. Ms. Yuan Xiaolin was forced to do labor during the daytime and forced to stand at night until daybreak for more than two months. Instigated by the guards, prisoner Fu Guifen beat Ms. Yang Xiaolan for practicing the exercises.

All practitioners who went on hunger strikes, including Ms. Yan Hongzhuan, Ms. Zhang Chunmei, and Ms. Zeng Qing, were tortured with forced-feeding.

4. High-pressure mental control and torture

The administration endlessly plays videos throughout the whole prison that defame Falun Gong and brainwash both the inmates and the guards. "Education" programmes set up for those inmates who just arrive or are going to leave serve to brainwash regular inmates so that they will assist in the persecution of Falun Gong. Even though some practitioners gave in, they had to endure test after test before they could be eligible for "term-reducing scores" by doing labour like other inmates. This process requires at least a year. On visiting days, these practitioners cannot talk to their relatives like other inmates, even though they have compromised, passed their acceptance tests, and been assigned to the "general monitoring category." Tape recorders were put beside them to record their every word.

The guards order inmates to make beds, clean, and deliver meals for them. When they are in a bad mood, they vent their anger on the inmates by maliciously reducing their scores, extending their terms, or forcing them to copy "behaviour rules" by hand until daybreak. The guards also make the old and the weak practice drills under the hot sun after they had worked for a whole morning and had not eaten anything. The guards abuse inmates by calling them "pigs and dogs."

The prison "shares its experiences" with other prisons, forced labour camps, and brainwashing centres around the county. According to a brochure, Congwen District in Beijing held more than 4000 brainwashing sessions in 2003.

5. Transferring inmates and making excessive profits.

Several hundred inmates without Guangdong Province residence registrations are transferred to prisons in other provinces every year. The prison's excuse is "not enough room." It charges 5000 yuan³ per prisoner. The prisoner does not have a choice and her term-reducing score is void as long as the reduced term has not been authorized. It means the prisoner has to do extra years of labour for the receiving prison.

6. Decoration and cover ups, wanton fraud

The prison holds "open house" days to deceive inmates' families, and strictly monitors inmates' letters and conversations with their families on visiting days. It often refuses to let inmates communicate and and forbids visits to prevent "disclosing secrets of prison administration." If a practitioner does not write a guarantee statement, she will be deprived of visitation rights and the ability to purchase food. So that it can earn the designation of "national civilized prison," those in charge forces inmates to create fake account books. It also forces inmates to accept public criticism and express repentance and appreciation for boosting their "transformation" success. Inmates must wear two low-necked sweaters no matter how cold it is in order to display a "neat appearance." The prison colludes with the Guangdong TV Station to run a "people's voice hot-line" to boost its image.

List of evildoers:

Deputy wardens Zhang Zhiping and Luo Hui
Liu Guozhen, director of the 610 Office
Zheng Zhu'e, deputy director of the 610 Office
Yin Lihong, head of the fourth division
Huang Yunying, with the 610 Office in the fourth division
Guards Yu Yunxi, Xiao Lina, Lin Jingfang, Liu Yingni, Li Xiaojing, Tan Zhurong, Zhang Xinhui, Min, Tan, Liao Jun, Wang Xin, Want Xinxin, Gu Guozhen, Zhu Yunjie, and Yang Jie.

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

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")

3. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/9/26/186585.html