60-Year-Old Practitioner Tortured at Hohhot Forced Labour Camp

On July 4th, 2005, I was reported to the police while I distributed Falun Gong fliers in a remote mountainous area. The police from the Domestic Security Section of Ningcheng County, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, arrested me and detained me at the Ningcheng County Detention Centre. Officer Lu Zhihe handcuffed me to an iron chair¹, slapped me, hit my head with a metal clip. I was only given mouldy corn flour and pickled vegetables to eat at the detention centre.

On December 13th, 2005, I was sentenced to three years of forced labour. Although my blood pressure measured as high as 190 to 220, I became an inmate at the Hohhot Forced Labour Camp.

The camp tried to coerce me to "transform²." Because I refused to "transform," during 45 days of severe winter weather, the guards forced me to stand on a cement floor for eight hours a day in an open doorway. After that, I was forced to work long hours and beyond my physical capabilities for three years.

I was nearly sixty years old. I was forced to shoulder goods up and down stairs between different floors. I passed out from exhaustion. One day, I fell down the stairs because I became faint due to my high blood pressure. My leg was injured and I was unable to stand up. I was only given one day to recover, and then I was carried to the workshop to work. If I did not finish my quota on time, the guards deducted points and extended my prison term.

It wasn't just me, all practitioners in the camp were tortured by the guards. The guards used non-practitioner prisoners as personal monitors to keep watch on practitioners, and also used prisoners as hostages to force practitioners to comply with their persecution. If a practitioner did not comply, the guards punished all prisoners by exposing them to a half hour of extreme weather: burning sun during the summer or freezing wind in the winter. The guards tortured practitioners who professed their faith using various methods, such as hanging them by their handcuffs, shocking them with electric batons, iron chair, ordering prisoners to beat them, denying access to the toilet.

During the holidays, the guards instructed the prisoners to pour garbage on the top of the dumplings which were supposed to be served to practitioners. The practitioners did not have enough to eat. Their legs trembled from hunger. Still, the practitioners were scolded and beaten if they did not finish their quota.

Practitioner Mr. Zhang Hongpo was tortured behind closed doors after midnight. The guards twisted his genitals, twisted the skin of his inner thighs. Mr. Zhang's eyes were swollen shut as a result of the beating. After more than twenty days' of torture, Mr. Zhang developed a mental disorder.

Practitioner Mr. Zhang Xueqing was called by the guards at 6 a.m. in the morning. The guards ordered drug offenders to beat him. Although he suffered the beating, Mr. Zhang refused to "transform." The guards then extended his prison term for seven months.

Note

1. Iron Chair: The "Iron chair" is made of iron pipes. Victims are restrained on the iron chairs with both arms and legs tied for a long period of time, see illustration at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/1/9/17577.html

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.org/mh/articles/2008/10/20/188119.html