The Brutal Torture I Suffered at Shenyang Women's Prison

I was arrested on November 9th, 2003 for distributing leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. In April 2004, I was sentenced and sent to Shenyang Women's Prison in Liaoning Province.

I was assigned to Group 3, Ward 1. The commander of Group 3 is Li Zhe. I found out that Ward 1 is infamous for its brainwashing of Falun Gong practitioners, with a high success rate in "transforming¹" the practitioners, for which the warden Sun Decheng was awarded the name "Outstanding Police Officer" throughout the country. Li Zhe was also named "excellent employee" for her part in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Among her evil deeds, she directed an inmate to beat up a practitioner named Fang Guiyun and fractured her hip and yet refused her treatment, causing her right leg to be disabled. Li Zhe directed convicted murderers Chen Shuying, Tan Yanchun, Zhu Yajin and Huang Shuxia to torture me around the clock. They tied me up and beat me, stripped me naked and poured cold water on me. I could not endure it any more and agreed to "transform" against my will. In the days that followed, I cried all the time. I felt bad that I had betrayed Falun Gong. I would have rather died than suffer this anguish. During this period of time, they put drugs in my meals. My room mate caught them red-handed doing this two months later. As a result, she was beaten up by Li Zhe. They stopped drugging me due to the exposure. Looking back, during the time they were drugging me, I was having mental breakdowns and suffered from depression, with frequent panic attacks. To this day I still do not know what drugs they used on me. Gradually, I was able to think clearly again.

With sharing and encouragement amongst fellow practitioners, two other practitioners and I wrote our solemn declarations renouncing our "transformation" and resumed practising Falun Gong. One day, Li Zhe summoned me to her office to yell at me and poured a cup of hot water on my face. I calmly spoke to her about the truth of Falun Gong. She refused to listen and ordered inmate Zhu Yajing and Zhang Yingchun to beat me in the changing room. I did not just take it this time. I tried to stop them by shouting. Over 200 inmates outside heard me. Some tried to open the door to rescue me. Others were at the door and demanded to know why I was being beaten. The inmate in charge of beating me had to open the door. I spoke to the group of inmates directly. "We are innocent. Those of you with a kind heart, please help us." I wanted to awaken their conscience. As a result, many of them wrote to the authorities to complain about the evil deeds taking place at the prison. Under pressure, Warden Sun Dexue and Guidance Xia Ru had to give verbal warning to the two inmates at the assembly and disciplined them by deducting two of their points. Encouraged by this, all practitioners in the group who had given in to the torture wrote solemn declarations and resumed their cultivation.

However, they did not stop torturing me. A new round of persecution began, only in a more hidden manner. They emptied a room for their purpose and started with practitioners from Group 2. They did horrible things in that room. Practitioner Wang Yuzhi could not take the pressure any more and attempted to jump from the building, but was held back by others (note: Falun Gong teachings prohibit any form of killing or suicide). To stop the persecution, I wrote to the warden and recounted how I had been mistreated and how violent the commander of my group was. But the letter was snatched by the commander. Further, Warden Sun Dexue and Guard Xia Ru and Guard Li Hong came up with some new strategies to persecute me. They moved me to Group 2, whose head is Qiao Shiying and she is very vicious. They directed the most brutal inmates Wang Xiulan and Liu Jun to torture me. They hurled insults upon me and exhausted all means available to torture me. They tore my sweaters into pieces, stripped me naked and whipped me with a belt with an iron hook, which left holes in my body every time they whipped me with it. They did it until one of hooks of the belts they used fell off and I was black and blue all over. They also would lock me up in a small room and kick me in my stomach. I was sweating from the excruciating pain. They were afraid that my internal organs were damaged so they sent me to a hospital. My blood tests and urine tests suggested that I was in danger so I was hospitalized for 16 days. I was charged for all my hospital expenses to treat the injuries that they had caused.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I continued to write to the director of the prison and procurator. When I was trying to put the letter in the director's mailbox, it was snatched by an inmate and I was brutally beaten by Song Guanghua until my face was bruised and swollen. I wrote to Xia Ru and told her that it is against the law to direct the inmates to beat me up. It is my right to file a complaint and that it is illegal to try to prevent me from protesting this abuse. I also asked them to stop the persecution. Then they stopped the violence.

They then resorted to a "soft" approach. In March 2006, they locked me up in an empty room and had Wang Xiulan and Chen Zhihong watch me. They tried to make me read books and watch videos that slandered Falun Gong and then forced me to write how I felt about it. They said that I had to keep writing until I "transformed." If I did not "transform," they would make me write until my term was up, which was twenty months away. I refused to cooperate with them. I looked away when they played the video. I refused to read the books they gave me. When they made me write, I wrote about how wonderful Falun Gong is and how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) tell lies to attack Falun Gong. This lasted a month. Then I realized that I should not accept this passively. I decided to refuse to write anything or stay in the small room. Then they threatened to have my husband and child come for a meeting to pressure me. They said my child's schooling and future was at stake. I told them to forget about it and that nothing would move me. If my family could have persuaded me, I would not have been here. So they gave up.

Next, they made me stand in the small room and listen to them reading aloud slanderous words against Falun Gong. I could not let them commit this crime against Falun Gong. So I shouted, " Falun Gong is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!" Later, I decided to run out of the room to the workshop to shout "Falun Gong is good" but the inmates took me back to the small room and Xia Ru asked why I did that. I challenged her asking her, "Why not?" She said that it is a prison here. I retorted that a prison is for bad people and not for good people and asked why bad people are allowed to do bad deeds and good people are not allowed to speak the truth. I told them that I will not stay here any more and that many practitioners have suffered at their hands. They then sent me to the office of the commander Qiao Shiying. The inmate said more insulting things against Falun Gong to impress Qiao Shiying, and I shouted "Falun Gong is good!" The captain slapped me on the face. I stopped her and said, "You do not allow any beating in here. Why don't you slap yourself?" She stopped. I continued to shout while they dragged me from the small room to the workshop. Then they locked me up, but they never tried to "transform" me again.

Note

1. "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/2008/10/29/188741.html