My Experience at the Nanmusi Forced Labour Camp

On June 26th, 2008, I was transferred from an addiction treatment centre in Sichuan Province to the No. 7 Section of the Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp. Except for toilets on the second through the fourth floors, each room had a small window on each door. This made it very easy for the guards to monitor each prisoner.

Three days after I arrived, I was forced to perform slave labour. Whenever we entered or left the workshop's main door, we were required to report to the guards, otherwise we were not allowed to use the toilet. Since I did not report for two days, I had to wait until 11:00 p.m. to use the toilet. Shortly after this incident, the guards required all practitioners who were not "transformed¹" to work in their cell for about 15 hours a day, rather than the workshop.

On the evening of August 7th, 2008, a practitioner and I called out, "Falun Gong is good!" instead of saying our names during roll call. When the deputy ward leader found out about this, she assigned a guard to force us to stand until 12:00 a.m., 1:00 a.m., or even 2:30 a.m., depending on the guard's mood. Sometimes the guard would persuade the deputy ward leader to make us stand still until 3 a.m.

On October 13th, 2008, a group of practitioners and myself refused to do any more slave labour. Seven days later I was locked in Rm 3-1 with four other practitioners (those who refused to perform slave labour were confined to the third and fourth floors). Both floors had paper glued to the outside of all the windows, preventing us from looking out and preventing people from looking in.

The guards had previously issued winter clothes to everyone in the camp. But these four practitioners refused to wear them because they had the words "Sichuan Women's Labour Camp" printed on the front and the words "Sichuan Province Women's Labour Education School" printed on the back. Shortly after, the guards took away all of their personal summer and winter clothes, saying that they needed to perform a "security check."

In addition, they even took their summer clothes which had been washed but not yet dried and locked them in a storeroom. The only clothes that were returned to the practitioners were the clothes I saw them wearing when I first met them: summer shorts or trousers made out of thin cotton.

Since it is very cold in Sichuan Province in October, I gave each of the four practitioners a set of my short-sleeved tops and trousers to wear. The person in charge of monitoring them demanded that the practitioners return all of my clothes back to me. On October 30th, one of the four practitioners was forced by a guard and a person from the People's Administration Committee to wear the labour camp's winter clothes. Shortly after, the other three practitioners were forced to wear the labour camp's winter clothes. Only then did the guards return the clothes that they originally took from the practitioners.

One night around 11:00 p.m., while all five of us were being subjected to forced-standing, someone hurriedly knocked on the door. As soon as this person entered the room, she delivered her urgent message to the People's Administration Committee personnel on duty, saying, "Zheng Youmei's pulse is beating very rapidly!" Ms. Zheng is a detained practitioner.

The guards on duty, the section leader, the director, a doctor, and the whole security team went to the fourth floor. I heard them shouting "Zheng Youmei! Zheng Youmei!" Then we heard a person say that she was not responding. Ms. Zheng was immediately carried away. That was the last we heard from her. The two people who had monitored her on the fourth floor were re-assigned to the third floor

Several people said that they saw guards mixing drugs into Ms. Zheng's food before they served it to her. (See full death report: visit: http://www.clearharmony.net/articles/200811/46881.html).

My cell was on the second floor and I was forced to do work as a slave for long hours. One day I suddenly heard someone shouting from the third floor, "Ji Zulian is beating people!" Ji is a female drug addict who was assigned to monitor practitioners. She regularly beats whomever she is assigned to monitor.

The practitioner who initially shouted was simply urging the guards to intervene and restrain Ji, just as she had urged the prison officials when she arrived to shorten both the hours of forced labour and the hours that practitioners were monitored. When the guards heard the shouting, they grabbed batons and handcuffs and ran to the third floor.

However, instead of listening to this practitioner who shouted, the guards and the People's Administration Committee personnel handcuffed her and took her to the fourth floor. While her hands were handcuffed behind her back, the guards tried to force her to agree to write a guarantee statement, ensuring that she would no longer shout.

The practitioner refused to sign anything so the guards did not permit her to go back to her cell until 12:00 a.m. The practitioner who was beaten shouted "Falun Gong is good!" Immediately the guards transferred her to the fourth floor where four people were assigned to watch her, including Ji Zulian.

The guards tied her feet to separate bed posts and stretched her legs in a "V" shape. In addition, they handcuffed her behind her back and stuffed a towel in her mouth, so she could not scream. She was forced to stay like this from morning until night, except when she had a meal or used the toilet.

Sine the guards were afraid of practitioners exposing their wrongdoings, they locked each cell on the third and fourth floor. By torturing people who practise "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance," the No. 7 Section guards had clearly shown their inability to discern right from wrong.

During my time in prison, many practitioners absolutely did not regard themselves as prison inmates. When a guard issued a demerit to a practitioner, eight days were added to their prison term. If they received a warning or failed to wear the labour camp issued clothes for any given month, or shouted "Falun Gong is good!" during roll call, five days were added to their prison term.

In other words, the practitioners who lived on the third and fourth floor were all those whose terms were extended. I was scheduled to leave the labour camp on November 8th, 2008, but on the release form it stated "November 29th, 2008." Due to the local "610 Office's"² influence, I was not released until December 3rd, 2008.

Before a practitioner could be released, they had to meet with the local Chinese Communist Party security personnel who came to pick them up; otherwise, they would not be released.

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")

2. "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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2008/12/29/192497.html