Practitioners Maltreated in Huaihua City Mental Hospital, Hunan Province

The clinical staff at the Huaihua No. 4 People's Hospital, also called Huaihua City Mental Hospital, detain local Falun Gong practitioners and persecute them by various inhumane means. The officials from the local 610 Office¹ severely pressure the hospital staff, demanding that they submit a report every few days or once a week regarding the status of the detained practitioners.

Hospital personnel put practitioners into an isolated room and force-feed them with medicine. Some hold the practitioners' hands and feet and squeeze their nostrils shut while others force-feed medicine into their mouths. Personnel tie practitioners to the "iron bed²" with bandages and leave them there for several hours. One practitioner who was tied to a bed lost consciousness and was almost disabled. The hospital staff also inject practitioners with yellow-coloured liquid medicine. Practitioners who have been injected suffer many symptoms, including drooling, sluggish movement, difficulty moving their hands and feet, blurred vision, etc.

Practitioners held a hunger strike to protest the torture, but were force-fed with salt water. Several strong men held the practitioners down, in the same way as noted above, with their hands and feet bound, nostrils forcibly closed, while salt water was poured down into the practitioners' mouths.

Mr. Yu Shaoqi, an employee at the Bureau of Meteorology in Chenxi County, has been tortured several times. He was sentenced to forced labour in November 2005. After he was released from Xinkaipu Forced Labour Camp in December 2006, he was subjected to further torture in the hospital. Threatened by officials from Huaihua Political and Judiciary Committee, the local 610 Office and the State Security Bureau, the staff at the Bureau of Meteorology forcibly took him to Huaihua City Mental Hospital, where he has been tortured for three months. He is now suffering many symptoms, including mental confusion, weakness throughout his body, foot tremors, blurred vision, and drooling.

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. 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

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/1/12/193368.html