The Persecution of Practitioners in the Women's Prison in Shaanxi Province

Since May 2006, the Shaanxi Province Women's Prison has used more and more ways to torture jailed practitioners. The prison guards force them to remain standing or squatting for long periods of time, hang them up by the handcuffs, don't allow them to wash themselves, subject them to sleep deprivation, force-feed them, expose them to the elements for long periods of time, deny them use of the toilet, poke them with needles, and spit in their faces. Guards beat practitioners with police batons, kick them and pull their hair. No one was allowed to be released without writing a guarantee statement promising to give up Falun Gong.

In May 2006, Xi'an City's 610 Office¹ staff member Chen Bin came to Shaanxi Province Women's Prison and started to give lectures. Chen Bin claimed that he used to practise Falun Gong and had been taken to a forced labour camp, and now his job was to help convince practitioners to give up their cultivation. Guards brought practitioners from all the sections to hear the lecture, and they were allowed to put their questions on paper and hand them in to Chen Bin. Practitioner Ms. Li Lin from the First Section didn't want to listen to Chen Bin slander Falun Gong, so she started to yell "Falun Gong is good!" Guards rushed over to her and covered her mouth to stop her. She managed to remove their hands and shouted again. Several inmates came to help the guards cover her mouth. Guards dragged her out by her hair, and later no one was allowed to ask any questions.

Practitioner Ms. Yang Qiaoli was transferred to another section. There were seven inmates who watched her on different shifts. The guards tried to trick her into writing a letter to give up her practice of Falun Gong. Ms. Yang said that she was innocent and that she was not a criminal. Guards ordered seven inmates to take her into the section captain's bathroom to beat her. In order to make her injuries less obvious, they struck her lower back and hips with knees and kicks. Ms. Yang said, "Don't do this to me, it will do you no good." The inmates said, "If you don't write the letter, our marks will be reduced by the captain, and that is why we have to beat you." Later, Ms. Yang ran into the guards' office and requested that the reduced marks should be directed to her only, not to other inmates. The captain closed the door, and guard Lei Xiaorong started hitting Ms. Yang with a baton. Ms. Yang felt dizzy and wanted to vomit, and she passed out. Later the guards injected her with an unknown substance. When she was taking a shower, the inmates said there were black bruises all over her hips, and that her lower back was reddish purple. Ms. Yang was forced to write an essay to slander Falun Gong, and when she refused, inmates were ordered to follow her everywhere, even to the toilet. They didn't allow her to sleep night or day, and this continued until July 2006.

In April 2007, the Seventh Section transferred an elderly practitioner who was sentenced to seven years, to the Ninth Section. They later transferred another practitioner to the strict control section, which was also called the isolation chamber. It was a place for beatings and torture. Ms. Yang Qiaoli copied a Falun Gong lecture for the elderly lady. When the guards found the scripture, they handcuffed her to the iron door of the cell. Section Captain Lei Xiaorong showed Ms. Yang the scripture and questioned her, asking if she was the one who wrote it. Ms. Yang said, "The elderly lady could be as old as your mother. If she was your mother, would you let other people treat her like that?" Guard Lei Xiaorong then hit her with a baton. Ms. Yang was locked up in the reading room. They covered the reading room's windows with paper to block the view, and they didn't allow any other inmates to enter. They put a bunk bed inside, handcuffed her to the upper bunk, and forced her to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong. They didn't allow her to sit or sleep, and she was not even allowed to close her eyes. On the seventh day, guard captain Zheng Xianjing, who was in charge of torturing practitioner inmates, tried to convince Ms. Yang with lies and tricks to give up her beliefs. When Ms. Yang refused, she slapped her.

On the eighth day, the guards released her from the bed and tried another tactic. They asked an inmate who used to be a doctor to check her leg, and that inmate claimed that if this continued, she would become disabled. They threatened that if she didn't give up her practice of Falun Gong, they wouldn't allow her to go home and would send her to a brainwashing centre instead. When she was very weak and dizzy, Ms. Yang copied the guarantee statement letter that inmates wrote for her. But the next day when she became clear-headed, she realized what she had done and renounced the guarantee statement. On the ninth day, the guards handcuffed her to the bed again. That day, guard Yang Fang was on duty, and she claimed, "The other captains were right, we should not let you eat or let you use the toilet. You should urinate in your pants and let it dry by itself." Ms. Yang was thus not given any food or water, and she wasn't allowed to use the toilet for a whole day.

Back on January 23rd, 2005, Ms. Yang's home was ransacked by staff from the "610 Office" in Yintai District, Tongchuan City. She was arrested and received a three and a half year sentence. She was taken to the Shaanxi Province Women's Prison on August 10th, 2005, and transferred to the Seventh Section on November 10th, 2005. Around January 24th, 2006, the prison suddenly body-searched every Falun Gong practitioner and found a scripture on Ms. Yang. The guards took her to the office, forced her to remove all her clothes and searched her again. Later they made a report to the prison's Political Education Department, which was an office in charge of torturing Falun Gong practitioners. Two guards from the education department took her into an office. Guards Li Jing and Ma Xiaoli slapped her face twice and asked her from where she got the scripture. Ms. Yang asked them, "Why are you so scared by a scripture of two sentences?" Ma Xiaoli said, "Okay, so you don't want to tell us, huh?" Ma then started hitting her with a police baton. Later, Ji Guifang, the director of the Political Education Department, asked her again, "Who gave this to you?" Ms. Yang said, "Which sentence in the scripture is about politics? It's just some new year's greetings. You guys are so scared. Don't persecute Falun Gong practitioners anymore, they are all good people. Don't just care about what you can get now by torturing us. Think about the future." Ms. Yang was tortured there for more than three years, and was released on July 23rd, 2008.

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.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/2/10/195200.html