Cruel Torture Methods in Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp

There are eight regular wards in the Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp and one training ward, and in total they hold more than eight hundred people, 80 per cent of whom are Falun Gong practitioners. Among these practitioners, more than 70 per cent are senior practitioners aged 50-70 years old. They are forced daily to do slave labour for nearly 10 hours, and this time does not include the weed-pulling they do before breakfast or after dinner.

Due to international attention to Chinese human rights violations, tortures that can be medically detected have been largely reduced on Falun Gong practitioners, but more inhuman means are still used, especially to those who refuse to give up their faith or write the Three Statements to denounce Falun Gong. Prisoners are used as torturers; they are given special privileges to beat or curse practitioners at will, steal practitioners' belongings, and force practitioners to watch slanderous DVDs or read slanderous materials.

Steadfast practitioners are forced go through brainwashing and locked in solitary confinement, where the door and windows are tightly shut and covered with black plastic. Practitioners are forced to sit straight on plastic chairs, legs close to each other, both hands on their knees, and they are not allowed to lower their heads, to bend down, or to close their eyes. If anyone changes her position one bit, prisoners would punch or kick them, curse them, or beat them with a bottle of water. At the same time, they force practitioners to sleep less by extending the sitting torture from 12 midnight to 2 a.m. but still force them to get up at 4 a.m. This kind of sitting torture lasts 17-18 hours per day.

In solitary confinement, these practitioners are constantly deprived of their right to use the toilet. Each request takes 4-5 hours to be answered, and some practitioners are forced to soil their pants. They are never allowed to eat regularly and are starved. It takes guards 1-2 hours to answer their eating requests. The food is frozen cold in the winter. Some practitioners go on hunger strike to protest such torture, so guards use prisoners to force-feed them, causing practitioners to suffer bleeding in their mouths and noses in a tragic way.

Forceful administration of drugs is another torture means. Once any practitioner feels discomfort or sick, they would be put on medication for their the entire term and not allowed to stop after feeling better. Guards force practitioners to open their mouths after taking the pills to check that they have swallowed, or they are force-fed the drugs. Guards also tie firm practitioners legs in the lotus position for a whole day.

Elderly female practitioner Zhang, firmly kept her faith and was imprisoned for eight months in a mesh bag only three feet tall in the training ward. There was only one hose on the floor for her to drink from or wash herself with. The guards force-fed her with highly-concentrated salt water and shut off the hose. She passed out due to too much salt in her system. She was rushed to be resuscitated, and later taken to a regular ward.

At the end of 2007, guards shouted to practitioners, "If any one refuses to write the 'Three Statements' or accept what we teach you, they will be imprisoned even after their terms end." The practitioners all got extended terms.

The training ward is specially designed to torture Falun Gong practitioners. Guards have concentrated practitioners from each ward that solidly refuse to accept the brainwashing. This ward is very isolated, and no one is allowed to go near. The steadfast practitioners are tortured here very brutally.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/5/23/201438.html