A Summary of My Torture Experiences at the Dalian City Forced Labour Camp and Masanjia Women's Forced Labour Camp

I am a Falun Gong practitioner in Dalian City, Liaoning Province who began practising in 1996. I used to suffer constantly from numerous minor ailments. After practising Falun Gong, all my ailments went away and I became completely healthy.

Once the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, I was arrested many times and was twice sent to labour camps where I was ruthlessly tortured.

Handcuffed and Beaten at the Local Police Station

The police arrested me and took me to a local police station in 2000, where they handcuffed my arms behind my back. They pulled one of my hands up over my shoulder and down my back, pressed my other hand against my back, and handcuffed the two hands together. Because my arms were short and I was overweight, it took the strength of four policemen to handcuff me like this. The handcuffs' locking mechanism dug into my wrists and hurt severely. The policemen also lifted me up by the handcuffs and beat me, until I fell down. They repeatedly hit me like this over and over again, and didn't remove the handcuffs until I could no longer stand on my own.

My hands became very swollen. While beating me, the policemen also took out Falun Gong books and tried to force me to tear them up. They also put a portrait of Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong under my feet and tried to force me to stomp on it. I refused to do either. The policemen then threatened me, saying that unless I gave up Falun Gong, they would remove my child from school and force him to watch me being tortured.

I held a protest hunger strike once I was at the Dalian Detention Centre. The guards handcuffed my hands and feet together, pushed me down on a bare wooden bed and force-fed me. My oesophagus was punctured during the process, and I experienced severe bleeding. I still refused to give up the practice and was eventually given two years of forced labour.

Tortured at the Dalian City Forced Labour Camp

Dalian City Forced Labour Camp guards repeatedly tortured Falun Gong practitioners as a means to pressure us to give up Falun Gong. We were forced to bend down 90 degrees until our backs were parallel to the ground. We had to hold our heads in our hands, and maintain that position for a whole night. The guards then brought a group of former practitioners who had been "transformed¹". They surrounded me and bombarded me with their fallacies.

I was tortured to the point where my whole body was covered with scabies. I had bloody urine for four days, and developed a 40 degree C (104 degree F) fever. Doctors at the hospital said I would die soon. The labour camp officials didn't want to take responsibility for my death, so they released me on medical parole that same day, and made my family members pick me up that noon. Once at home, I was able restore my health through practising Falun Gong.

To avoid further harassment I left home and rented another place to live. Later on, when I went to the local police station in an attempt to recover the money and belongings the police had confiscated during a ransacking, I was again arrested and sent back to the labour camp. Because I refused to recite "the thirty labour camp rules" and refused to wear my name tag, they locked me up in a small metal cage. The guards pulled my hands as far away from my body as physically possible and handcuffed each of my hands to the metal cage. Because of the intense physical pain, large drops of sweat fell my body, and I lost control of my excretory functions. After being handcuffed in such a way for three whole days and nights, the guards ordered some criminal inmates to tie one of my legs on a metal bar, and pull my other leg as far away as possible until my legs were stretched out straight in opposite directions at right angles to my upper body. They then repeatedly kicked my lower private parts, poked them with a mop handle, spread hot pepper liquid on my body, put dry hot pepper powder into my eyes, poured urine into my mouth, and hit my whole body with wooden boards. I was beaten to the point where my face became deformed, the skin all over my body became black and purple, my lower private parts were torn, and I could no longer walk. Later on, in order to walk I had to grab onto something with both hands. I still wasn't able to walk normally even three months later.

I was once more arrested in April of 2004 and incarcerated at the Dalian Labour Camp. Because I again refused to recite "the thirty camp rules" and refused to wear a name tag, my four limbs were tied up against the four corners of a narrow metal bed that contained four small, narrow wooden boards, and left in that position for 18 days. Afterwards I was forced to remain standing every day until 1:00 a.m. I had to get up 5:00 a.m. to perform backbreaking labour. When I finished the work, I was made to remain standing for many hours. I often fell asleep as I stood there. When that happened, the on-duty person, a criminal inmate who was on call, would push me violently or curse me. I was at the Dalian Labour Camp until it was was closed in October of 2004. From there, I was sent to Masanjia Second Women's Forced Labour Camp.

Violently Force-fed, Beaten and Tortured at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp

Because I refused to recite the labour camp rules, refused to wear a name tag, and refused to wear the labour camp uniform, I was moved to the Strictly Controlled Team. Every cell in the Strictly Controlled Team held ten Falun Gong practitioners. The window in the cell was covered with newspapers, with a number of small holes left for the guards to watch everything that practitioners were doing.

One day, five or six guards rushed into my cell and physically assaulted me and another practitioner for no apparent reason. I was beaten to the point where my back and legs were severely injured and I couldn't stand up. The guards told a camp doctor to take a look at me. He confirmed that I was too injured to stand up. A guard named Cui Hong still wouldn't let me lie on my bed and made me lie on the ground.

All the practitioners in my cell held a group hunger strike to protest. The guards ignored us initially, but more than a dozen rushed in on the 6th day of our hunger strike. They pried our mouths open with a mouth opener that was used to open pigs or cows' mouths to feed them medicine or food. They beat us with wooden sticks to force us to eat. If one refused to eat, several guards would beat her down to the ground, sit on top of her, force her mouth open with a mouth opener, force food into her mouth, and poke a stick down her throat to force the food down into her stomach.

In June of 2005, Falun Gong practitioners detained at the Strictly Controlled Team held another protest hunger strike. The practitioners in my cell tried to do the Falun Gong exercises as a group. The guards again cruelly tortured us, initially delaying our bed-time and forbidding us to brush our teeth and wash up for several days. I went to a guard named Huang Haiyan and told her that we had the right to practise the Falun Gong exercises, and it was wrong to prevent us from brushing our teeth and washing ourselves. I told her that I would hold a hunger strike myself to protest. She didn't say anything. The next day she called me into her office and asked me to repeat what I had said the previous day. I knew that she had an ulterior motive and refused to comply with her order.

Several guards rushed into my cell the 5th day of my hunger strike, on July 1, called out my name and said that I was an "anti-communist." They handcuffed me, pushed me into a police vehicle and transported me to the First Women's Labour Camp. Another practitioner named Xin Shuhua, a woman in her 50s from a farming community, was sent there along with me.

That camp was used to hold common criminals. There were 60-70 people in each team, and one of those was a steadfast Falun Gong practitioner. Because I refused to wear the labour camp uniform, a guard named Zhao Guorong ordered five criminal inmates to hold me down and put me into the uniform by force. My hands were often pulled to the point where they couldn't stop from trembling. Zhao Guorong ordered the criminals to handcuff me to a window. I cried out, "Falun Gong is good!" They covered my mouth with several layers of tape. Zhao Guorong ordered the criminal inmates to take me places where he wanted me to go - by dragging me on the ground. I was dragged to the workshop for forced labour in the morning, and dragged back to my cell on the 3rd floor in the evening. They dragged me by my hair to move me up the stairs. My hair was ripped out in large clumps. Because I refused to do the forced labour, the guards handcuffed me to a metal chair for more than two weeks. I was made to spread my hands open while bending my knees, and hold this position between 6:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m. every day, the hour when the camp's work day ended. I ended up suffering from a severe anal prolapse and also lost the ability to walk, and could only stand while two criminals supported me.

Practitioner Xin Shuhua was also severely tortured at this camp because she refused to wear the labour camp uniform and refused to work. As I was dragged to the workshop one winter day I ran into Xin Shuhua. The guards had removed all her clothes except her underpants. It was a cold, windy, winter day in Shenyang where the temperature was easily under -30 degrees C (-22 degrees F). She put her hands up to cover her breasts, and walked barefoot in a long procession of criminals. Once they reached the workshop, she was tied up and left on the cold concrete floor in the toilet . The guards opened the windows in the toilet to let more cold air in and to freeze her further.

In August 2006, I was again sent back to the Second Women's Camp. Because I still refused to perform the forced labour, a male guard named Zhao Yong kicked me and hit me repeatedly, concentrating most of his blows to my head. I was beaten so savagely that blood poured out of my nose and mouth. I saw gold stars, and my ears were ringing loudly. I lost consciousness and I had no idea how long the beating lasted.

When I woke up, I touched my legs and I couldn't figure out what I was touching. I suffered from complete memory loss for a long period of time afterwards. Later on, the guards hung me up from the upper bed of a bunk bed at a height where I could neither stand up straight nor bend down. They didn't take me down until after midnight. At that point my face had been beaten so badly that it was extremely swollen and discoloured, with big patches of red and purple. The guards made me return to my cell because they wanted fellow practitioners to see how badly I had been beaten to scare them into performing the labour. The next morning after breakfast, as I passed through the camp yard I yelled with all my strength, "Falun Gong is good!" and, "The guards beat me. They are supposed to enforce the laws and yet they break the laws!" A guard on duty came over to stop me. I asked her, "Don't I have the right to yell after the guards beat me so badly?" She was ashamed and didn't say anything.

As of September of 2006, Masanjia Forced Labour Camp officials began a so-called "intensive combat" against more than 60 practitioners who refused to give up Falun Gong. The practitioners were inhumanely tortured.

The atmosphere became darker and scarier. I could hear cries of pain every evening. The torture tool this time was a two-level metal bunk bed. I was placed on the upper bunk. They pushed my upper body through a gap in the headboard of the upper bed, tied my hands on either side of the upper bed, tied my legs together, and fixed them crookedly against the metal poles between the two bunks. I could neither hold my back straight, nor bend down. My wrists supported my entire weight. I was forbidden to eat or use the toilet and was left hanging like this for days. When I was finally taken down, I could not move my arms or straighten my back. I could only lie on the ground. I still couldn't straighten my back two weeks later. The only way I could walk was to bend down 90 degrees with my hands leaning on my legs.

During the last two weeks before my term was up they beat me savagely again and hung me up because I refused to comply with the orders of the guards. A section head named Ma Jishan handcuffed one of my hands to the upper bunk of a bed, pulled my other hand as far away as physically possible, and tied it tight with rope. After several minutes I couldn't breathe and was covered in sweat from the intense pain.

Two other practitioners, Shen Ruolin and Liu Guiping, were also tortured with the method of hanging off the bunk bed, to the point where they couldn't raise their arms, and their wrists were covered with festering sores. Practitioner Qiu Li held a protest hunger strike. She was transferred from the Second Women's Camp to the First Women's Camp, where she was tortured with a variety of methods. Even after the muscles in her legs were atrophied to the point where she couldn't walk, the guards ordered criminal inmates there to drag her to the workshop in the morning and drag her back to her cell at the end of the workday. She was eventually transferred back to the Second Women's Camp, while Ma Jishan again tortured her and caused her to be unable to walk for a long time afterwards.

After Qiu Li was transferred back to the Second Women's Camp, practitioner Xin Shuhua was tortured to the point where she was reduced to nothing but a bag of bones. She was also injected with unknown substances. The only way for her to walk was to have two people on either side of her supporting her.

I saw practitioners who were tortured to the point where they couldn't walk in the labour camp yard.

What I experienced was only a small portion of the severe abuse of Falun Gong practitioners at the Dalian City Forced Labour Camp and Masanjia Second Women's Labour Camp.

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.ca/mh/articles/2009/7/29/205475.html