Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Dang Huiying from Baoding City, Hebei Province had been successively held at the Baoding Forced Labour Camp, the Shijiazhuang Women's Forced Labour Camp and the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp, and persecuted for six years just for speaking out for justice for Falun Gong to the government. She said the following about her experience.
I'm 53 years old. I worked at a construction company in Baoding City, but had to retire in November 1998 due to illness. At that time, I suffered many diseases. The stroke that I suffered when I gave birth to my child made my eyes appear swollen, and made my head hurt so much that I had to leave a hat on all year round. I spent more than twenty years trying to cure it, but nothing worked. In March 1999, someone introduced me to Falun Gong. Only a week after beginning to practise, I felt that my body was being purified. I had diarrhoea and vomiting for two weeks, but after that, all my diseases disappeared. I am so grateful!
Three months later, however, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started to persecute Falun Gong. On December 30th, 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal against the persecution of Falun Gong with other practitioners. As soon as we opened our banner, some policemen in plain clothes rushed towards us. They tore off my cap, and seized my hair to throw me to the ground. Due to my insisting on holding the banner, they stomped on my hands with their heavy shoes and broke my frozen hands. Although we were knocked down several times, we still climbed back up. In the end, the police arrested us and took us to the Zhanqian Police Station in Tiananmen Square.
In the Zhanqian Police Station, the police sprayed us with high-pressure cold water hoses and then stood us in front of strong electric fans to chill us to the bone. The following afternoon, police from the Xianfeng Street Police Station in Xinshi District, Baoding City came to pick us up, but first the police at the Zhanqian Police Station electro-shocked us and beat us with heavy rubber batons.
In Xianfeng Street Police Station, a policeman named Yang took away all my personal belongings including 200 yuan1 in cash, identity card and keys. He hasn't returned them to me yet. They handcuffed me to the heating pipe for a whole day, and didn't give me anything to eat. The next day, I was sent to the Baoding City Detention Centre.
On the Eve of the Chinese New Year, the police in the Baoding Detention Centre abetted murderer Zhang Fuyu to beat me. He kicked me, hit my face with books, seized my hair, twisted and boxed my ears. He even wanted to fill me with his excrement. His failure to excrete stopped him from abusing me that way. I was held at this detention centre for fifteen days. Then, I was directly sent to the Baoding Forced Labour Camp without any legal proceedings.
I was held at the Baoding Forced Labour Camp for four months. During this period, the guards forbade me to sleep more than three hours a day. They once handcuffed me onto the heating pipe for four days, tying my arms behind my back and fastening them to the pipes. Sometimes, they tied my back directly on the heating pipe and meanwhile forced me to sit on the cold ground with my arms extended. Prisoners who passed were encouraged to taunt and dig at me. Sometimes, I was forbidden to go to the toilet for a whole day. I had to excrete in my clothes.
I was overwhelmed by the scabies I had all over my body, like needles on my body. However, they never gave me any medical treatment, nor did they give me hot water to take a bath. They even told me that they wanted me to die from the stink. I went on hunger strike to protest. Due to long term sleep deprivation and other methods of persecution, I lost my hair. In the end, I felt my constitution was in no shape to endure, so I did the exercises late at night. However, the guard on duty found out and then punished me by making me stand still in the office until I fainted.
Due to my insistence on cultivation, I was transferred to the Shijiazhuang Women's Forced Labour Camp.
As soon as I was received by the Shijiazhuang Women's Forced Labour Camp, I was forced to be transformed2. The guards force fed me with chilli mixed with essential balm, alkali and salt, which hurt so much that I couldn't help yelling. I once saw the guards pry open the teeth of Ms. Zhang Rongjie from Baoding City. She refused to open her mouth, so the guards pulled four of her front teeth out with pliers. Blood filled her mouth; her screams spread throughout the whole women's labour camp. The guards ordered the inmates to close the door in order to prevent us from seeing, but I still saw the guards kick her teeth aside, saying "Your mouth is hard but my pliers are harder."
The guards used their fingers to keep hurting my acupuncture points. My temple hurt for forty days, which often makes me light headed even now. My body was full of purple pimples caused by the guards' abuse and they hurt for a long time. Other practitioners and I didn't take part in the forced labour; therefore, the guards punished us by making us stand for two months. The swelling made my legs have no sense of feeling. The guards beat our buttocks with shoes. Our buttocks were beaten until there were sole marks, and the swelling kept us from lying down when sleeping. The guards just laughed at us.
About November, 2002, I was transferred to the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp in Baoding City because I remained steadfast in my cultivation. In that labour camp, they started to persecute Falun Gong practitioners after midnight every day. The guards dragged me to a room in another courtyard at night, and then forced me to lie on the carpet and took off my shoes and socks. Many guards pressed me and asked me whether I would accept transformation. I resisted, and then they taunted me and used electric batons to shock me at the same time. My legs were tortured until they smelled like burned flesh. Then the guards spit tea onto the points that had been shocked by the electric batons. I immediately was in so much pain that I lost consciousness in a moment.
When I awakened, it was already the next day. The labour camp was going to hold a meeting which may shorten the prison term. However, I refused to attend it because there were some contents that slandered Falun Gong. Therefore, the guards took me to a workshop inside the labour camp. I saw there were twelve instruments of torture in the workshop. There I was tied with long metal chains which made my arms extend directly, and was fixed to a metal stake by a posture which made me neither able to stand nor squat or sit down. My arms and shoulder blades lost their sense of feeling due to the pressure of the metal chains. It was windy and snowing outside that day. I was held in this posture for a whole day in the cold factory workshop. After midnight, the guards came and kicked my back, paralysing me. Then, two female guards and six male guards dragged me back to the cell.
The following morning, I had no ability to attend drill due to the torture I had endured. The guards trampled my instep with their spike heels. My whole body had been seriously injured; they still forbade me to lie down. Afterwards, they sent me to the school building for forced transformation. That building was the base for transformation. It was said that the labour camp would obtain five-thousand-yuan bonus if they transformed a Falun Gong practitioner.
In the transformation base, I was beaten with the electric baton until I screamed. The guards then ordered detainees to foist socks and sanitary items used at that time of the month into my mouth. A lot of big blisters appeared on my hands due to the electric baton shock. The female guard Zhou Haiyan said, "The baton, police ropes and police nails are just for you. It is legal; otherwise, why do they give us these tools?"
The guards used police nails, which were three inches long and a half centimetre in diameter, to prick my insteps. I was in so much fear and pain that I fainted then and there. When I came round, it was at dawn next day. There are still a lot of wounds on my feet today.
From May 1st, they started to force me to be constantly exposed to the merciless sun from 10:00a.m. (sometimes 9:00a.m.) to 5:00p.m. I once fainted and spit out white foam. Then the guards ordered other prisoners to pinch my philtrum However, I didn't come round even when my philtrum was pinched until it broke. I was then sent to the cell to take an infusion solution. After I came round, I suffered a high fever and incontinence. My throat was hot and dry without any saliva. Many of us were exposed under the merciless sun like that for three months.
In the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp we were given mouldy corn meal and mouldy black turnip strips to eat which were impossible to chew. Even if you were able to eat them, then you became badly constipated. During that period, it was very often that we were forbidden to go to the toilet for a whole day and were forbidden to take a shower for an entire year. All the practitioners held there were crawling with vermin. Some officials once came to the labour camp to examine conditions. On that day, the labour camp made some good meals and put them on the table just for display. An inspector asked, "Do you usually have meals like this?" I answered, "No, absolutely not. All the things on the tables are just to impress you. In addition, they graft our medical bills and detain our money when ending the labour term. Moreover, they told us that if we don't transform, they will bury us alive." At that time, Wang Yajie, the female head of the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp (she has since died) beat my face with her hands which loosened my teeth immediately. After the inspectors went away, the good meals were taken away at once.
The agents from the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp also make return visits to practitioners who have been released. Once they find that any practitioner continues to practise Falun Gong, they will take the practitioner into custody again.
One day in 2003, when it hadn't passed one year since I had been released, the officers from the Xinshi District Police Department and the South District Police Department in Baoding City broke into my house at night, arrested me and took me to the South District Police Department and handcuffed me to a chair. The following day, they again sent me to the Baoding Detention Centre, and transferred me to the Baoding Forced Labour Camp after a week. When I just arrived at the labour camp, a policeman told to the guard, "Here comes another three-year practitioner, you will earn three thousand yuan." (The unit will be given a three-thousand-yuan bonus for sending a Falun Gong practitioner to serve a three-year-term in a forced labour camp.)
This time in the Baoding Forced Labour Camp, I again suffered the torture such as sleep deprivation, and being forced to stand for a long period of time, and being forced to squat repeatedly while my hands holding the head. They still forbade me to go to the toilet every few days. I had to have a hunger strike. One week later, the guards started force feeding me with cold water and the leftover corn meal with half a bag of salt, after the force-feeding, they injected me with some unknown drug. After that needle, I grew dizzy and my vision would dim; I felt my body was physically stupid and dull; and I was very tired and thirsty. I kept vomiting after the force feeding. Then, Du Guochun, the doctor in the labour camp brought a dog to lick my face. He pulled the dog's claws to my face, saying to that dog "scratch her, scratch her."
Afterward, I had a long-term in solitary confinement. They forbade me to contact any practitioners, and forbade me to see my family for more than one year.
After my release, I still couldn't look back to the hurt to my family and me during that period although my body has recovered a little through doing the exercises. I hope to end this cold-blooded persecution as soon as possible.
The persons responsible for this persecution:
Yang Zemin: guard of the Labour Camp
Ye Shuxian: female guard of the Labour Camp
Note
1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.
2. "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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/7/28/205446.html
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