Women's Forced Labour Camp in Shandong Tortures Falun Gong Practitioners

The Women's Forced Labour Camp in Shandong Province, also known as Jinan City First Women's Forced Labour Camp, tortures Falun Gong practitioners with various inhuman methods such as starvation, sleep deprivation and restricting toilet use. The purpose is to coerce them to give up their practice of Falun Gong.

At meal time, practitioners have to stand and wait until a guard enters the dining hall. When the guard arrives, each practitioner must report to them and loudly say, "I am a labour camp detainee" before being allowed to eat. Practitioners are often deprived of sleep. Some are forced to go without sleep for up to five days, which severely impairs their health. Some are not allowed to sleep for nine days, which causes a mental breakdown.

Another torture method the guards use is not allowing practitioners to use the toilet. Practitioners are forced to report to the guard before using the toilet and say, "I, labour camp detainee X, am reporting to guard X and asking to use the toilet." Sometimes, permission is not granted and the practitioner has to wait. Many practitioners refused to acknowledge that they are criminals, and they are forced to urinate and defecate in their trousers.

For those steadfast practitioners, the labour camp guards use non-practitioner inmates to curse at and beat them day and night. Political instructor Wang Yueyao instigated inmates to savagely beat practitioners. Sometimes she doesn't feel satisfied with the results and beats the practitioners herself.

Captain Sun Xiufeng fabricated lies to incriminate practitioners. Inmate Wang Qian from Yantai City of Shandong Province once beat practitioner Wang Cuifang and broke a finger after using too much force.

Individual cases of practitioners tortured in the labour camp:

1. Ms. Li Mengting, 45 years old, is a resident of Liaoning Province. She was once detained for three years at the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp. She was arrested by the police and sentenced to two years of forced labour for distributing Falun Gong fliers on a train. She is currently being detained at the Jinan City First Women's Forced Labour Camp. The camp guards carried her into the camp and tried to trick her into giving up her practice of Falun Gong. When that failed, they started beating her brutally and depriving her of sleep. When she went on a hunger strike to protest, the camp guards tied her on a death bed¹ and left her there for over fifty days. They force-fed her with a tube fixed at the end of the bed. She was not released from the bed until she was on the verge of death and mental derangement. She was coerced into writing a guarantee statement to give up practising Falun Gong.

2. Ms. Zhang Liping, 46 years old, is a resident of Tai'an City. She was arrested by the local police and sentenced to one year of forced labour. When she shouted out, "Falun Gong is good" the police sealed her mouth with tape and locked her in a solitary cell for an extended period of time. One day in the winter, she was forced to stand in front of an air conditioner with cold air turned on for the whole night.

3. Ms. Sun Ruijuan, 47 years old, is a resident of Jinan City. While in the labour camp, she was locked in a solitary cell for an extended period of time. The police did not allow her to use the toilet. She often only ate a small amount of rice and did not dare to eat vegetables or drink water to lessen the need to urinate and defecate in the cell. The police claimed that she had hypertension and used that as an excuse to torture her in the name of "curing" her. The camp guards pressed her down to the ground, pried open her mouth and forced unknown drugs down her throat, causing her to scream in severe pain.

4. Ms. Zhang Shuping, in her 50's, is a resident of Dezhou City. She was sentenced to one year of forced labour. She refused to give up her practice of Falun Gong, so her labour term was extended by half a year. Now, she has been sentenced to another year and a half. Besides locking her up in the solitary cell, political instructor Wang Yueyao squeezed Ms. Zhang's breasts and ribs so hard that it caused severe bruises.

5. Ms. Zhang Cuihua, in her 60's, is a resident of Weifang City. She was tortured severely in the labour camp. Her legs and ankles were bruised so badly that she had difficulty walking. Sometimes the guards tied her on a chair, stuffed a rag in her mouth and sealed it with tape. Then they left here there for days at a time.

6. Ms. Tu Fuhong, in her 30's, is a resident of Jining City. She was sentenced to two years of forced labour. The police forced her to sit on a small bench. She had to sit up straight with her hands on her knees for eight days. Sometimes she was allowed to sleep after midnight. After a while, she had a mental breakdown and wrote statements defaming Falun Gong and gave up her practice of Falun Gong. Later, she regretted it very much. One day in the workshop, she shouted, "Falun Gong is good!" The police took her away and locked her in the toilet. Sometimes, she was forced to eat her meals in the toilet. One day while she was locked in the toilet, political instructor Wang Yueyao beat her down to the ground, leaving her body covered in bruises.

7. Ms. Cao Weiqing, 48 years old, is a resident of Tianjin City. During her detention in the labour camp, she went on a hunger strike for a hundred days to protest. The police force-fed her. She resisted by clenching her teeth. The police pried open her mouth breaking two teeth and causing excessive bleeding.

8. Ms. Wang Cuifang, in her 60's, is a resident of Lunan County. She was detained at the Jinan First Women's Forced Labour Camp on two separate occasions. The camp guards tortured her inhumanly. They did not allow her to use the toilet and she had to urinate and defecate in her pants. When she limited the amount she ate and drank in order to avoid using the toilet, the police threatened that they would consider her behaviour a hunger strike protest and would force-feed her.

Police personnel who participated in the persecution:

Captain: Sun Xiufeng
Political instructor: Wang Yueyao
Deputy captain: Xu Hong
Guards: Zhang Yongmei, Wang Xiaowei

Note

1. "Death Bed" torture: A practitioner is tied to a bed with his hands handcuffed above his head to the bed rails, and his legs tied with thin nylon ropes. The rope is then tightly wrapped around the practitioner's body and the bed, from his legs to his chest. The rope is wrapped so tightly that the practitioner has difficulty breathing and eventually loses consciousness.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/11/29/213447.html