A Practitioner Recounts Psychiatric Abuse and Physical Torture at a Mental Hospital, Labour Camp and Prison

Below is a Falun Gong practitioner's account of the abuse and torment that she was subjected to in a mental hospital, labour camp and prison.

My last name is Liu, and I am from Harbin City. I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong after July 20th, 1999 (when the persecution began), and I was arrested and held at the Harbin City No. 2 Detention Centre. Because I refused to write a guarantee statement to renounce practising Falun Gong after 15 days of detention, I was taken to the Puning Hospital in Jiangbei District, where I was held for the next 19 days. I was forced to take psychotropic medication. I had to swallow three pills each time, and I became incontinent and fell asleep afterwards for two days and one night.

I was arrested again after I went to Beijing for the second time and held at the Wanjia Labour Camp for one year. I held several hunger strikes in protest and was force-fed and given two injections of chlorpromazine, a sedative and nausea prevention medication. I was savagely beaten when I refused the drugs. My heart was extremely weak from the potent effect of the drugs, and I often lost consciousness. I was released when my family paid the officials 1,500 yuan¹. Still, the police and residential committee officials frequently harassed me at home.

Officials from my husband's workplace often created trouble for him because I practised Falun Gong. He could no longer withstand the pressure and started beating me. I had no choice but to leave home. Domestic Security Division officials found and arrested me, and I was sentenced to four years in prison. I was first held at the Group Drill Division for more than two years, and in 2004 was transferred to the Heilongjiang Province Women's Prison. The officials there forbade Falun Gong practitioners to speak with one another, and two inmates were assigned to watch each practitioner. Physical and verbal abuse was commonplace. Our families were forbidden to visit us or send us money unless we gave up Falun Gong. Each person was allotted only 12 yuan a month to spend at the canteen. The prison canteen sells everything at twice the market price, and 12 yuan was not enough for getting the basic daily necessities.

They drew blood from me in April or May of 2005. The guards did not tell me the reason, but they called all of the Falun Gong practitioners to the office for a "talk." None of the ones that were called before me returned. When they called my name, I went out and saw that almost all of the practitioners who were called out were locked in a room, and a few were locked in the restroom. I refused to go, and the inmates started dragging me toward the office. Right after they pulled me into the office, eight inmates jumped on me, pinned me to the floor and rolled up my sleeves. Two doctors came up to me, one of them holding a large empty syringe. I struggled as best as I could and moved my arms around to prevent them from sticking me with the needle. They could not draw any blood from my right arm, so they stuck the inside of my left arm and drew a whole syringe of blood. There was blood all over the place. The experience left a huge bump on my left arm that didn't go down until three days later. It was very painful, and I could not bend my arm.

They also gave us injections of unknown drugs. The guards ordered inmates to hold us down and inject any part of the body where the skin was exposed. They gave me a shot on my shoulder, which caused extreme weakness afterwards. I collapsed on the floor and could not get up, and I could not eat solid food for days.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/4/8/221170.html