Ms. Tan Jianyang, 52, Persecuted in Changsha Women's Prison

Name: Tan Jianyang
Gender: Female
Age: 52
Address: Huaihua City, Hunan Province
Occupation: Former worker of Anjiang Textile Factory
Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 2001
Most Recent Place of Detention: Changsha Women's Prison
City: Changsha
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, hanging by wrists, detention, solitary confinement, torture, extortion, physical restraint, interrogation

Ms. Tan Jianyang from Huaihua City has been repeatedly persecuted. She was sentenced to seven years in prison, where she was tortured repeatedly. The following is her statement regarding the persecution she personally endured, witnessed, and heard about while she was imprisoned in Changsha Women's Prison.

My name is Tan Jianyang. I am a 52-year-old woman and a former employee at the Anjian Textile Factory in Huaihua City. I used to have congenital heart disease, rheumatic heart disease, and hyperthyroidism. My doctor also suspected that I had leukaemia. I frequently went into shock and could not keep to a normal work schedule. In August 1997, however, I started practising Falun Gong and soon all of these symptoms disappeared. I was able to do all my household chores and even wash clothes in the river in winter. I felt like a new person.

I tried to practise Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance in my daily life as Teacher Li Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, taught us. My husband at first opposed the practice, but after he witnessed the changes it made in my life, he began practising himself, as did my children. Our family was overwhelmed by the immense mercy of Falun Gong. Our neighbours and friends also began practising after they saw what it did for me. Falun Gong gave me a new life.

Unfortunately, in July 1999, Jiang Zemin, [former leader of China and instigator of the persecution] and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. My family experienced the persecution firsthand, and like many families who practised Falun Gong, our peaceful and happy lives were torn apart.

1. Arrest and Forced Labour

I was arrested for the first time on July 24th, 1999, and many more times after that over the next two years. I was held in a detention centre for six weeks, a brainwashing centre for two months, and the Huaihua City Secondary Jail for two and a half months. I was released from the jail because I developed symptoms of illness.

After I was released, I wanted to tell people the truth about Falun Gong, so two other practitioners, Ms. Wang Ping and Ms. Li Anmei, and I went to Lianyuan City to distribute Falun Gong fliers. We were reported, and the police arrested Ms. Wang and Ms. Li. Fortunately, I escaped. However, both the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) and the Lianyuan City police issued warrants for my arrest. I had no choice but to leave my home. I went to Jishou City in Baoqian County.

In July 2001, two agents from the Anjiang Township 610 Office and Baoqian County Police Department came to my apartment and arrested me. They held me for three days at the Baoqian County Detention Centre, then transferred me to the Anjiang Detention Centre. A month later, Officer He, director of the Huaihua City Tuanjie Police Station, and a policewoman took me to the Zhuzhou Baimalong Forced Labour Camp. The labour camp however, refused to admit me because I was found to have rheumatic heart disease when they examined me.

On our way back to Lianyuan City, when the Lianyuan City Police Department learned that I had not been accepted, they instructed Officer He to take me directly to the police department. Once I arrived, officers interrogated me. They beat me to try to make me "confess." They later held me at the Lianyuan Detention Centre. While I was detained there, they repeatedly interrogated me, threatened me, and extracted confessions by force. They learned that I borrowed 20 yuan¹ from another practitioner and imprisoned that practitioner for six months.

2. Seven-year Sentence

In January 2002, Ms. Li Anmei, Ms. Wang Ping, and I were put on trial. Our families were not notified of the trial, as required by law. I defended myself and spoke out for justice for Falun Gong. The judge became angry and didn't listen. The court sentenced me to seven and a half years in prison notwithstanding my history of heart disease. Ms. Li and Ms. Wang were each sentenced to four-year terms. Ms. Li was beaten so severely by police in Lianyuan City that she lost the hearing in one of her ears.

The day after I was sentenced, my husband passed away. My children and I were deeply saddened. My daughter was then 15 and my son only 13. They were still kids, but I was imprisoned and could not take care of them. My daughter started working and my son quit school. I was deeply worried about them. The stress of the CCP persecution caused my hair to turn white in two years. In May 2002, after being detained for eleven months in the Lianyuan Detention Centre, Ms. Li, Ms. Wang, and I were taken to the Changsha Women's Prison.

I was given a physical exam while in-processing at the prison, and the doctor said that I had cardiac hypertrophy and qualified for a medical release. Political director Wang, who oversaw our transfer, said, "No matter what, you have to keep her. If you don't, we will send her right back here again." So the prison kept me.

The guards pretended to be nice when we arrived. They deceived us, saying, for example, that the prison spent hundreds of thousands of yuan per year to support the children of imprisoned practitioners while they go to school. Then they laid out a confession and statements to renounce practising Falun Gong for us to sign. If a practitioner refused to sign the statements, the guards became abusive toward her and the abuse escalated.

3. Cruel Torture

In October 2003, guards used "military training" to punish practitioners who refused to call themselves criminals. It lasted from 6:00 a.m. to midnight and included running, standing at attention, half squats, and push ups. Wearing military boots, the guards kicked and trampled anyone who was not doing well enough. Practitioners in their 50s, 60s and older were not spared. A guard ordered me to put my feet up on a 70 cm. (28 in.) high stool and do fifty push ups. I twisted my feet and could not get up. When I told her I couldn't continue, they took me to an office, had me reach one hand up over my shoulder and the other one up from below, then bound my two thumbs together behind my back using a special tiny finger cuff. It was much more painful than being handcuffed behind the back. After a while, my thumbs were in excruciating pain. It was more than ten hours before I was released from the cuff.

On December 4th, 2004, I was ordered to write a "confession," which the guards called homework. I remembered one of the Falun Gong teachings and I wrote that instead. An inmate who was assigned to monitor practitioners reported me. After a while, another inmate took me to a commandant's office, saying "The commandant is looking for you." When I entered the office, the guards closed the door and drew the curtains. A guard asked me how I had learned Falun Gong's recent teaching and why I wrote it in the homework. I said, "If one truly practises, Falun Gong's teachings become part of our consciousness. I wrote them in the homework because I want you to read them, learn the truth, and stop participating in in the persecution."

After I said that, they shocked me with three electric batons on my hands, back and throat, all at the same time. They shocked me several more times and then handcuffed my hands behind my back and locked me in solitary confinement.

The inmates called solitary confinement a jail inside a jail. It was a small dark room about 1.5 metres (5 ft.) wide and 2 metres (6.5 ft.) long. A board against the wall functioned as a bed, and food was passed in by other inmates. The prisoner was not allowed out at any time, and was forced to eat, drink, and relieve themselves in the cell. There was a hole in the ceiling through which the guards monitored us from above.

I was handcuffed even while inside the cell. I was held solitary confinement for 15 days and was handcuffed the entire time. My handcuffs were loosened only when I ate, and as a result, my hands grew swollen and the handcuffs cut my wrists. I frequently felt pain in my left hand for quite a while. When I held something in my left hand, it had no feeling. It took a long time to recover. After I was released from solitary confinement, the guards continued persecuting me, ordering me to stand from 6:00 a.m. to midnight for a whole week.

In Changsha Women's Prison, Falun Gong practitioners worked as slave labourers and were forced to work harder than regular inmates. For example, the prison ordered practitioners to peel lima beans at a rate of at least 35 kilograms (77 lb.) per person per day. Many practitioners had bloody fingertips from peeling lima beans. Besides pealing beans, practitioners were ordered to make tofu sticks. The prison sold these foods in the market to make money. Every year, they made a great deal of money from the sweat and blood of practitioners and inmates. If a practitioner refused to work, the guards beat her, kicked her, and tortured her by hanging her up in the air by her wrists. I heard that a practitioner became mentally traumatised from being hung up in the air after she refused to work.

Many practitioners other than I were tortured. One floor of the prison specialised in persecuting determined practitioners. Ms. Liu Dongxian, in her 50s, was a former doctor in the Taoyuan Red Cross Hospital. The guards ripped off all her clothes and made her stand beside a toilet for the entire winter season. The winter was cold in Changsha and guards intentionally opened doors in the corridor, letting the cold wind blow on her. They restricted her toilet time to three minutes, and when the time was up, whether she was finished or not, the guards had inmates drag her out. The guards were shameless. They took pictures of her after they ripped off all her clothes, then displayed the pictures outside and said that she was mentally ill. Two inmates, He Yong, an economic offender, and Guo Jing from Taoyuan County played leading roles in persecuting Ms. Liu. He Yong was especially evil. It is said that Zhou Yun, a recently imprisoned practitioner, was also tortured by her.

Many practitioners became mentally traumatised after being tortured in the prison. The names that I know first-hand are Ms. Zhou Yunxia from Huaihua, Ms. Hu Bigang from Loudi, and Ms. Xie Suihua from Yongzhou County, Chenzhou City. Ironically, Ms. Xie's son works at the local 610 Office.

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://minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/4/12/221394.html