65-Year-Old Ms. Wu Fengying Brutally Beaten in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp - Belated Information

Sixty-five-year-old Ms. Wu Fengying is a peasant from Yilan County, Heilongjiang Province. She was sent to Wanjia Forced Labour Camp in Harbin City in 2002. While there she was forced to do labour, was savagely beaten, and had six of her teeth knocked out. Below is her personal account.

Zheng Jun from the Yilan No. 2 Detention Centre took 12 other Falun Gong practitioners and me to Wanjia Labour Camp in late June 2002. As soon as we exited the vehicle, a male guard shouted, "Will you obey? If not, all of you will have to 'reform!' [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] We have a 100 per cent 'reform' rate here!" Labour camp head Lu Zhanshan said, "Everyone who comes here must 'reform!'"

The guards made us squat and ordered inmate Bai Xuelian to watch us. If our squatting posture was not correct, Bai Xuelian would kick and hit us. After seven days of squatting I collapsed and sat on the ground. Bai Xuelian beat me and pushed me into a torture chair while the other practitioners remained in a squatting position. On the eleventh day, guards Ma Lida and Zhang Kemei took two practitioners to a room filled with different torture tools, all prepared solely to grossly abuse and mistreat practitioners. They started with the Big Hang-up while shocking them with electric batons. They were forbidden to use the toilet and had to soil their clothing.

We were forced to do labour. I was made to work the fields growing cabbage, carrots, turnips, eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, kohlrabi, and mustard greens. The backbreaking labour gave me sore muscles and aches throughout my body. Still, they made me sit on a small stool at night. We also packaged popsicle sticks and toothpicks, and sorted nuts and glued paper bags. We were deprived of food and sleep until we met our quota.

They searched us daily and went through our beds every other night. Once I put a copy of a Falun Gong article in my sleeve. They found it when they searched me. They took me to an office and demanded to know where I had gotten the article. I refused to answer. Guard Wang stabbed my chest with the sharp tip of a pen. I was in great pain and had difficulty breathing. They also knocked out six of my teeth. I collapsed on the ground, unable to get up. They proceeded to slap my face, severely bruising my cheeks, which became swollen. My ribcage hurt when I drew in a breath and did not improve until more than six months later.

Persecution prior to the labour camp stay

I went to Beijing to appeal on April 6th, 2000. I sat down in Tiananmen Square to do the meditation exercise. The police arrested me and drove me to the Tiananmen Police Station, where they locked me in a metal cage with many other practitioners. Then they drove us to an undisclosed location and put us in a room. They handcuffed two practitioners together with one pair of handcuffs. Eight days later, officers Wang Dianwu and Zhu Qingjun from Daotaiqiao Police Station in Yilan County and head of the town women's association took us to the Yilan County No. 2 Detention Centre, where we were held for 50 days. Yilan County police extorted 2,000 yuan¹ from me before they released me. Later on, officials from the Daotaiqiao Police Station extorted another 2,000 yuan from me.

The police and officials from the residential committee harassed me at home every few days. Village Party branch secretary Li Deming ordered more than 30 villagers to watch me. He hired Wang Guicai and Song Guangfu to take turns watching me. He also hired my neighbour, Feng Yi, to sit at home and watch my every move. Feng Yi often attacked Falun Gong in front of my husband and incited my husband to beat me as viciously as he could. My husband listened to him and ordered me to dig the impacted and hardened soil in the garden. I refused. He savagely beat me while Feng Yi secretly watched us. He also urged my husband to tear up Falun Gong books and other materials as well as lecture tapes.

Feng Yi created a huge gap between my husband and me. As a result my husband visited me only once while I was held in Wanjia Labour Camp. Through my constant efforts to clear up the [regime's] lies, he learned what was really happening. He did a complete turn-around and not only supported my practising Falun Gong but also told others the facts about Falun Gong.

I visited my mother-in-law in late October 2000. The regime watchdogs saw that I was not home and came after me. Villagers Han Xishuang and Yang Haibo took me to the village Party branch from my mother-in-law's home. The next day, officers Zhu Qingjun and Li Yuwen from Daotaiqiao Police Station arrested me and held me at the Yilan County No. 2 Detention Centre for 60 days.

Police officers Zhu Qingjun, Li Yuwen, Shen Liqiu, Zhang Lihe, and others took me to the Yilan No. 2 Detention Centre again in late January 2001. While there we were given food with grass, coal dust, and rat droppings in it, as well as sparse vegetable soup with flies, ladybugs, and caterpillars the size of my little finger. Furthermore, we were forced to work the field, dig up dirt, feed hogs, sweep the floor, wipe the windows, wash cars, and do laundry for the guards.

Detention centre head Zheng Jun and deputy head Lin Zhong made me stand outside in the sweltering heat. I was nauseous and dizzy and nearly had heat stroke. Then they put me in a torture chair. I was holding a persecution protest hunger strike. Lin Zhong and the guards removed my handcuffs and ordered two male inmates to grab my arms so I could not move; another male inmate grabbed my hair from behind and yanked it downward, so that I was facing up toward the ceiling. Then he pinched my nose shut. When I opened my mouth to breathe, another male inmate emptied an entire bottle of super-saturated salt water into my mouth. I nearly suffocated. My eyes bulged, and my whole body jerked out of the hands of the inmates holding me down. The chair and I bounced up in the air. Guard Shang said, "This old woman is pretty strong!" Then he told the inmates to hold me down. They continued to force salt water down my throat until they were satisfied. Then guard Shang told the inmates to take me back to the cell. My stomach convulsed in stabbing pain due to the concentrated salt solution; large beads of sweat dripped down my forehead, but I could not vomit the salt water out. I could neither sit, nor sleep or stand. It was horrible beyond words. I was detained for seven months, had 600 yuan extorted from me, and was released in late 2001.

Eight police officers including Zhu Qingjun, Zhang Lihe, and Li Yuwen, along with the driver, arrived at my home in a police vehicle early in the morning on April 20th, 2002. They rummaged through my home and took a copy of Zhuan Falun, lecture tapes and articles. They carried me into a police vehicle. Wang Dianwu took me to the Yilan County No. 2 Detention Centre, where I was held for two months before being taken to Wanjia Forced Labour Camp.

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.ca/mh/articles/2010/5/3/222798.html