My Experience in the Qinghe Detention Centre

Although I was released from the Beijing Qinghe Detention Centre about two years ago, I can't shake the memory of my experience there.

Detainees in China's detention centres are incarcerated without due process, and there is often no certainty that the detainee was guilty of any crime. By law, an investigation should precede any incarceration, and the accused should be free during during the investigation. However, people in China have no civil rights as long as the Chinese Communist Party is in power.

The living conditions at Qinghe Detention Centre are the worst. I was taken there in 2008 and first detained in the "7.4" Row. I was locked up in small cell, about four square metres. The walls were covered with foam padding. The cell held five people, including me. There was a latrine pit on the side. The other four people were there to monitor me.

I was transferred to the "8.3" Row a week later. I grew up on a farm, but was shocked by what faced me there. The cell held between twenty-seven and thirty-two people and only twenty could lie down to rest at any one time. The latrine pit was covered with a piece of cardboard to increase the sleeping space. Those not sleeping had to stand for two hours at a time. This meant that sleeping was arranged by shifts, with four shifts a night for everyone. We were short of food and what we received was watered down vegetables which we called "cabbage swimming."

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/4/17/221702.html