"Area 115" Haiyang City

"On January 15, 2001, in, the local "610 Office" [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems] arrested over 200 computer-proficient Dafa practitioners and detained them at the Dong-Village militia training camp. Officials there began brainwashing the practitioners. A few months later, the "610 Office" sent a few dozen practitioners to a labour camp, and murdered 2 practitioners, Ren Tingling and Yang Fengbin The camp leader, Shao Wenbing is known for his cruelty.

After kidnapping Yang Fengbin and putting him into a labour camp in April 2002, he was tortured severely. Officials injured him all over his body and damaged his internal organs. He died on May 23. Hoping to keep the matter quiet, the perpetrators offered Yang's family 2,000 Yuan RMB for the funeral, and 3,000 Yuan for the children's school tuition. The family refused. A sign identified the area where the torture took place as "Area 115." Here we want to expose the methods of torture used on the practitioners in "Area 115."

1. Torture

The torturers suspend the practitioners in various ways. Tying a practitioner to the pole supporting a basketball hoop in the exercise yard and withholding all food rations is considered mild torture. Harsher torture might involve hanging a practitioner high up in a room, with toes only barely touching the ground, or completely off the ground. Practitioners are often left hanging this way over night. Putting practitioners into a cell and brutally beating them is another common torture. This is how they beat Yang Fengbin to death.

2. Forced control

They strictly control steadfast practitioner's every move. They lock them up on the fourth floor where the windows are covered with steel bars. They forbid anyone from having contact with the practitioners.

3. Psychological Pressure

The torturers use former practitioners who have become collaborators in the persecution due to the intense pressure and brainwashing they succumbed to. They are enlisted in the effort to further persecute the practitioners, to spread various vicious rumours, and to force the practitioners to watch Dafa-slandering videos.

4. Threats

As a threat to the practitioners, the torturers brutalize the steadfast practitioners in front of the others, and send them to labour camps. They hope to increase the practitioners' fear of labour camps and torture, and to break their determined wish to continue to practice Falun Dafa.

5. Family pressure

The torturers manipulate the practitioner's family members to get them to blame the practitioners for all the family's hardships, and beg them to abandon Dafa. They even have the family members get down on their knees and beg in order to further break the practitioner's will. Finally, they tell the practitioners that if they don't give in, it means they don't really love their family members.

6. Economic extortion

The torturers fine families according to how much they think they can extort. The fines could be from a few thousand to a several tens of thousand Yuan. If a practitioner is poor, they ransack and loot his house taking all possessions they can remove including grain stores, farm equipment, and livestock. Yang Fengbin's only valuable possession was a tricycle, so they took it.