Accounts of Torture from the Chongqing Women's Forced Labour Camp

The Chongqing Women's Forced Labour Camp is a brutal inhuman place. The torture methods it uses to persecute Falun Gong practitioners are very rare. I would like to expose the atrocities I saw and experienced there.

1. Forced Drills

All Falun Gong practitioners detained in the camp, no matter what their ages or physical conditions, must attend drills in the "training class."

In the "training class," the guards create tension by using any means, creating great tension for practitioners at all times. The purpose is to create mental trauma and confusion for practitioners and compromise their rationality.

The torture means include forced standing and squatting like soldiers, administering unknown drugs and concentrated salty water, exposure to the hot sun, handcuffing behind the back, sealing practitioners' mouths with tape, and deprivation of sleep and use of the bathroom.

There are other persecution methods employed which leave no visible signs of injury but nonetheless gradually cause pain all over the body, which subsequently becomes unbearable.

Ms. Shen from Fengjie County, Chongqing City persisted in her belief no matter how the guards tortured her. The guards finally administered an unknown drug against her will, which caused a mental collapse.

2. Forced Brainwashing

After the first period of forced drills, where many practitioners are injured from abuse, a second period of brainwashing begins.

The camp officers choose those criminal detainees who are very vicious to monitor Falun Gong practitioners and systematically "transform" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] them.

The camp rewards or punishes the inmates-turned-persecutors based on how well they monitor and persecute Falun Gong practitioners. The guards publicly instigate and order these inmates to do brutal deeds. In order to get rewards, the inmates make strong efforts to persecute practitioners. The camp forces practitioners to attend so-called "study" sessions, where they are forced to recite the Six Regulations of the Public Security Administration, 23 Camp Rules and evil theories. The camp also forces practitioners to watch video programmes that defame Falun Gong, and to write reflection reports each night. If the report doesn't satisfy the guards' taste, the practitioner is forced to swallow every piece of paper from the report and then write it again. If the practitioner doesn't conform, she is tortured by a variety of means mentioned above.

The camp also forces practitioners to follow the required style and write statements to renounce practising Falun Gong. Practitioners are forced to copy this by hand over and over every day. If practitioners don't follow these orders, they are tortured. The camp allows no contact between practitioners, even through eye contact or by gesture. Every word and deed by practitioners requires permission from the persecutors, including getting up, using the toilet and drinking, lest the persecutors beat and swear at the practitioners.

The guards thought elderly Ms. An Bin was practising Falun Gong exercises because one of her feet was on top of the other one while she slept. She was immediately confined and tortured in a small cell.

An older practitioner from Liangping County, Chongqing wanted to use the toilet because she had diarrhoea, but her request was denied because it was not the set time. When she could not hold it any longer, she was physically punished.

3. Forced Labour

In order to generate revenue, the camp forces practitioners to do labour. The camp sends relatively young practitioners to the rubber workshop to make accessories for manufacturing cars. After the workshop closed in December 2008, it was converted to make accessories for installing electrical wiring.

Older practitioners are sent to the sweet packaging workshop to wrap sweets. The camp sets a very high quota for each practitioner. In December 2009, the guards raised the quota again. Each practitioner had to wrap an additional pound of sweets every hour. Practitioners who are younger than 45 years old had to wrap 11 pounds; 46-60 years old, 10 pounds; 61-65 years old, 6.6 pounds; older than 66 years old, 5.5 pounds. If a practitioner has nine hours of quota left in one week, she is punished by being forced to sit for two hours if she is older than 60 years old. Otherwise, she is forced to stand for two hours.

The guards also demand a monthly record on the 24th day of each month. The last three who finish their quota are forced to write self-reflection reports, and their scores are reduced. The quotas are set unrealistically high, and practitioners have to work until late into the night. When the upper authorities came to inspect the camp, the working hours were reduced to six hours per day. If we spoke about the true situation in the camp, our detention terms would be extended.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/5/31/224622.html