"Small Stool" Torture Method Used on Practitioners in Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison

The guards in the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison have used all kinds of means to torture detained Falun Gong practitioners. The most common one is called the "small stool" method.

The administration of the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison assigned personnel to the notorious Masanjia Forced Labour Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province in 2005 to learn how to torture Falun Gong practitioners. Ever since then, the "small stool" has been used in Yunnan Province.

Guards force Falun Gong practitioners to sit on a small wooden stool that is one square foot in size from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m. This is a cruel torture that even healthy young prisoners cannot endure, let alone 60- to 70-year-old women. If a practitioner refuses to give up her faith, she is forced to sit like this for a long time, even until her term ended. Sometimes, the buttocks fester, and some practitioners' trousers rot, their blood pressure rises, and their limbs or even their whole body swells due to this torture. Below are some victim cases:

1. Ms. Chen Yanyan, in her fifties, is an employee of the Kunming City University of Technology Plant Service Company. She was arrested on the morning of May 20th, 2008 and sentenced to seven years in prison. She has been tortured with the "small stool" many times, and her body is very weak.

2. Ms. Liao Liqing, 52, is an employee of the Dianzhong Power Bureau in the Chuxiong Economic Developing Zone. She was sentenced in May 2001 to three years in prison and four years probation by the Chuxiong City Court. She was arrested again on January 25th, 2005 and served a three-year term, with an 18-month extension. She was tortured with the "small stool" method until her term ended.

3. Ms. Wang Lan, 55, is an employee of the Kunming City Union. She was forced to sit on a "small stool" long-term and was locked in solitary confinement three times. Warden Yang Huan and Zheng Pin (both female) instructed prisoners Liu Yuexin, Na Huixian, Ma Shufang, Luo Zhonghoang, Tang Zhongmei, and Yang Shulan to put nerve-damaging drugs in her meals multiple times. This torture resulted in the very bright Ms. Yang appearing to be much older than she was.

4. Ms. Xu Yuzhen, in her eighties, lived in Luximang City, Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture. She was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to three years in prison. She was imprisoned in solitary confinement many times, causing her blood pressure to increase and her lower body to swell. She became very weak.

5. Ms. Yang Mingqing, 57, is an employee of the Yunnan Province Forestry Training Centre. She was arrested on January 10th, 2005 at her workplace and later sentenced to three years in prison. She was locked in solitary confinement the day that she entered the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison, which lasted four months, then tortured on a "small stool" until she was released. Her blood pressure increased to 200/120 mmHG, both of her legs festered and were bleeding, her hearing severely deteriorated, and she became very weak.

6. Ms. Zhang Huifen, in her thirties, was imprisoned in solitary confinement for four months, not allowed to wash at all, and not allowed to use feminine products. The prisoners constantly beat her, and her hair turned to a dirty mess. She was so dirty upon being released from solitary confinement that she had to use copious amounts of detergent to wash in the regular ward.

7. Ms. Zhao Feiqiong, in her thirties, was arrested in August 2004 in the Shilin Scenery Zone and sentenced to four years in prison. Upon entering the Second Women's Prison, the guards handcuffed her to the metal frame of the office window, then shocked her with six electric batons simultaneously in sensitive places such as the back of her neck, back, underarms, heels, etc. They first shocked her for two hours, and the second day they shocked her for three hours. Her skin was burnt, and her scars split apart in pieces. The guards (all female) that participated in this torture are Zheng Jue, Ding Ying, Xie Ling, Ma Lixia, Yang Huan, Zheng Pin, Sun Ningshuang, Zhou Ying, and Yang Yongfen.

Guard Xie Ling told prisoner Liu Shuqiong, "You can beat Zhao Feiqiong to death with the small stool if she refuses to accept the brainwashing." Liu then hit Ms. Zhao with the small stool at midnight so hard that the shock woke up the prisoner sleeping on the top bunk. She was then forced to stop. One very cold day, the prisoners forcibly stripped Ms. Zhao Feiqiong then made her squat in solitary confinement, bare-bodied, the whole day. Ms. Zhao was arrested again in May 2009 and sentenced to four years in prison. She was once again locked in solitary confinement and is now under "strict control" and forced to sit on the "small stool" every day.

8. Guo Ling, 52, is an employee of the Kunming City Department Store. She had poliomyelitis. The Wuhua District 610 Office [an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong] and Domestic Security agents arrested her on January 15, 2009 and sentenced her to four years in prison. This is her third detention. In the past several years of imprisonment, she has been monitored all day by assigned prisoners, even when using the toilet. She is not allowed to talk and has been imprisoned in solitary confinement many times. She was tortured with prolonged periods of sitting on a "small stool."

9. Ms. Miao Qing, in her forties, is a teacher employed by the Yunnan Province Arts and Crafts Institute. She was arrested in September 2002 and sentenced to five years in prison. She was locked in solitary confinement many times during her detention. She endured all kinds of torture, which damaged her mental and physical health severely.

10. Ms. Ni Meizhen, 76, has been arrested twice, in 2005 and 2009, and both times she was sentenced to prison and held in the Second Women's Prison. Due to her refusal to give up her faith, she was locked in solitary confinement both times and tortured with the "small stool." This brutal mistreatment caused her blood pressure to become high and she suffered a pulmonary oedema. The prison administration was afraid to be responsible for her life, so they had to release her.

Besides regular solitary confinement, there is "rubber cell" confinement, which means the cell is padded with foam rubber and a has a monitoring system. Solitary confinement is a prison within a prison, a living hell. Regular prisoners are allowed to move in solitary confinement, but Falun Gong practitioners are forced to sit on wooden bed boards from 6:30 a.m. to 11 p.m., not allowed to move or talk, with both hands on their knees. If anyone moves, they are beaten or cursed at by prisoners or shocked with electric baton by guards. They are not allowed to wash for four months and only allowed to use the toilet four times; they are not allowed to use feminine products or change clothes. They are given very little food, and only one bottle of water per day. In the winter, they are only allowed to wear two layers of thin clothes and no socks, only slippers; in the summer, they are not allowed to wear underwear.

In addition to TV monitoring systems, each detained practitioner is assigned two prisoners to watch them 24 hours a day. Normally, a prison can only detain prisoners for 7-15 days in solitary confinement. But in the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison, Falun Gong practitioners are always locked in solitary confinement for four months, or until they agree to write the Three Statements to renounce practising Falun Gong. Some practitioners are locked in solitary confinement for one to three years because they never write the Three Statements.

Some practitioners still refuse to write the Three Statements after being released from solitary confinement, and are then placed in a "strictly monitored" situation. They are not allowed to use mosquito netting, whereas the rest of the fifteen-plus inmates are.

Currently, more than one hundred practitioners are confirmed detained in Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison. They have all been tortured with solitary confinement, have been under "strict monitoring," or had to sit on a "small stool" for a long time. Some of them have been injected with or force-fed nerve-damaging drugs.

The torture means used in the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison are unimaginable. Even though this is the twenty-first century, the Prison Administration dares to violate the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, and the United Nations' "Universal Declaration of Human Rights," "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," "Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment," and "Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners."

We call on international human rights organizations, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), the world media, and people of justice to pay attention to the violence in the Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison and stop such inhuman persecution.

Individuals involved in the persecution at Yunnan Province Second Women's Prison:

Xia Kunli, training warden
Yang Huan, former chief of Special Section (for detaining Falun Gong practitioners), now chair of Education Office
Zheng Pin, chief of Special Section
Special Section guards: Xie Ling, Jing Rong, Yang Yongfen, Tang Yufang, Wan Xuemei, Zeng Jue, Ding Ying, Ma Lixia, Sun Ningshuang, Zhou Ying
Li Dongdong, former chief of Fourth Ward of Special Section, currently chair of Education Office
Special Section guards: Wu Xuying, Yu Guiyun

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/8/7/228061.html