Methods of Torture Used in Zhejiang Province's No. 2 Prison

Zhejiang Province No. 2 Prison has been called a "model" unit by some in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), presumably for its performance in persecuting Falun Gong. The following is what has been witnessed and experienced by Falun Gong practitioners who were detained there.

The political head of the prison is in charge of persecuting practitioners, and instigates prisoners to torture them and form groups where two prisoners torture one practitioner around the clock. In order to please the prison officials and have their sentences reduced, the prisoners use all kinds of methods to torture practitioners. In this way, the political head can avoid appearing to be directly involved in the actual abuse. Some other methods of abuse are as follows:

1. Once a practitioner is arrested and sent to a ward of the prison, the practitioner will be closely monitored. In addition, practitioners are forbidden to spend their own money or to eat their own food.

2. Every day, as a form of torture, practitioners are forced to sit or stand completely still in a designated posture while being strictly monitored by prisoners. If a prisoner thinks a practitioner has moved, even the smallest amount, the prisoner reduces the practitioner's allotted time to sleep by 30 minutes or an hour. If he or she moves twice, the sleeping time will be reduced twice, and so on. The prisoners often reduce practitioners' sleeping time regardless.

3. Practitioners are only allowed to sleep in a straight posture. If they do not, they are kept awake by the prisoners.

4. The guards reduce the amount of food practitioners are allowed to have at will. In addition, they force practitioners to do intense calisthenics.

5. In the cold winter, the guards force practitioners to stand in front of the air vents with very few clothes on.

6. Practitioners are only given three minutes to eat a meal. They cannot go to the toilet until they get permission, and even then they are only allowed three minutes to use it.

7. The guards often forbid practitioners to wash their faces or rinse their mouths when they need to.

8. The guards and prisoners use all kinds of torture methods to persecute practitioners, including "flying the airplane"¹ and similar forms of torture. Prisoners have said that these severe methods of torture have not been used since the Cultural Revolution. In addition, guards and prisoners often slap practitioners' faces and severely beat them.

Perpetrators:

Zhang Jianjiang (Police ID: 3304573), political head of Zhejiang No. 2 Prison
Wang Zhaolei, guard of Zhejiang No. 2 Prison

Note

1. Flying the airplane - Criminal cell leaders often use this persecution and torture method on practitioners on the instigation of policemen and jail guards. This torture requires practitioners to bend over while holding the legs straight. Then, with the feet close together, the arms are lifted to the highest position possible, with the hands touching the wall. If practitioners can't bear it, the prisoners in the cells and designated torturers will gang up to beat them. See the illustration of this form of torture at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/12/15/55600.html.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/9/8/229342.html