Accounts of Harrowing Persecution at Sanshui Forced Labour Camp, Guangdong Province

Since the persecution of Falun Gong began on July 20th, 1999, incomplete statistics have so far revealed that more than 1,000 practitioners have been persecuted in the Sanshui Forced Labour Camp in Guangdong Province. I was also detained there and brutally tortured.

The Sanshui Forced Labour Camp is separated into four divisions, with a total of 16 teams. The Fifth Team in the Third Division was specifically created for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. The place became notorious for its brutality, so the division's name was changed. Practitioners who were detained there were all transferred to the newly built Fourth Team of the First Division, which cost about 100 million yuan¹ to build. Camp officials claimed that no practitioners had ever been detained there.

A general meeting was held at the labour camp on January 29th, 2009. Shi Honghui, head of the Guangdong Forced Labour Bureau, attended the meeting. The head of the labour camp gave a speech, which began: "This year is the sixtieth anniversary of our country, the twentieth anniversary of cracking down on the June Fourth incident (Tiananmen Square massacre) and the tenth anniversary of cracking down on Falun Gong. The situation is very difficult for us. We have to achieve an 89% "transformation" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] rate on the detained Falun Gong [practitioners]. Let's figure out how we can achieve this."

Some accounts of persecution known at the camp are listed below:

Sleep deprivation

Guo Baosi from Meizhou, Guangdong, is a guard mainly in charge of persecuting practitioners. He deprives practitioners of sleep for long periods of time if they do not renounce their belief.

Mr. Wen Huasheng from Yangxi County, Guangdong Province was transferred from Shenzhen Second Forced Labour Camp to this camp in April 2009. Both Mr. Wen and Mr. Huang Wei from Huazhou City, Guangdong Province were forced to sit on a plastic stool for long periods of time, and were not allowed to move. They were made to do this because they did not sign a guarantee statement to give up their belief. Practitioners who do not renounce their belief are isolated in small prison cells and are continually monitored by prison inmates. Guo Baosi ordered inmates to deprive Mr. Wen of sleep for two weeks. When he fell asleep, inmates poured cold water over him and made loud noises by hitting the ground with metal objects. When practitioners who were deprived of sleep fell unconscious, the inmates forcibly pressed the practitioners' fingerprints onto the guarantee statements.

Practitioners have become mentally unstable due to severe persecution

Mr. Pan Zhihao from Shanwei City in Guangdong Province was a top student at the University of Science & Technology in Beijing. He was brutally tortured by guards Guo Gaosi, Su Jiashi, Lan Yuanhang and Jiang Hanqing.

When Lan Yuanhang saw Mr. Pan Zhihao practising the Falun Gong exercises from a video monitor on April 6th, 2010, he ordered inmates to drag Mr. Pan downstairs to the duty office and beat him. Su Jiashi burned his ears with a cigarette lighter. Due to the severe persecution, Mr. Pan became mentally unstable, and Guo Baosi used this opportunity to slander Falun Gong by telling people in the prison, "Mr. Pan went insane because he practised Falun Gong. We did not torture him." Mr. Pan was transferred to the medical section of the forced labour camp. In July 2010, he was taken to the Guangzhou Mental Hospital.

Mr. Chen Zhiyong and Mr. Liu Shangli also became mentally unstable as a result of severe persecution.

Electric shocks and beatings

Mr. Chen Lixiong and Mr. Mai Mufa went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution when guards tried to force them to write guarantee statements. Guo Baosi force-fed both of them. Mr. Chen was tied to a death bed², while Wu Tao, Jiang Hanqing and Lan Yuanhang shocked him with seven electric batons. Letters sent to Mr. Chen from his wife were confiscated. When he became very ill, both Guo Baosi and Jiang Hanqing told people that he was pretending to be ill, and that is why he was not allowed to have contact with his family.

Mr. Xie Naiyong from Jiangxi Province ignored orders from the guards and did the Falun Gong exercises when he arrived at the camp. He shouted, "Falun Gong is good," and was severely beaten. Guo Baosi handcuffed him to a high bar, so his feet were not touching the floor, causing severe strain on the arms and back. His mouth was covered with tape, and then Guo Baosi repeatedly slapped his face. Mr Xie was taken to a room on the fifth floor, where he was severely beaten. Guo Baosi ordered seven inmates to hold him down while they forcibly pressed Mr. Xie's fingerprints onto the guarantee statement.

When Mr. Song Zhenshi from Shanwei did not co-operate with the unreasonable orders of the guards, he was set upon by party secretary Tong Chaoyin and guards Guo Baosi, Jiang Hanqing, Wu Tao and Lan Yuanhang. They ordered inmates to beat him and forced him to do strenuous exercises. He was made to bend down on one leg for a long period of time, and was only allowed to sleep from 2 a.m. to 6 a.m. He was beaten when he fell over or did not do as the inmates told.

Forced labour

The guards forced the practitioners to finish their assigned work quotas, no matter how long it took. If a practitioner did not finish in the allotted time, they would be penalised.

There is an electronic menu on a screen in the labour camp cafeteria, which always advertises chicken and fish. This is done to deceive visitors to the camp, while in reality, practitioners ate half-cooked, dirty rice, and a few pieces of old vegetables every day. The guards once spent 100 Yuan to buy a pig that had died of illness, and the meat was already starting to rot. But the guards insisted that it be cooked and only given to the practitioners.

He Xiaodong, head of the team, and He Jianwei, a guard in charge of persecuting practitioners, often swore at practitioners and threatened them with a high voltage electric baton. At mealtimes, all the detainees were forced to sing a song that praised the Chinese Communist Party. If they did not sing loudly enough, the detainees would not be allowed to eat. The guards also forced the detainees to buy food for them.

During the weekly meetings, guards demanded that practitioners swear at the founder and Teacher of Falun Gong, Li Hongzhi. They also forced practitioners to view pornographic websites and write articles defaming Falun Gong. If practitioners did not follow the guards' orders, inmates were told to beat them and deprive them of sleep. Practitioners were also forced to drink their urine and eat food that had been put in a dirty bucket. Mr. Li Zuodong was confined to a cell and was shocked by four electric batons. Several practitioners suffered from mental problems as a result of this form of inhumane treatment.

The following practitioners are still detained in the camp: Zhang Quan, Huang Fuqiang and Liang Zhijun from Guangxi Province; Lin Shaobo, Liu Xiaohan, Huang Wei, Xiong Shiguang and Song Zhenshi from Guangdong Province; Liang Fengchun, Chen Lixiong and Pan Zhihao.

Some of those responsible for the persecution:

He Yeguang, head of the labour camp: 86-757-87318294
Wang Zhongren, Commissar
Zhao Shengkui, party secretary of the First division

Guo Baosi, guard

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

2. "Death Bed" torture: A practitioner is tied to a bed with his hands handcuffed above his head to the bed rails, and his legs tied with thin nylon ropes. The rope is then tightly wrapped around the practitioner's body and the bed, from his legs to his chest. The rope is wrapped so tightly that the practitioner has difficulty breathing and eventually loses consciousness.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/10/4/230519.html