Ms. Gao Xunhong Recounts the Persecution She Suffered

Name: Ms. Gao Xunhong
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Shuangcheng City, Heilongjiang Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: December 7th, 2005
Most Recent Place of Detention: Qianjin Forced Labour Camp
City: Shuangcheng
Province: Heilongjiang
Persecution Suffered: Sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, forced injections/drug administration, beatings, torture, force-feedings, extortion, physical restraint, home ransacked, detention

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Gao Xunhong was arrested while she was in her grain store in December 2005. She was detained for two years, and was released in October 2007.

The following is her account of events:

When I was selling grain at my store, at around 3 p.m. on December 7th, 2005, a dozen police officers suddenly burst in. They confiscated a computer, a printer and some Falun Gong books, then they took me to the Zhanqian Police Station. I was taken to Shuangcheng Detention Centre the following morning.

When I went on a hunger strike to protest my persecution, the guards dragged me into a car and took me to the outpatient wing of Shuangcheng Hospital. Jin Wanzhi, head of the detention centre, and another person whose surname is Liu and who serves as the political instructor there, tortured me. They ordered the doctor and the guards to hold me down while they inserted a rubber tube into my nose to force-feed me. When they finished with the force-feeding, I threw up everything onto the bed. The guards then shouted and ordered that the force-feeding continue. They did not remove the tube after force-feeding me this time. When I returned to the detention centre, they force-fed me every hour, while my hands were cuffed to the railings.

On my 13th day in the detention centre, I had severe stomach pains and felt terrible for a day and night. Guards at the detention centre told my family that they should come to the detention centre and bring money with them, and that they should send me to a hospital. When quite a few of my family members came, the guards refused them entry. Then when they went back home, they phoned my husband and said that I was dying. My husband went to the detention centre alone, and immediately sent me to Shuangcheng Hospital. I was diagnosed with a perforated appendix, and needed an operation right away. After I spent a week in the hospital, the guards wanted to send me back to the detention centre. My family disagreed and said, "She just had an operation and has not even had her stitches removed. Wouldn't the prison environment be too much for her?" The guards agreed and took me to the Harbin Police Hospital instead. My family had to pay 6,000 yuan¹ as a deposit. I was given injections every day in the hospital, which were very expensive. The hospital was just like a prison and the guards from the detention centre watched me day and night.

Officials from the Shuangcheng Detention Centre took me to the Wanjia Forced Labour Camp for a second time on January 26th, 2006. Officials at the labour camp refused to take me because of my poor health the first time. Upon my arrival at the Wanjia "Intensive Training Team," guards Wu Baoyun, Guan Jie and Yu Fangli started to kick me as soon I entered the room, because I refused to kneel down for them. Wu Baoyun and Yu Fangli pulled my hair, and punched and kicked me. In the Intensive Training Team I was forced to write guarantee statements to renounce my belief. I had to get up at 5 a.m. every day and sit on a small stool, without moving, until 10 p.m. I was also forced to recite the prison regulations and to slander Falun Gong.

There were more than 20 Falun Gong practitioners in the Intensive Training Team at that time. As soon as we got up, we had to start working. If we could not finish our daily work quota, both the inmates and guards would verbally and physically abuse us. Practitioners were also not allowed to speak. After two months in the Intensive Training Team I was transferred to the No. 7 Division. Zhang Bo was head of that division.

More than 100 practitioners were in the No. 7 Division. This division was divided into three teams. Every day, we did hard labour, and were only given corn flour cakes to eat and some cabbage soup. Even the elderly ladies, over 70 years old, had to pack soles for shoes, bag insecticide, as well as make lollipop sticks and toothpicks. We had to work from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m., and were not allowed to go to bed until we had met the assigned quota, even if it went past midnight.

I was forced to pack shoe soles, and the tips of my fingers had blisters and my eyes were red due to lack of sleep. I was later assigned to make toothpicks. I was exhausted, but was still forced to do hard labour. We had to load the delivery trucks once every few days for 2 to 3 hours each time. Each box weighed over 30 kgs. Elderly practitioners had to carry the boxes as well. Whenever I did heavy lifting, the incision on my stomach from when I was in the hospital began to swell. I later found that the doctor at Wanjia Hospital did not take out all the stitches when they treated my appendix.

I was transferred from Wanjia Women's Forced Labour Camp to Qianjin Forced Labour Camp on January 25th, 2007, where I was still forced to do hard labour. I was made to work in the kitchen one time, where there were very large gas stoves. When I noticed that the gas pipe was leaking, I told guard Zou Lifan about this, and was told, "Does what you say count? You just do what you are told to do. You do not have a choice." Yang Guohong, head of the division, didn't care whether the work was dangerous or not. We had to do whatever he ordered us to do.

Note

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

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/10/24/231407.html