An Account of the Persecution Suffered by Ms. Tan Shaowei from Guangzhou (Part 2)

Part 1: http://clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/12/22/122053.html

It was in the middle of the night in a classroom when they tried to pressure me to give up practising Falun Gong. When I refused, they forced me to do a half squat while watching a video that slandered the practice. They also beat me with a pole whenever I failed to do exactly what they ordered. In two days, my arms and legs were all swollen. They also burned a lot of mosquito repellant incense in front of me and forced me to inhale the smoke. I still had the smell of incense on my clothes and body even after ten days. The guards considered this a minor form of torture. If I refused to write the three statements to renounce practising Falun Gong, they were going to torture me more viciously.

When I refused to write the three statements in the middle of the night, I was taken to the toilet and pushed down to the ground. Then, they left the water on while a dirty mop was used to cover up the drain on the floor. One person held my arms behind my back while someone else pushed my face into the dirty water on the floor, forcing me to drink it and feel suffocated. They also stuffed an ash-filled cloth into my mouth so people couldn't hear me scream. Afterwards, they dragged me out of the toilet and one of them began to hit me hard with his fists while another fellow grabbed my hair and yanked my head back and forth. When I lost consciousness, they stabbed me with a needle to wake me up. When I regained consciousness, they put me on a chair and continued to stab me with a needle until I began twitching from the pain. They only stopped when I didn't twitch anymore. The next round of torture was to force spicy water down my throat. This was followed with putting mustard around my eyes, nose, and mouth to make my eyes tear, my nose run, and my mouth salivate. They then collected all of the secretions and forced me to swallow it. They laughed as they tortured me and the inhuman acts went on for several hours. They brought me to a bed just before day break. Before I could sleep, they forced me to watch a video that denounced Falun Gong and made me report what I saw.

After five days of continuous torture, I was dazed and only vaguely aware of my surroundings. However, I knew that I was bleeding from my head. I was then sent to the Huangpu Hospital emergency room. After I had another examination a week later, I began to contemplate how to escape. They somehow realised my intent and didn't let me eat. Instead, they brutally force-fed me while I was tied to a chair. Afterwards, they tied me up tighter until I couldn't move my arms and legs. In the afternoon, I had a fever, but no one bothered to do anything. In the evening, they force-fed me again. Not long after that, I had a stomach ache. I asked to use the toilet, but they refused to untie me until an hour later. I suffered from diarrhoea for the next two hours. When it was time to sleep, they tied me up again until 8:30 a.m. the next day. I was tortured this way the following day.

I then started coughing for two months. After a few days, I had oedema all over my body. All the practitioners detained on the same floor could hear me cough. I coughed up dark sputum that sometimes had blood in it. There was also a bad smell whenever I coughed. When the guards learned that I was sick, they said, “We will let you die here.” Before I was sent there, two practitioners had died from persecution.

Another torture method used on practitioners was sleep deprivation. Every practitioner was forced to attend a “meeting” and watch videos that slandered Falun Gong late at night. Then they were required to write about what they saw for the rest of the night. When there was no meeting, someone was on duty to monitor the practitioners on a TV monitor. If any practitioner tried to go to sleep, the person would pound on the iron door and yell, “You are not supposed to sleep,” while another person wearing slippers intentionally walked back loudly in the hallway.

There was a time when they forced my six-year-old son to ask me to write the guarantee statement and made him cry. They recorded the incident on video and showed it to me. However, I refused to cooperate with them. Then, they tried to force me to sign divorce papers. When I didn't sign them, a judge ruled that I was divorced anyway. In the evening, they told me to write about how I felt as a divorcee. They also gathered more than 20 inmates to criticise me in writing and made me read what they wrote late into the night. Those who participated in using divorce to persecute me included: Zhang Zhongjin from the Zhongzhi 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) in the Guangzhou Development District (now changed to the Luogang District); Lai Xinhua, president of Development District Court (who later took a job with the People's Congress in Luogang District); Guan Xin, a judge; Chen Miaoyan, a secretary; Qiu Chaohua; Zhan Yonglong; “Professor” Wang; and guard Tan.

4. Guangzhou City Legal Education School (Brainwashing Centre)

Since I refused to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] I was transferred back to the Guangzhou City Legal Education School and detained in a very small room by myself. I was in solitary confinement for most of the day. They often asked professors and medical doctors to teach “classes” I had to attend, and these people would directly or indirectly slander Falun Gong during their presentation. Every day, I was forced to watch news reports and programmes that praised the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They also brought in collaborators (former practitioners, brainwashed against Falun Gong, made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners) to try to reform practitioners by using other religious principles or music. The music was played for a very long time. When I refused to cooperate with them, a male director forcibly took me to a collaborator's room late at night. The collaborator tried to not let me go back to my cell to sleep because, previously, two practitioners had been “reformed” after several days without sleep.

Under the pretence of helping me to get my property title certificate, the officials at the brainwashing centre secretly worked with the 610 Office in Fang Village to try to sell the apartment I got from my “divorce.” The purpose was to use that money to pay for my room and board at the brainwashing centre, totalling over 40,000 yuan¹. However, their plan didn't work. The CCP persecuted me and wanted me to pay for their evil deeds!

5. The Crimes of the Institute of Legal Systems in Guangdong Province

Police officers Feng Suijiang, Wang Yuexing, Deng Huiyi, and five others from the 610 Office in Fang Village and the police station arrested me in the middle of November 2004. They took me to the Institute of Legal Systems (a brainwashing centre) in Guangdong Province without letting any of my family members know. I went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. On the eighth day of my hunger strike, eight guards brutally force-fed me and recorded the whole incident. Twice a day, they would force-feed me by inserting a tube down my throat and into my stomach. There was a time when the doctor purposely moved the tube to hurt my throat. When I mentioned this to the person in charge, he told me that I was to blame. After a month of hunger striking, they informed my father and told him to advise me to obey them. When my father refused, they tried to pressure me to sign a “death certificate,” stating no one including the institution would be responsible for my death. However, I refused to sign the certificate. Although I was very weak and emaciated, I was still not allowed to rest. Every day, the guards, the doctors, and other staff members monitoring me would yell at me and force me to listen to conversations that slandered Falun Gong. In addition, I had to clean my cell after getting up every morning. I was on a hunger strike for over 80 days and was force-fed a total of 60-70 times. After a while, they changed from using a regular-sized tube to a larger one and sometimes they inserted the tube into my lungs instead of my stomach. As a result, the tube would have blood on it after the force-feeding.

I was finally released on February 7th, 2005, with help from fellow practitioners, requests from city officials to higher authorities, reports of how I was being treated were published on the website, and my family's request for my release.

6. Persecution Continues

Although I am at home, the street and residential committee members still made regular visits to my home and interfered with my daily life. They only stopped coming after I openly told them not to. However, they continue to bother my family members and friends and record all my activities. My home phone has also been tapped.

The above is my experience of being tortured for four years and seven months in a detention centre, a forced labour camp, and several brainwashing centres controlled and operated by the CCP.

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/2010/11/29/233061.html