Ms. Yang Jie Tortured Brutally for Ten Years (Part 1)

Ms. Yang Jie, 40, from Zhongwei City, Ningxia Autonomous Region, was employed at a life insurance company in Zhongwei. She began practising Falun Gong in 1997. Since the onset of the persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Ms. Yang was imprisoned in the Ningxia Women's Forced Labour Camp and the Ningxia Women's Prison more often than not. She was tortured and fired for practising Falun Gong twice.

Below, Ms. Yang recounts her suffering over the past ten years.

Privileged to Practise Falun Gong

In March 1997, I began practising Falun Gong. Within a few months, I became healthy, after suffering for years. I no longer needed to take medicines and injections. I also quit drinking and smoking.

Falun Gong changed my view of life. I turned from being lost, pessimistic, quiet and negative to being cheerful and friendly. I was always the first person to arrive at work; I worked hard, was responsible and treated everyone well. I did not fight with others over personal gain. I had changed so much after practising Falun Gong that my family, friends and colleagues were impressed with the power of Falun Gong.

Appealing for Falun Gong Leads to Hardship

On July 20th, 1999, two local practitioners and I went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. The authorities arrested practitioners that had come to Beijing to appeal for the right to practise Falun Gong on a daily basis.

In August, two dozen practitioners and I were talking in a rented room. Suddenly many policemen broke into the room, arrested us and took us to the Liangxiang Police Station and then to the Fangshan Detention Centre.

In the Fangshan Detention Centre, officers interrogated us. I refused to give my name and other practitioners' whereabouts, so the police beat me. An officer from the Zhongning Public Safety Bureau grabbed my hair and pulled me back. Then, he hit my face and chest. A large ring on his finger dug into my body as he hit me. A few days later, Ge Jianguo from the Zhongwei City Political Security Brigade and Cheng Yuzhang from my workplace took me back to Zhongwei and demanded more than 3,000 yuan¹ from my parents.

After I went home for a few days, the Internet police in Zhongwei detected that I was using the Internet to view Falun Gong websites, so Political Security Brigade officers arrested me. I was held in the Yingshuiqiao Detention Centre for one month. Then, Ge took me to a public security bureau and a manager from my workplace announced that I was fired.

Sentenced to Two Years of Forced Labour

I went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong in October 2000. On October 6th, another practitioner and I arrived at Tiananmen Square. Four to five police beat the other practitioner and then arrested him. Dozens of police vehicles were parked on the square to transport practitioners. There were armed police and plainclothes police everywhere, beating and arresting practitioners. I saw several officers hit a practitioner in the head with batons. A policeman held a practitioner by her hair and pulled her to the police car. Another policeman dragged a practitioner by the legs to a car. There was mayhem, with police arresting and beating practitioners. I heard "Falun Gong is good" throughout the entire time.

I told a policeman to stop beating a practitioner. Before I could finish, several plainclothes police grabbed my shirt, and pulled me to a police car. An elderly woman practitioner was in the car, who insisted on getting out. A policeman hit her in the head with a walkie talkie repeatedly, and she was bleeding profusely. Several of us grabbed the walkie talkie. Her husband put a towel on her head and it was soaked in blood.

When the police turned their attention, I jumped out of the car and ran toward the square, shouting, "Falun Gong is good." Several plainclothes police chased me. One hit me in the back and I fell. Four officers dragged me back to the car.

Within a short time, all the buses were full of practitioners. There were about 150 practitioners in the bus I was in. We were taken to the Qianmen Police Station to record information about us, and then we were transferred to different detention centres. I was taken to the Shunyu Detention Centre.

In protest, I went on a hunger strike. A guard put handcuffs and shackles on me and took me to a nearby hospital for force feeding. In the hospital, my blood pressure was very low (50/30 mmHg). A female guard warned me that they would force feed me until I confessed. She said, "People who are like you die all the time. No one would know." I refused to cooperate. Five guards, three prisoners and seven doctors and nurses held me on a bed so that I could not move. One inserted a plastic tube through my nose to my stomach and began to force feed me. I had not eaten for a week and felt awful. The sweater I wore was soaked with my sweat. They did not remove the plastic tube after force-feeding. They taped one end on my head and left the other end in my stomach. I was taken back to the detention centre, still handcuffed and shackled.

At the detention centre, the guards took me to a torture room and put me on a table face up. They chained my ankles to two iron bars. My legs were spread open and my buttocks rested on a 3 cm x 15 cm iron bar that was 20 cm in height. This position put extreme strain on my back and neck. They still did not remove the plastic tube. It was extremely painful and I was in tears. I felt nauseated, but could not throw up. They tortured me for several hours until someone from Ningxia came to pick me up.

When I was at the Ningxia Office in Beijing, I met another practitioner from Ningxia. Her last name was Shi and she was several months pregnant. She was covered in bruises due to the beatings at Tiananmen. In the office, a police kicked her belly and poked her belly with a police baton. She was worried about the life of her unborn child.

A few days later, Ge and a female police officer whose last name was Wang took me back to Ningxia from Beijing. On our way back, Wang continued to slander Falun Gong and its founder, and talked using dirty language. I was held at the Zhongwei Detention Centre for one month and then transferred to the Yingshuiqiao Detention Centre. Another guard with the surname of Wang threatened me, "The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is highly adept in torturing people. You should think twice about practising Falun Gong."

On December 6th, 2000, several policemen and guards brought all the prisoners together. Ge handcuffed me and another practitioner and announced our sentences for everyone to hear. I was given two years of forced labour for "disrupting public security." The Zhongwei Television Station recorded the entire process and showed it several days later on television.

Torture in the Ningxia Women's Forced Labour Camp

I was held in the second brigade at the Ningxia Women's Forced Labour Camp. I was assigned to cutting activated carbon, which was toxic to humans. I worked more than ten hours daily. By the end of the day, everyone was covered in carbon ash. We could only take cold showers to clean off the grime, even in the frigid winter.

In the beginning of 2001, the CCP staged the self-immolation on Tiananmen Square². It encouraged the guards to intensify the torture of practitioners. They put posters with words defaming Falun Gong and its founder on the hallway walls. One day prisoner Qing Chaofeng wrote an article that slandered Falun Gong on a blackboard. I asked her to stop and erase it. She scratched my neck and screamed at me. A group of prisoners also started hitting me. They took me to the captains on duty, Liu Jun and Hu Linxia, who threatened me. That night, I tore down the posters on the way to the toilet, but was discovered.

The next day, I went on a hunger strike. Eight days later, the guards tore down the rest of the posters and allowed practitioners to talk to one another. Shortly after that, there was a meeting. Division head Ruan Aijun slandered Falun Gong in the meeting and announced that they would add three months to my sentence because I "disrupted the order in the camp and refused to follow orders."

Confused by all kinds of brainwashing and torture, in June 2001, I renounced Falun Gong and was released before the end of my sentence, which was September 3rd, 2001. The guards told me that I had to report to the local public security bureau after I returned home. At home, I frequently studied Falun Gong and talked to other practitioners. I realised that it was wrong for me to give up Falun Gong just to be released. I didn't report to the local public security bureau, so I was arrested again and taken back to the forced labour camp.

Another Two Years in the Forced Labour Camp

Sixteen days after I returned home from the forced labour camp, I visited a relative in Xiaoba, Qingtongxia. Three policemen from the Xiaoba Public Security Bureau broke into my relative's house and arrested me. In the afternoon, four police officers took me to the Zhongwei Public Security Bureau and interrogated me during the night. The next day, I was transferred to the Yingshuiqiao Detention Centre. I went on a hunger strike for a week in Yingshuiqiao. A month later, I was sentenced to two years of forced labour because I did not report to the local public security bureau after my release.

(to be continued)

Note

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

2. The "Tiananmen Self-Immolation" an incident on Tiananmen Square in January 2001 whereby four people set themselves alight and the Chinese Communist claimed they were Falun Gong practitioners, yet there was video evidence to strongly disprove this claim.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/11/28/33026.html