Ms. Yang Jie Tortured Brutally for Ten Years (Part 2)

Upon my arrival at the Ningxia Women's Forced Labour Camp, I went on a hunger strike to protest my detention. Hu Linxia, the division's deputy head, called in Liu Haiyan and Zhang Hongyan, two drug offenders, and ordered them to hold me down on the bed and insert a rubber tube thicker than a chopstick through my nose into my stomach. During the barbaric force-feeding, Hu Linxia and the inmates constantly insulted me with dirty words. The force-feeding was carried out twice a day. The drug offenders were most cruel.

In Ningxia Women's Forced Labour Camp, we, the “slave labourers,” would start to work before dawn. We planted trees, transplanted rice seedlings, dug sewers, and planted grape seedlings. We had to do over 10 hours of hard labour every day. Everyone's hands were full of blisters, with new ones appearing before old ones healed as a result of the high intensity manual labour. Our faces, necks, and arms were peeling because of sunburn. We all had quotas, and if we failed to finish our quotas, we would suffer corporal punishment, which included standing in a military posture in the corridors, sitting in a military posture on a small stool, walking in a military posture, copying the prison rules until midnight, or singing songs praising the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The guards could always find some new tricks to use to punish us. The most inhumane tortures were the public criticism and denunciation meetings. The victims would stand in front of all of the inmates to be harangued for “the cause of their crimes” and then other inmates would denounce and criticise the victims until the division leader was satisfied. It was simply a repeat of what went on during the Cultural Revolution.

At the end of 2001, the guards organised all the detainees to watch video programmes that slandered Falun Gong. I charged toward the TV set and stood in front of it. Several inmates tried to drag me away. Then Ma Aiping, the deputy head of the division, rushed in and demanded, “What do you want?” Looking at the poor inmates who had been poisoned by the CCP, I said with tears in my eyes, “The programme is nothing but lies.” Ma Aiping incited several drug offenders to drag me to her office and handcuff me. In the evening, Yao Junling, the division head, came back to the camp from home. She cursed while she used electric batons to shock my mouth, face, and neck. She tortured me non-stop for more than an hour before leading the personal monitors to take me back to the cell.

I refused to go to work the following day. Ma Aiping incited drug offenders to beat me and verbally abuse me. They dragged me from the third floor to the ground floor. Ma Aiping pulled me by the collar, dragging me onto the bus that took us to the work site. I refused to get out of the bus upon our arrival. Ma Aiping and several guards instructed the drug offenders to punch and kick me while thrusting me against a big tree. They pulled my arms backwards around the tree and then cuffed me in that position. Dozens of farmers who worked there said to me quietly that the weaker could not contend with the stronger. Several days later they transferred me to another work site to cover up their crimes.

I continued on my hunger strike after I was transferred to a new construction site. They were afraid that I might die of hunger, so they secretly dragged me to a room on the fourth floor of the men's ward. They handcuffed me to the bed and force-fed me twice a day. They inserted a rubber tube as thick as a chopstick into my nose until it reached my stomach. Despite their torture tactics, I still did not take any food or water. Zhang Yan, the division head, read aloud books that slandered Falun Gong. When I refused to listen, she slapped my face with the book. One day she purposely agitated the tube to and fro. Each time she moved the tube I felt as if I were going to die. The torture continued until blood came out of my nose. Zhang Yan continuously slapped my face while force-feeding me to get my attention to listen to her.

After 20 days of such torture, I still refused to give up the hunger strike. Tang Ning, the head of the forced labour camp, Ma Yan, the political commissar, and several officers, as well as the so-called witnesses of the court and the procuratorate, came to the forced labour camp to threaten me. Ma Yan said, “Today, the court and the procuratorate brought witnesses here. Your dying has nothing to do with us. If you die we will contact the TV station right away and you will be on television. We will say that you committed suicide. To tell you the truth, we all know that what is reported on television is not true. I said what I have to say and now you make your own decision. We'll see if you want to spread Falun Gong or throw mud at Falun Gong.” I was afraid that they might use my hunger strike to slander Falun Gong, so I began to eat. After nearly a month of torture, the guards still forced me to do hard labour. Later, they found excuses to extend my term of forced labour for three more months.

Practitioner Ms. Tan Xiuxia, who did not want to endure the suffering any longer, escaped in May 2005 when we were assigned to do hard labour outside the forced labour camp. She was re-arrested by the police. Xing Guizhen, the team leader, handcuffed her and then punched and verbally abused her. After we knocked off in the evening, the head of the Administration and Education Office called a renouncement and criticism meeting in the forced labour camp's TV room. To create an atmosphere of fear, the authorities called in all the divisions' fully armed guards. Xing Guizhen and Xiao held Ms. Tan Xiuxia's head down and pushed her to the right side of the stage. Incited by the guards, the drug offenders spoke one after the other, attacking Falun Gong. I could not listen any longer, so I raised by hand. Section Leader Li nodded that I could speak. I said, “You cannot use this opportunity to attack Falun Gong. You cannot copy what was a common practice during the Cultural Revolution.” Before I had finished speaking, Ma Li threw herself at me and pulled me down by grabbing my hair. Then she pulled my hair and dragged me out of the meeting room. Ma Li told several other female guards to handcuff me behind my back and pushed my head towards my instep. Practitioner Ms. Shan Jining stood up and said, “Keep cool! Don't beat people!” One guard slapped her face with such force that her glasses flew off. Then the guards handcuffed her behind her back and held her head down into her instep.

At the time, the meeting room became “the Palace of the King of Hell.” All of a sudden a loud clap of thunder accompanied by a red light struck the meeting room, as if it would blow the roof off. Everyone in the room was terrified. Yao Junling hurriedly pulled down the curtains to maintain order. Section leader Li rushed down to the stage and shocked us (me, Ms. Shan Jining, and Ms. Tan Xiuxia) on our faces, necks, and mouths with an electric baton. The meeting, which was planned to last for several hours, was ended in a rush. The crimes of the evildoers angered both the human beings and the gods.

After the meeting, the guards incited all the inmates in our cell to beat Ms. Shan Jining, Ms. Tan Xiuxia, and me. Ms. Shan was handcuffed to the headboard of the bed, Ms Tan Xiuxia was handcuffed hung on a bunk bed in the cell on the fourth floor. Xing Shuzhen and the drug offenders watched the other two practitioners. I was handcuffed and hung on the pipes of the central heating system in the Division Leader's office. Drug offender Feng Guihua watched me. She said, “We will release you whenever you admit your wrongdoings.” After being handcuffed and hung on the pipes of the central heating system for several days, my legs were so swollen that I was unable to walk. Xing Duizhen threatened, “If you still refuse to admit your wrongdoings, I will handcuff you to the flagpole to expose you to the sun. When your skin peals off a few times as a result of the exposure, I will see how long you can continue.”

I was handcuffed and hung for ten days and nights. I still refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing. During this time, the guards hid me in a room upstairs whenever a visitor arrived. They would handcuff me again after the visitor left. On the tenth day, Yao Junling said, “It's been ten days. It seems that it's been very hard for you to acknowledge your wrongdoings. Go back to your cell and think about it.” My term of forced labour was extended for three more months.

Guards from around the country who actively participated in the persecution of practitioners established a so-called “Help and Educate Delegation.” They went to Ningxia Women's Forced Labour Camp and created a “help and educate team” (a brainwashing effort) in an attempt to force the practitioners to renounce Falun Gong. One day, Zhang Yan, the Division leader, brought me to the “610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) Legal Training Centre” on the fourth floor of the Fire Brigade Building of the Ningxia Armed Police. Ma Li, Ma Liping, and inmate He Fang, and several guards from the forced labour camp, as well as several guards from Shandong, Hebei and Beijing, joined us. They tried to confuse me with fabricated lies and attempted to make me give up my beliefs. They took turns for 11 consecutive hours preaching their “lessons,” but I refused to renounce Falun Gong. They all flared into rage and took me back to the division instructors Hu Linxia and Xiao XX to force me to stand one meter from the wall to do a self-examination. They assigned six drug offenders to watch me around the clock. They did not let me sit down or close my eyes. This lasted for several days. I suffered from oedema all over my body and lost consciousness several times. Each time they would pull me up and make me stand in position. Thirty days later I could not walk because of oedema in my legs, and I could not stand anymore. However, they still did not let me go. Yao Junling forced me to sit on a small stool to read the books that slandered Falun Gong. I had to hand in one sharing article per day. What I wrote were articles that exposed the CCP's lies and validated Falun Gong. They confiscated my paper and pen and did not ask me to write anything else.

During that round of persecution I was kept in a strictly controlled team for three months, totally separated from the outside world. Yao Junling incited the monitors to watch me and I was not allowed to step outside my cell or to talk to anyone. One early morning before going to work, Xing Guizhen incited inmate Yao Jinna to dig her knee into my lower abdomen, yank my hair, kick me, and scratch my face and neck until I fell down from the blows. My thighs were black and blue, and to walk or move, I needed to lean against the wall as a result. When Yao Jinna heard that other divisions were about to go to work, she came over to drag me. However, I was unable to stand up because of her kicks. She was afraid to be held responsible, so she ordered inmates Jia Ling, Qiao Yuting, Zhang Mou, and two others to pull me up and crush me against a bed. Then they combed my hair and tidied my clothes. After they had finished this charade, Yao Jinna went to the mirror and punched herself in the eyes. She cried and shouted that Falun Gong was beating her while rolling to and fro on the floor. Then she picked up the hair that she had pulled out of my head and went to the office to tell on me. Instead of being punished, she was rewarded by being allowed to go home for a visit. However, my term of forced labour was extended for three more months.

After several extensions, my two years of forced labour became three years. I was transferred to the “Transforming Falun Gong Team” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] of the 4th Division in June 2003. I was locked up in a small cell alone. Those who were able to come into the cell were former practitioners who had renounced Falun Gong due to brainwashing and torture. They surrounded me day and night to use what they had enlightened to along an evil path to confuse me. Every time I was very sleepy, they prodded or pushed me to prevent me from going to sleep. I did not even close my eyes for three or four days at one stage, and my body had reached the limit of endurance. I was forced to renounce Falun Gong when I was in a trance. After I was “transformed,” I was released from the small cell and returned to the big cell. The practitioner from Lanzhou City, Guansu Province, was locked up in the small cell behind me. Not only did they not allow her to sleep, they forced her to stand still for a long time until her legs were swollen. The guards also incited the drug offenders to beat her up. I saw the footprints on her back left by the inmate. The “transformation” was a stain on my path of cultivation. I brought shame to Dafa and this created even greater tribulations for my cultivation later on. I was released from the Ningxia Forced Labour Camp in September 2003.

When going out to distribute Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution with a fellow practitioner in May 2004, practitioners were detained after being reported and I had to leave home to become homeless in order to avoid being arrested. During that time, the CCP had monitored my home and my relatives' telephones.

Tortured in Ningxia Women's Prison

On September 29th, 2005, I was detained at my relative's home by plainclothes police from the Zhongwei State Security Division and the police department. I was interrogated the whole night. At noon the next day, Zhang Shanrui and others from the Shizuishan City Police Department took me to their office and interrogated me for 24 hours and then transferred me to Shizuishan Detention Centre. In the centre our work was to assemble lighters. The daily quota was set very high and we had to work more than ten hours to finish the quota. A dozen or so of us were squeezed into a less than six-square-metre shakedown of wooden planks. We had to lie on our sides and we did all of our daily routines in this small room. We had to get up before dawn every day to sweep the floor and clean the toilet, the doors, and windows. We only had half of a piece of cooked steamed bread with boiled potatoes and Chinese cabbage soup with a little bit of salt. After three months there, I was sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment by the Shisuishan Court and taken to Ningxia Women's Prison.

In Ningxia Women's Prison, practitioners were the key targets for supervision. Two inmates from the "mutual supervision team" watched each of the practitioners around the clock, even when they went to the toilet. Every day was work, eat, and sleep. They were not allowed to talk about Falun Gong related topics. The prison processes garments for all the prisons in the Ningxia judicial departments, foreign trade, and all of the brand name garment factories. They had been bleeding the detainees dry to make big profits for the prison. We worked more than ten hours a day, from dawn till dusk. At night everyone was exhausted and ached all over. Not only that, we had a formation drill before and after meals, we recited the prison rules, and we sang songs praising the CCP repeatedly over and over as we counted off. Those who failed to do so were severely punished.

Those practitioners who had not been “transformed” were not allowed family visits, to correspond, or to use the telephone. When my mother was hospitalised in Ningxia, she dragged herself to the prison with my father, hoping to see me. However, no matter how they begged the prison guards, they were not allowed to visit me. The guards said that if the practitioners refused to be “transformed,” they would not be allowed any visits. My parents had no choice but to leave, tears coursing down their aged cheeks. On her way home after having had an operation in Beijing the following year, my mother came to visit me with my father and sister-in-law, but their attempt was once again futile. After I learned the news, I asked to phone my parents many times, but I was never allowed to call them. The letters I wrote to my parents were all withheld by the prison. The evildoers of the CCP spread slanderous rumours in the media, saying that practitioners did not care about their family members, all the while refusing to let the practitioners have visitors, correspond, or make telephone calls.

I refused to cooperate with the guards, to recite the prison rules and regulations, to do the drills, to wear the name card, or to sing the songs. I was whipped and verbally abused by guards Ding Donghong, Ma Junhong, Fan Hong, and Wang Yan in the on-duty room one day at the end of 2007 for not attending a prison general meeting. These guards slandered Falun Gong. They also instructed two inmates to put the prison uniform on me by force and pinned the name card on the uniform while pushing me against a stool. Then they cut my hair short. When we finished the slave labour on the day I refused to answer roll call, Ding Donghong instructed two inmates, one of them Bai Yang, to take me to the third floor of the No. 2 Ward and then told Ma Junhong, the deputy head of the ward, to drag me to the entrance hall facing the surveillance camera to stand in a military position as a punishment. She assigned two inmates to watch from 8 a.m. to midnight. On the third day of the torture, Ding Donghong and Ma Junhong kicked my legs, saying that my posture was not up to the standard. I refused to cooperate with them. They cuffed me behind my back. I shouted, “Falun Gong is good”. They were all really shocked. I shouted for about ten minutes and only when I lost my voice did they come to their senses. They hurriedly instructed the inmates to seal my mouth. I lost consciousness. Prison doctor Yang Hong came and pressed my acupressure points to make me come to. When Ding Donghong saw me come to, she grabbed me and handcuffed me behind my back. Then she dragged me backwards toward a central heating pipe and handcuffed me to the pipe. I could not raise my head or straighten my back, and I had to sit on the cement floor. Ding Donghong purposely handcuffed me very tightly, cutting into the flesh. About half an hour later, political instructor Gu Tao and another guard told the inmate to open the handcuffs. Since the handcuffs were too tight, it took them a very long time to open them. There was a very deep dark purple mark on my wrist. The skin was torn and blood oozed out. My hands were cold and numb and my nerves were injured. For a very long time I was unable to pick up chopsticks or brush my teeth. I was almost crippled. The scar faded away in a year's time.

In March 2009 my term had expired and it was the time for my release. The head of the Zhongwei Police Department and the head of the Xuanhe Township Police Station transferred me straight to the 610 Office Brainwashing Centre on the Fourth Floor of the Fire Division of the Armed Police, where I was detained for another three months. I was locked up in a room alone and placed under supervision around the clock. I was not allowed to step out of the room except for meals or to go to the toilet.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/11/28/233026.html