Persecution Accounts from Shandong Province Women's Prison

Shandong Province Women's Prison is one of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) bases in which Falun Gong practitioners, who are detained, are being abused. The Assembly Division in the prison was specifically set up to target Falun Gong practitioners. The most vicious guards and criminal offenders are dispatched from other divisions to this one. Under instigation of the guards, such as Han Yanqin and Xu Yumei, who incite inmates with the promise of a prison term reduction, the criminal inmates torture practitioners with various means.

Practitioners who refuse to renounce Falun Gong are closely watched and prevented from talking to others. They are not allowed to say anything; even a glance at each other can draw vicious verbal abuse. Practitioners have to get permission to wash their faces or to go to the toilet. The door of every cell is closed at all times except at night, all year long.

Practitioners sent to the Assembly Division are abused violently

When a practitioner arrives at the division, she is given prison clothes to wear. If the practitioner refuses to put them on, criminal inmates brutally beat her. They drag her by her hair and throw her to the ground. They punch and kick her face, and use books and their shoes to hit her. If the practitioner gets a broken tooth due to being beaten, she is not allowed to spit it out but has to swallow it. If she spits it out, they press her head down to the ground, and she has to pick up the broken tooth with her tongue and lick the blood off the ground.

Practitioners are not allowed to go to the toilet without permission, which sometimes causes them to suffer incontinence. They even force practitioners to lick up the urine and excrement. They try to force practitioners to give up their belief by writing "the five statements" to renounce and slander Falun Gong. If a practitioner refuses to write these statements, she has to endure brutal beatings and is stripped naked.

Those who refuse to give up their belief are brutally tortured

If a practitioner refuses to write "the five statements," she is dragged to a small cell, where four or five criminal inmates take turns to pinch her all over her body. They attach papers on her with words that slander Falun Gong. They punch and kick the practitioner, and when she tears off the papers, they put the papers on her again and start another round of beatings, until the practitioner is exhausted. When the practitioner still refuses to write "the five statements," they press her against a table with her head twisted to one side so she cannot move her body. They grab her hand and try to force her to write. If she forms a fist and refuses to open her hand, they pinch and poke her hand with the tip of a pen. They also kick her private parts and chest. They grab her hair and slam her head against a metal cabinet, which causes her to feel dizzy and to have blurred vision. They also humiliate the steadfast practitioners by cutting their hair into a mess.

At the end of each year, the perpetrators are awarded for being "model inmates" and receive term reductions for their crimes committed against Falun Gong practitioners.

Persecution cases

Ms. Bi Jinghong held a hunger strike twice to protest the brainwashing sessions. During her first hunger strike, she was force-fed over a three-month period. She was fed with an unknown substance, which caused her to have extreme stomach pain. During her second hunger strike, around the middle of September 2008, Ms. Bi was brutally beaten by seven or eight inmates for three consecutive nights. They covered her mouth, dragged her into a storage room, and beat her for over half an hour. One month later, she was still limping. Her current whereabouts are unknown.

Even older practitioners who are over 60 years old, such as Chen Yuhua, Zhang Wei, Liu Ruiqiu, Wu Xiuhua, and Zhang Baohuan, have suffered from brutal beatings. Ms. Liu Ruiqiu was beaten until her nose was bruised and she had a swollen face. She developed a limp due to being beaten and had wounds all over her body. Ms. Zhang Wei had a big bruise on her neck. Ms. Wu Xiuhua had bruises on her face and much of her hair was pulled out. Her legs were covered with dark bruises and her private parts were injured due to being kicked. She had a hard time breathing because of the pain in her chest and ribs. Ms. Zhang Baohuan was beaten and had a shoe sole slammed into her face, which broke some of her teeth. She was forced to swallow the teeth and blood. Ms. Zhou Aixia was forced to stand up straight from the morning to 11:00 p.m. She was hit with a book and tied up with a rope. Ms. Ji Ying was ordered to denounce Falun Gong, otherwise she was not allowed to use the toilet. She refused, but her holding back caused her stomach pain. This situation lasted three or four months.

Ms. Lu Quiling was sent to the Shandong Women's Prison twice. She held a three-month hunger strike during her first detention and was eventually released. Four years later, she was arrested again and taken to the prison in November 2008. Because she called out "Falun Gong is good" when she arrived at the prison, she was immediately taken to a solitary confinement cell, and later to the Assembly Division. When she was released from the solitary confinement cell, she was very weak. She was scolded viciously, held by her hair, and beaten. During the cold winter days, she was only given thin cotton clothes to wear, which caused her to freeze. She only had a thin cushion on her bed, and the warm bed cover her family had sent her was taken away. The criminal inmates verbally abused her and even scolded anyone who showed empathy toward her. Ms. Lu held a hunger strike for months to protest the abuse, so she was dragged on the ground to the prison clinic, where she was brutally force-fed.

Prison clinic staff involved in the persecution

Staff from the prison clinic were involved in the force-feeding of those who were on hunger strike in the Assembly Division. Practitioners were held by their hair and force-fed. Some were tied to a bed and held down by four or five people and force-fed. These practitioners suffered extreme pain during the force-feedings.

The guards are afraid of their crimes being exposed

Practitioners are not allowed to leave their cells in the Assembly Division. The guards are afraid of their crimes being exposed, even through the internal inspection system. A practitioner who was transferred from the Assembly Division to another division wrote a letter to the procurator to expose the crimes in the assembly division. When the guard Xiu Yanqin found out, she immediately instigated a collaborator (former practitioner, brainwashed against Falun Gong, made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners) to write a letter to deny the charges and to make false accusations against the practitioner. Xiu, who has committed countless crimes against Falun Gong practitioners, has even been praised as a "national level model worker."

Currently, the prison authorities are afraid to dispatch the practitioners in the Assembly Division to other divisions, for fear that they might expose their crimes.

Individuals involved in the persecution:

Guards in the Assembly Division: Xu Yanqin, Xu Yumei
Criminal inmates: Zhu Huifang, Xu Hui (both have been released), Liu Xia
Collaborators: Qiu Xiuxin, Xu Qiai, He Fuxiang, Wang Xiaoyan, Liu Qian, Zhang Shoulan, and others

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/12/21/233929.html