Elderly Falun Gong Practitioner from Dandong, Liaoning Province Persecuted

I am an elderly female Falun Gong practitioner from Dandong, Liaoning Province. I have been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for practising Falun Gong and suffered two years of forced labour. I was injured severely. I cannot see clearly with my left eye. I lost seven teeth and I weigh less than 90 pounds. However, the CCP's coercion cannot change my heart. I still firmly believe in Falun Gong.

1. Arrested

On November 6th, 2005, my 94-year-old mother suddenly passed away. On my way back from her funeral, a police vehicle stopped the van I was in and several officers got out. They did not show any warrant but put me in the police vehicle and then drove me to the Qidaogou Police Station. In the station, I asked officer Wang Pin, “Why did you arrest me?” He asked me, “Who is your superior?'” I said, “What superior? I do not have any superior.” Policeman Ma said, “If you don't talk, someone will talk.” I said, “My mother just passed away. I was attending her funeral. Why did you arrest me? You broke the law!” Officer Wang Bin told female police officer Zhang Jun to search me. After Zhang searched me, she nodded to Wang Bin, indicating that she did not find anything.

Then officer Dai Qingguo came in. He claimed he was the chief of the Qidaogou Police Station and told me his name was already on the list of bad people on the Minghui/Clearwisdom website, right next to the CCP politics and law committee secretary, Wang Baozhi. I told him, “It means you did bad things, so your name is on the list. If you can start doing the right thing and stop doing bad things, you will be removed from the list.” Soon after that, they dragged me into a police vehicle again and drove me to my local police station to discover my home address and ransacked my home. Then they dragged me back to the police vehicle. I shouted, “Falun Gong is good!” Wang Bin asked me why I shouted. I told him that I wanted people nearby to know that Falun Gong is good and I was not arrested because I did bad things. Meanwhile, another group of police searched my mother's home. At that time, two neighbours were helping to watch my mom's home and they witnessed everything. The police took away my relatives' work bag and my mom's birthday video made when she was still alive. In the end, they sent me to a detention centre, claiming that I did not cooperate with them.

When I arrived at the detention centre, four officers dragged me into the yard. The knees of my trousers were almost worn through in the process.

2. Tortured in the Detention Centre

I fainted. When I came to, I saw that I was in a room only a little over ten square metres, but it already held over 20 persons. We were ordered to sew gloves at night. Two Falun Gong practitioners had already been detained there for two and a half years. They were both very weak. One practitioner in her 60's had her front teeth knocked out by the police, but they all firmly believed in Falun Gong.

The next day, female prison instructor Wang Jing incited guard Liu to dress me in inmate clothes. I said, “I did not commit any crime. I was illegally sent here. There is nothing wrong with practising Falun Gong. I refuse to wear those clothes.” Instructor Wang saw that I refused to wear the clothes and she moved my seat to be next to the toilet door. I was forced to sew gloves in dim light and to sleep near the toilet door at night. The place for me to sleep was just one foot away from the toilet. The toilet did not have a door and was only covered by a curtain. There was one small window on the top of the restroom wall for ventilation, which was also covered by a curtain. In the winter, cold air blew into the room. The place where I slept was damp and cold. Also, since many of us were confined in the same room and went to the same restroom, the curtain was lifted again and again, which disturbed me. In addition, I was forced to work for 16 hours every day. I suffered great pain.

One week after I was imprisoned, the instructor called all the practitioners out into the hallway. Several doctors in white coats drew blood from us. A male instructor slapped a practitioner in the face because she refused to let her blood be drawn.

Over ten days after I was imprisoned, officers Wang Bin and Ma from the Qidaogou Police Station and instructor Wang from the detention centre called me to the office. They ordered me to sign a subpoena. I pointed out that it was illegal and I asked them to release me immediately. But they just laughed wildly.

Instructor Wang transferred me to a different room and tortured me cruelly. Wang Bin interrogated me a few times and asked me who was my “superior” every time. I said, “I already told you many times. I do not have any upper level or lower level contacts.” In the end, an official, who probably came from the public security department, said to me, “This is your last chance.” I told him, “I did not commit any crime at all. What chance are you talking about? You are committing a crime. I want to be a good person and follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. But you arrested me and detained me. And the police searched me and broke into my house without any search warrant. You will be responsible for all the legal consequences.” Then the police station, detention centre, and the public security bureau conspired to deceive my daughter and get her to sign a paper. They told her that if she signed, I could go home. My daughter was deceived by their lies and signed her name. The police then used my daughter's signature to send me to Masanjia Forced Labour Camp.

3. Detained in a Dark Room Inside Masanjia Forced Labour Camp

On December 20th, 2005, officers Ma and Liu Ge from the Qidaogou Police Station took me and another practitioner to Masanjia Force Labour Camp.

The physical examination results in the Masanjia Hospital showed that I had arrhythmia and tachycardia. But the police still sent me to the so-called "ideological education school" inside Masanjia Forced Labour Camp (later the name was changed to the Women's Workplace of Masanjia Labour Camp). In the mail room of Masanjia Forced Labour Camp, guard Liu Ge brought the forced-labour sentence paper and ordered me to sign it. The contents of the paper were all lies and fabrications. They sentenced me two years of forced labour on the charge of “disrupting social order.” I firmly refused to sign. They said that they could still send me to the forced labour camp even without my signature.

I followed two people who called themselves practitioners to the office of Guan Liying, the Second Team, First Brigade team leader. There were three small benches. I sat on one bench and asked if they were Falun Gong practitioners. They said they were. I asked why they had taken me here. They said they wanted to chat. I asked if they were sent to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] me. They did not say anything. I said, “If you were sent to 'transform' me to give up my belief, we have nothing to talk about. I won't listen to you at all.” I sat until 11 p.m. Then they brought me back to the prison room.

There were ten bunk beds in the room that slept about 17 or 18 people. At 4 a.m. while everyone else was sleeping, I was awakened by those two collaborators (former practitioners, brainwashed against Falun Gong, made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners). I got dressed, brought my toiletries, and followed them to one of the four rooms which were separated with screens. They told me this was used by the team leader to store documents. Later they brought me to the team leader's office when the team leader came to work. I called this separated room the “dark room.” After that, I was awakened every morning at 4 a.m. and was brought to the dark room. Those two collaborators sometimes read something that the team leader told them to read to me. Sometimes they tried to brainwash me. They also reported my situation to the team leader every day. Seven days later, these two told me, “The team leader said that if you write a repentance letter before the end of December, your term will be reduced by ten days for every month. Your total term will be reduced by eight months from two years.” My heart did not move at all and I did not write a single word.

On January 23rd, 2006, the team leader detained seven practitioners and separated them from each other at the right side of the third floor, one room for each practitioner. Two collaborators were sent to watch each practitioner. Every day the practitioners were detained for 16 hours and were not allowed to talk to each other or clean themselves. When they went to the toilet, the collaborators followed them. They were only allowed to eat inside the detention room. Someone put the food near the iron gate every day and the collaborators brought it to them.

Half a month later, I was brought back to the dark rooms again. Every day I was awakened at 4 a.m. and was forced to sit on the small bench for 16 hours, until 10 p.m. Since I sat on the small bench for a prolonged time every day, the skin on my buttocks became sore. Ten days later, the team leader brought me back to the prison room and forced me to peel garlic along with other prisoners.

In early April, 2006, the forced labour camp told the Third Brigade to have the inmate do the radio gymnastics in the prison yard. Team leader Guan Liying announced that all the prisoners needed to go out and do calisthenics every day during a meeting. The next day, guard Zhao came to my room and asked if I understood that the team leader required us to do the calisthenics, too. I said I wouldn't do any such thing, that I would only do the Falun Gong exercises. The other two practitioners also refused. A few minutes later, the team leader came and ordered me to bring the small bench and follow her. She brought me to the dark room and shouted at me. She questioned why I had incited the other two practitioners not to do the calisthenics. I said everyone had their own thinking and I did not incite anyone. Then she told me to stand up, which I did. Soon she asked me to sit. But I still stood. She said, “You just stand like that.” Then she left. After two hours, she came back and brought three practitioners. She told me to sit down. I refused. She suddenly threw me to the ground. I scrambled up. She told guard Zhao to get the handcuffs from the team leader's office and cuffed my hands behind my back, and then locked me to the radiator pipe.

After a long time of continuous torture day and night, I was very weak. I felt chest tightness and I could not open my eyes. My body was very heavy and my forehead sweat badly. Later I fainted. Around 10 p.m., two practitioners brought me back to the prison room. I could not see anything at all through my left eye. Later, the team leader brought me to the classroom on the other side and enclosed an area at the corner of the room using desks. She forced me to make flowers for cemetery decorations and told the collaborators to watch me.

4. Brutally Persecuted in the First Women's Prisoner Section in Masanjia Forced Labour Camp

On the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, guard Zhao told me that the team leader wanted me and two other practitioners to get our personal stuff. Zhao then took us outside of the forced labour camp. I saw a police vehicle parked there and four other practitioners were brought out, too. We were taken to the First Women's Prisoner Section. Over there, we were sent to three different places. A practitioner in her 60's and I were assigned to the elderly team. There were 13 prisoners in the elderly team. Every day, we were forced to trim threads on army coats. Among the 13 practitioners, 11 of them were sent to the forced labour camp for belonging to Christian house churches. They said that whenever someone came to inspect or visit, we would immediately be taken to the warehouse and locked in. The forced labour camp tried not to let anyone from the outside know that they arrested and detained religious believers.

After doing forced labour for more than three months at the First Women's Prisoner Section, more than 20 Falun Gong practitioners, including me, were taken back to the second section in a police vehicle on September 12th, 2006, at noon. The police gathered us together and ordered us to write a guarantee statement giving up Falun Gong. The female team leader and the officials from the instruction section detained each of us in a separate room and started to torture us. I was detained in the medical room. In the room were one female prison doctor, four male police officers, and one policewoman. Guard Fan shouted, “Did you hear what I said?” I did not answer him. He then used a hard piece of cardboard to hit my head. A short guard said, “Let us cuff her there (to an iron bunk bed).” Then they separated and stretched my hands, and cuffed them to the upper frame of the iron bed. Soon I was nauseous and short of breath and had heart discomfort. I fell down and the cuffs cut deeply into my wrists. I sweat profusely. Then a guard dragged me into the room next door and cuffed my right hand to the upper level pole of the iron bed and my left hand to the lower level pole. Both my legs were tied to the head of the bed very tightly. My arms were tilted, and I could neither stand or squat. This lasted from noon until the midnight, which caused severe injury to my body. Collaborator Wan Shuzhen and some guards walked around all the rooms and helped the police to torture practitioners. In the end, none of us practitioners could walk anymore due to the torture. We had to use our hands to support ourselves just to move.

After that, guards from the instruction section of the forced labour camp divided our over 20 practitioners and another over 40 practitioners from the Second Section into three groups. Each group was detained in one room. In the daytime, guards were sent to watch us. At night, two female guards were sent to watch us from either side of the room. The next day, they switched to another two to watch us. There were two rooms at the end of the hallway beside the iron gate. The male guards lived and ate there and watched the practitioners 24 hours a day. They frequently came out of the room to check us. One day, the team leader of the Third Team called several practitioners to wait in the hallway. When I was called and came out of the room, I found there were already over ten practitioners from all three groups. The police said they were going to give us an injection. I said I did not want the injection because I was not sick. Then three female doctors in white started to give us injections. I stood at the end of the group. When the doctors came to me, I still refused to let them give me the injection. Team leader Shi Yu and another instructor shouted at me and threatened that they would immediately call some male guard to rip off my clothes. Then a female doctor forcibly injected some unknown drugs into me.

In early November 2006, the First Women's Prisoner Section merged with the Second Women's Prisoner Section. Our five elderly Falun Gong practitioners were sent to the elderly team of the First Section. One day, a few male team leaders from the instruction section brought our five practitioners to a classroom and asked us to answer some questionnaires. We all refused. The team leaders forced the question sheets into our hands and said all the questions needed to be answered yes or no. Just after we wrote our names and prepared to answer the questions, the team leaders suddenly took away all the sheets and said we did not need to answer the questions since we had written our names. It was obvious that they would fill out the answers however they wanted later to accommodate their purposes.

Around ten days before the 2007 New Year, we were forced to do manual labour work outside to remove paint from cotton army coats. The team leader forced us to use carbon tetrachloride to remove the paint. Because I was exposed to and inhaled the toxic fumes for a prolonged period, I got very chilly at the end of the work. At night, I felt very cold and trembled all the time, even after I was covered with two layers of cotton quilts. After that, I coughed severely every day and I could not lay down to sleep at night. As soon as I laid down, I could not breathe and coughed very badly. My ribs hurt when I breathed and I sweat a lot. My chest was always wet due to sweat. I could not touch my ribs on my upper body without extreme pain, and I could not sleep on my side. There was blood in my saliva. I could not breathe when climbing stairs. The roots of my hair were always wet. When I pulled my hair up, the skin on my scalp started to come off with the hair.

On October 5th, 2007, before I was released, team leader Wang Guangyun called me to the office and told me to sign my name on the prisoner registration list. I said that I did not sign it when I came in, and I refused to sign it when I left. She then called three persons in, two criminals and one person on duty. Two of them grabbed my hands and one put the ink pad on my finger and forced my fingerprint on the registration list.

After two years of forced labour, I was injured very severely. I could not see clearly with my left eye and I had lost seven teeth. My weight dropped to less than 90 pounds.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/2/18/36470.html