Violent Persecution in the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp, Liaoning

I went to Beijing to appeal for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in 2000, and was arrested and sent to the Masanjia Forced Labour Camp in Liaoning. This particular forced labour camp is notorious for its human rights violations. While I was there, I saw all too much evil.

No matter how old we were, or how bad our health was, all of the Falun Gong prisoners had to get up at 5:00 a.m. and run outside regardless of the weather. After an inedible breakfast, we had to work in the workshops, making flowers, sweaters, crafts, and cotton clothing for export. We were exposed to harmful chemicals every day. We worked long days, until 10:00 p.m., and sometimes past midnight.

The guards constantly picked on and tortured the older people who practised Falun Gong. One practitioner named Su Juzhen was tortured to death. They would not let her sleep at night and forced her to squat for long periods of time. Director Wang Naimin and team leader Su Pingchang gave incentives to Yang Jianhong (another prisoner) to beat both Ms. Su Juzhen and Ms. Zou Guirong with a washboard. Yang Jianhong beat them almost every day, causing extensive bruises all over their bodies. They were frequently not given any food to eat. Ms. Zou Guirong was forced to eat leftover food thrown on the toilet steps. Ms. Zou Guirong was tortured to the point where she had only a dull look in her eyes.

Practitioner Ms. Liu from Jinzhou, age 67, was tortured because of her belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She was forced to stay in the same position with her head facing down, and her hands behind her back. If she moved, she was beaten. After maintaining the position for an hour, perspiration formed puddles on the floor, and her legs and body shook uncontrollably. She was then forced to write the so-called guarantee statement to renounce practising Falun Gong.

Another practitioner, Ms. Wang, still had no freedom, even after signing the guarantee statement under duress. She was forced to try and hold her menstrual flow, as the guards would not let her use the toilet. Each day she had five allotted times to use the toilet. When she was doing forced labour, she asked several times, and they wouldn’t let her go. They instead made her walk around, until the blood dripped down her legs, which made her cry. Only after humiliating her in this way did they let her use the toilet.

Every day we had ten minutes in the morning and at night for washing up. When we wanted to wash our clothes, we had to wait until the guard was in a good mood, or while we were waiting for more work to do. Sometimes our clothes couldn’t be washed in time for when officials came to visit, so they made us purchase new uniforms. We also had to buy everything related to our living inside the prison. If they said our clothes were not good enough, we had to buy new clothes; otherwise, we would get into trouble. There were thirty to forty people in each room, and in the summer it was unimaginably hot.

We ran out of water during the summer of 2000. There was a man-made dam nearby, which the farms used to feed their animals. The pesticides used on the fields had made the water very poisonous and unfit for consumption. Even animals were poisoned after drinking the water. The guards made us drink water from it, and 95 per cent of the Falun Gong practitioners were poisoned by it and became very sick.

Guards forbade practitioners from calling their families and would not allow anyone to visit for a 20-day period after the poisoning. Over those days they forced practitioners to take pills. Wu from Jinzhou and Han from Dalian were two of the worst water poisoning cases. They were sent to the prison hospital. When the hospital tested their blood, the blood looked purple and black. Even the prison hospital staff asked the guards why they waited so long to bring them to the hospital. Director Wang Naimin, with Wang Shuzheng, Qiu Ping, Huang Haiyan and Zhang Jun, immediately forced both the practitioners back to work to keep making money for them. When medical staff came to check on them, they were told that the discomfort in their stomach was because the practitioners ate irregularly.

Peng Geng, a male practitioner who was tortured to death, previously worked in the law bureau in Liaoning. He was only 26 years old when he was sent from the detention centre to Masanjia Forced Labour Camp. His buttocks were festering due to the mistreatment in the camp. He was wasting away and was sent to Tieling Prison Hospital. When he returned, he was tortured to death in the prison. He was an only child, and his mother collapsed with grief.

Wang Shuzheng, director of the No. 2 women's team, shocked a female practitioner in Chaoyang for two hours with an electric baton. He plugged her mouth up with a rag, and then screamed at her repeatedly, “Do you hate me?”

Ms. Sun Suzhen from Tieling was tortured to death. She was forced to squat in a hallway for a very long time. They dragged her around the prison floors until all of her clothes were torn from her body. Her upper body was exposed, and she was humiliated.

The officers and prison guards used extremely severe torture methods on Falun Gong practitioners attempting to force them to give up their belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. This report includes only that which I witnessed.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/2/24/236690.html