Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners at Anhui Provincial Third Prison

Anhui Provincial Third Prison, located in Suzhou City, is specifically designated by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members to detain and torture Falun Gong practitioners who have been sentenced to prison terms. In the past ten years, the prison authorities have committed unspeakable crimes against Falun Gong practitioners. Below is an account of what I know about the underhanded tactics and atrocities committed by the authorities against practitioners in the prison.

Sentenced practitioners are directly assigned to a strictly disciplined team immediately upon entering the prison, while regular inmates are detained in other sections in the prison. This is intended, in the words of the prison police, “to create a high pressure environment” in order to take advantage of practitioners psychologically. In the strictly disciplined team, once practitioners showed any sign of doing Falun Gong exercises or crossing their legs, the police would at least shackle them; in more severe cases the practitioners were beaten and shocked with electric batons. In the team, practitioners' meal rations are reduced down to only one steamed bun for each meal, which is roughly one-third of a regular meal given to other inmates. Practitioners are forced by the prison police to undergo strenuous running and military style training while hungry. After a week, Tang Chuanyou and Huang Qijun, lead police officers in charge of Falun Gong practitioners, took practitioners to the base, where practitioners were forced to undergo “transformation” in order to coerce them to give up their practice of Falun Gong.

The first step in the “transformation” process is called “disintegration and demoralisation.” In this stage, two or three collaborators (former practitioners, brainwashed against Falun Gong, made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners) are assigned to closely watch one practitioner and force the practitioner to watch video and read materials that defamed Falun Gong. Whenever the practitioner resisted the brainwashing, Tang Chuanyou and Huang Qijun instigated the inmates to curse at, beat, and torture the practitioner. Sometimes they even brought practitioners' family members to the prison and coached the practitioners' parents to kneel down in an attempt to coerce practitioners to give up their practice of Falun Gong.

When the above methods did not work, Tang Chuanyou and Huang Qijun would move on to the so-called “shock education.” They used several electric batons to shock practitioners for extended periods of time. Under the high pressure and psychological manipulation, some practitioners unwilling gave in and wrote guarantee statements to give up practising Falun Gong. Next the prison police would carry out the next tactic called the “melting pot effect.” They gathered all of the “transformed” practitioners every day to share their “experiences,” so as to reaffirm the others' decision to give up Falun Gong.

For those practitioners who became clear-minded and resisted the transformation and made declarations to void their previous guarantee statements, the prison police resorted to inhuman physical torture. Some practitioners kept doing Falun Gong exercises. The police electric shocked them and beat them with batons. Some practitioners shouted “Falun Gong is good!” to resist the persecution. The police put an electric baton in their mouths to shock them and forced shackles and cuffs on them, leaving the shackles and cuffs locked onto a metal ring bolted to the wall. This way the practitioners were forced to sit for long periods of time with their hands and feet bound together.

A practitioner named Dai Zhifeng, who was from Huaixi, went on a hunger strike to protest the inhuman torture. The prison hospital director with surname Peng ordered inmates to mix faeces into his food, and force-feed it to him after prying open his mouth with screwdrivers. Dai Zhifeng was released in 2005 and I have since lost contact with him. Another practitioner named Fang Yingzhou, who was from Anqing, also went on a hunger strike. Prison hospital director Peng ordered the inmates to force-feed him while using needles to prick his finger tips. When a needle was broken and got stuck in one of his fingers, they used a scalpel to cut his finger open to get the needle out.

Prison police officer Lu Yang used an electric baton to shock the genitals of a practitioner named Hu Sikui, who was from Hefei City and had refused to write the transformation statement. Lu Yang also forced practitioners to squat down then suddenly split their legs, causing the ligament to tear.

There was an elderly practitioner named Fei Zhangjin, from Ma'anshan City. After being taken to the prison, the guards instigated the other inmates to bully and beat him for a long period of time. It caused permanent mental and psychological damage. Fei Zhangjin was persecuted to the point of being extremely frail and thin. He eventually died from the ill treatment in the prison.

Various torture methods used by the prison guards on practitioners included extended periods of time of hanging by cuffs, deprivation of sleep for days, needle pricking once falling asleep, electric shock, cursing, beating, isolation and torture, etc. All practitioners who refused to cooperate with the prison authorities were subjected to these tortures.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/2/26/236860.html