Personal Account of Psychiatric Abuse at Urumqi Women’s Forced Labour Camp

Name: Zhou Yuelan
Gender: Female
Age: 63
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 6th, 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: Urumqi Women’s Forced Labour Camp
City: Urumqi
Province: Xinjiang Autonomous Region
Persecution Suffered: Forced injections/drug administration, detention

63-year-old Ms. Zhou Yuelan from Urumqi City, Xinjiang Autonomous Region used to be healthy from practising Falun Gong. Officers from the Urumqi Police Department and Shayibake District 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) arrested her on September 6th, 2008 and held her in a forced labour camp for 18 months, during which she was subjected to psychiatric abuse.

The following is Ms. Zhou's own personal account of some of what she experienced.

* * *

I was held at the Shuimogou Police Station in Urumqi between September 6th and October 9th, 2008. I was transferred to Division 1 of the Urumqi Women’s Forced Labour Camp on October 9th, where I was injected with drugs that caused partial memory loss. Urumqi Women’s Forced Labour Camp was formerly known as the Women’s Drug Rehabilitation Centre. Li Zongping (female) is the head of Division 1.

Labour camp doctor Liu was in Xi'an for six months in the winter of 2008 for studies. After his return, the labour camp started using psychiatric drugs to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. The guards ordered inmates to put drugs in my food and forced me to eat it. When I refused, they ordered the inmates to hit me and forced me to stand for 23 hours a day.

At night they ordered the inmates to ask me questions while I was falling asleep, in an attempt to get information on my activities and on other practitioners. I refused to give in.

One time someone sprayed my left hand with a liquid. I immediately felt as if there were bugs crawling on my skin, and my hand started to feel numb. When I went to the toilet, I had to use the stall and tap they designated for me and smelled an overpowering odour coming from the toilet. Sometimes I rinsed my mouth with water from the tap, and there was a strange taste. Over time, I started to feel disoriented.

One time a guard wiped something on my head with her hand, and a drug-addicted inmate reminded her in a flattering manner, “Don’t forget to wash your hand.” Soon after, my mind became clouded and I could not think straight.

As the drugging continued, I wanted to sleep all the time and forgot to eat, except when the guards told me to eat. Sometimes when I was conscious, I overheard the inmates say, “She doesn’t even know she got injections.” Then I looked and saw needle marks on my arms. They said I also got injections on my buttocks.

Later, a guard said to me, “After you get out of here, you can’t sue me because you don’t have any witnesses.”

In order to find out whether the drugs had completely knocked me out, they burned my eyelashes when I was sound asleep, and I didn’t wake up. They attacked me with foul language to see if I would react and also threatened, “We’ll arrest your son and make him work for the labour camp. We’ll fine him 5,000 yuan¹ here, 5,000 yuan there, and 15,000 yuan on top of that…” I kept quiet and they whispered, “She doesn’t know anything anymore.”

When they were certain that I had lost all normal mental capacity, they told my son that I was mentally ill, and that he should take me to Urumqi Mental Hospital for an exam. The hospital said I was suffering from depression. My son used the doctor’s diagnosis to get me medical parole and I was released three months before the term expired.

I used to be very healthy, weighing 56 kg (123 lbs) at the time of my arrest. My weight dropped to 30 kg (66 lbs) by the time I was released. I was weak and my mind was unclear. After I regained some personal freedom, however, I resumed practising Falun Gong and was able to recover.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/4/22/239405.html