Shandong Province No. 1 Women's Forced Labour Camp Obstructs and Threatens Ms. Zhan Shuoxiu's Lawyers

Name: Zhan Shuoxiu
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Laizhou City, Shandong Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 27th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Shandong Province No.1 Women's Forced Labour Camp
City: Laizhou
Province: Shandong
Persecution Suffered: Forced labour, detention

Ms. Zhan Shuoxiu from Laizhou City, Shandong Province, was recently sentenced to forced labour. Her family and friends hired two lawyers to request a review of her sentence, but Shandong Province No.1 Women's Forced Labour Camp officials have created difficulties and threatened the lawyers and Ms. Zhan's family.

Ms. Zhan Shuoxiu was arrested on August 27th, 2011, and sentenced to one and a half years of forced labour. Without informing her family, the police took her to the Shandong Province No.1 Women's Forced Labour Camp in Jinan City.

Ms. Zhan's family and friends hired two lawyers who went to the labour camp to meet with Ms. Zhan on October 10th. They gained her consent to apply to the appropriate government agencies to review her sentence.

When the lawyers went to the labour camp on the afternoon of October 11th, a female officer ordered them to submit to questioning first. The lawyers pointed out that her order was in violation of a lawyer's rights. The lawyers said that they wanted to review the notice of forced labour and meet with Ms. Zhan.

The labour camp officials threatened the lawyers and ordered them to quickly leave, otherwise they would call the police. The No. 1 Division head called Ms. Zhan's husband and ordered him to tell the lawyers to leave. Ms. Zhan's husband was unable to remain calm in the circumstances, as the labour camp officials kept threatening him, saying that hiring lawyers would not be good for Ms. Zhan. Moreover, the labour camp officials informed Ms. Zhan's family on October 14th that something was wrong with one of the lawyer's qualifications, and the other lawyer was preparing for the post-graduate entrance examination.

Shandong Province No. 1 Women's Forced Labour Camp has brutally abused and tortured Falun Gong practitioners. Between 2009 and 2010, guards Han Jianhua, Li Lijuan, and Wang Kun from Division No.4 placed newly arrived practitioners into solitary confinement in order to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] them. Two inmates were assigned to closely monitor each practitioner around the clock.

Han Jianhua forced practitioners to watch videos slandering Falun Gong and its founder every day. Afterward, the practitioners were ordered to talk about and write down their “understandings.” The guards placed the practitioners in solitary all year long if they refused to be “transformed.” The guards also starved practitioners, denied them use of the toilet, and made them sit on a small plastic stool for long periods of time without moving. If they moved even once, they would be physically abused. Because they sat without moving for 20 hours each day, some practitioners' buttocks festered, and they were only allowed two to three hours of sleep. They were also forced to do hard labour.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/10/20/248073.html