Mr. Wang Baohong's Personal Account of Torture at Handan Forced Labour Camp in Hebei Province

Name: Mr. Wang Baohong
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown
Address: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 2007
Most Recent Place of Detention: Handan Forced Labour Camp
City: Handan
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Shocked with electric batons, sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, hung by handcuffs, solitary confinement, torture, detention

Mr. Wang Baohong, a practitioner from Hengshui City, Hebei Province, was sentenced to forced labour in 2007 and was subjected to brutal torture and brainwashing at the Handan Forced Labour Camp. The following is Mr. Wang's personal account of the torture he experienced.

Yang Shushan, Du Jianting, and two other officers from the Domestic Security Division of the Hengshui City Police Department arrested me and ransacked my home. That day I was taken to the detention centre, and guards ordered jailer Wang Ning to incite the criminal detainees to kick and punch me. One of the criminals was a former bank employee who punched me in the head.

At the detention centre, we were forced to get up at 3:00 a.m. every day and work until 11:00 p.m. I protested the detention and the forced labour. A guard by the surname Che brutally beat me. He grabbed my collar and dragged me out of the cell. In the corridor I refused to go any further. Che fell to the floor purposely and used the momentum to pull me down on top of him by grabbing my collar. Instantly Che called in a group of guards, who attacked and beat me. During the process they didn't allow me to stand up, but I was repeatedly propped up and knocked down. Finally the guards pinned me to the ground and beat me with batons until I was unable to move.

One deputy head incited the guards to cuff my hands and feet to a bed so that I couldn't turn around or sit up, and could only lay down facing up. The wounds from the beating were extremely painful. I was unable to have a bowel movement for more than ten days afterwards, and this too was extremely painful. When Si Huifang, the head of the detention centre, came to inspect the cell, I shouted a request for a doctor. Si turned a deaf ear to me and quietly left. I ended up being cuffed to the bed for a month. Since I was lying on the bed for such a long time, when the guards unlocked the cuffs I was unable to walk. Even under such circumstances, guard Che still instructed the jailer to force me to work right away.

I was later sent to the Handan Forced Labour Camp. The “Special Education Division” of the camp was specifically set up to force practitioners to renounce Falun Gong. The division was made up of a chief, a political instructor, and team leaders (the general guards are all given the title of team leader). The chief of the division had the surname Ge and the political instructor had the surname Wang. Team leaders included Gao Fei, Jia Yingbin, Gao Jinli, and Shen Yingjun, who was the head of the propaganda section of the forced labour camp. Several other team leaders were in charge of the day to day management of the forced labour and the work duties. The chief and the political instructor were extremely cruel to the practitioners. Gao Fei often purposely distorted the meaning of the articles written by the founder of Falun Gong Mr. Li Hongzhi, and tried to quote them out of context in order to try to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] the practitioners. Jia Yingbin was a so-called “class two counsellor.” Gao Jinli tried to get practitioners to renounce Falun Gong by using manipulative logic from the angle of philosophical theory, while Shen Yingjun tried to deceive practitioners while describing himself as a Buddhist.

The guards of the “Special Education Division” gave criminals inmates the authority to watch over practitioners. If a practitioner wanted to do something, they had to first get permission from the criminal inmate. These inmates were not required to participate in the forced labour and they could beat, verbally abuse, or punish the practitioners at random. The method they used in attempting to force practitioners to renounce Falun Gong was to talk to practitioners in turn and pretend to show concern for them in order to collect information about them. They even “studied” Falun Gong literature with the practitioners. Collaborators (former practitioners, brainwashed against Falun Gong, made to assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners) assisted the cause. If a practitioner didn't agree with their distorted “understanding” of the Falun Gong teachings, they began to punish and torture them, and would not allow them to go to bed. If the practitioners still didn't renounce Falun Gong, they continued torturing them.

The “Special Education Division” was located on the western side of the third floor, in the Handan Forced Labour Camp building. The brainwashing was carried out in the “counselling room” on the northern side of the third floor. The beatings and torture were carried out in the guard's gym on the western side of the top floor. This was because the gym was sealed off very well and not many people went there, so the sounds of the screams from torture could hardly be heard.

After I was sent to the Handan Forced Labour Camp, the camp authorities forced me to stand still for a long time as a punishment. I was not allowed to contact any other people inside the camp. A few days later, several criminals headed by You Yufang, who had become a collaborator after being severely tortured, came to threaten me. They pretended as if they were about to start a fight with me. I was not afraid, and after saying a few words they were all deflated. Division chief Ge then wanted to “chat” with me. I answered all his questions in detail by talking about the law, morality, and modern society. Eventually he became silent and had nothing to say. After that, Jia Yingbin and Gao Jinli took turns talking to me every day. Shen Yingjun cut in from time to time, threatening me with the consequences of not renouncing Falun Gong.

Gao Fei and a group of criminals wanted to “study Falun Gong literature” with me. They pressured me with faulty logic, saying that they all had the same understanding and it was only I who had a different opinion, and was therefore in the wrong. They also deprived me of my right to sleep, and forced me to stand still for long periods of time. I refused to participate in their so-called study. Division chief Ge said in a nasty tone, “We will force you to renounce Falun Gong, whether you want to or not.” Gao Fei also threatened me with torture.

The following morning, Gao Fei and Jia Yingbin incited two criminals to take me to a room on the western side of the top floor and forced me onto my knees. When I resisted, they pushed me down, but I still refused to cooperate. They took me to a bigger empty room on the northern end of western side. The criminal inmates held my arms so that I couldn't move, and Gao Fei hit me in the back with a police baton. At the same time, Jia Yingbin repeatedly called out my name until I lost consciousness and collapsed on the ground. Gao Fei then hit my legs to wake me up. They subsequently ordered the criminal inmates to drag me around, and afterwards pushed me down and forced me on my knees. Gao Fei and Jia Yingbin insulted me throughout. I didn't give in despite the torture. The cycle of torture was repeated until the evening when I was no longer able to stand. I suddenly felt dizzy, vomited, and lost consciousness again.

The following morning, Gao Fei, Jia Yingbin, and the inmates brought me to a room on the top floor. Gao Fei threatened me, saying, “If you don't renounce Falun Gong I will make you suffer with the 'flying the airplane' and 'tying the ropes' tortures.” They forced me on my knees. Gao and Jia were laughing at me and tried to make me read the fake Falun Gong literature. I refused to read it, so Jia started to insult me. They put Chinese chess pieces on the floor and forced me to kneel on them. This caused even more pain. The perpetrators also used the back of a chair to force me up against wall until my face was facing the wall and my body and legs were at a 90 degree angle. They then put chess pieces under my knees again. While doing all this, they constantly tried to brainwash me until I could not bear it any longer.

A few days later, Gao Fei took me to the big room on the northern end of the top floor as soon as he arrived for work in the morning. He stripped off my overcoat and then began beating me. He stomped on my head and pressured me to renounce Falun Gong. A political instructor with the surname Wang smiled sinisterly while walking over to me. He ordered two criminal inmates to pull me up and ordered me to sit on the ground. My legs were tightly bound together with a rope and stretched forward into one line. The inmates pushed my arms upwards from my back, while I was bent forward with my face facing down. The last thing I remember is that someone was on my back. I felt as if I had fallen into an abyss, and then I lost consciousness. After a long period of time I faintly felt pain on the lower end of my fingers and heard someone talking to me. When I opened my eyes I saw that two inmates were grabbing my arms to make me stand up. The political instructor was scraping the lower end of my fingers with force. The skin at the lower end of my fingers was all worn off as a result, with blood oozing out of the wounds.

The above is some of the persecution I have experienced.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/10/20/248113.html