The Horrors of the Second Forced Labour Camp in Anning District

The woman's squad of the Gansu Second Forced Labour Camp has been torturing Falun Dafa practitioners by forcing them to perform heavy labour for the labour camp's various illegal operations. When the weather was extremely cold last winter and this spring, the police forced Dafa practitioners to sit outside counting, tightening, packing, and loading disposable chopsticks. In late spring, as market demand increased, practitioners had to make more and more chopsticks, and work extended hours. They haven't had a day off since before the Spring Festival. They worked continuously from the dawn to nightfall. Their quota increased from 4 to 7 bags per day per person. Each bag has about 4,250 pairs of chopsticks. If they couldn't finish, they had to work during the night. 63-year-old Gu Yuling could not catch up, but the drug addict inmates would not allow other practitioners to help her. They punished her by forcing her to accompany the on-call inmate at night and walk two hours before allowing her to sleep. After working for more than ten hours a day, the practitioners could not straighten their backs and their fingers were so stiff that they could not even make fists. The chemical used for sterilizing the chopsticks had no factory label. Some practitioners developed dizziness, nausea, and tearing whenever they came near it. With time, the chemical made practitioners' hair and eyebrows turn yellow. Their hands burned as soon as they had contact with the wet chopsticks. After several months, practitioners all noticed severe physical symptoms from the chemical.

The police in Gansu Second Forced Labour Camp use various forms of persecution. First, practitioners are not allowed to speak, especially to each other. They are not allowed to walk around and need permission to go to the bathroom. They assign three inmates to watch one practitioner constantly and even to follow them to the toilet. They restrict the time for the toilet so that the practitioners have to run on the way to the toilet and back. If the practitioners are late for reasons such as waiting for a vacancy or having diarrhoea, they are punished by being scolded or forced to stand for a long time. If any practitioners say things like "Falun Dafa is good" or "Restore the good reputation of Teacher," the police immediately order the inmates to cover the practitioner's mouth, put handcuffs on them, and lock them into a cell. Wu Lanfang from Wuwei was the first practitioner who stepped forward and said "Falun Dafa is good" as a result she was isolated from others.

Fan Juncao from Qingyang, 60, has been guarding Dafa and resisting the evil. She refused to recite the "rules" of the labour camp and was punished by being forced to stand daily until midnight. The police also directed the inmates to beat her. Inmate Li Yuping, 31, a former drug addict, lived in the dormitory of Anning District Factory and Business Bureau and was in charge of all the inmates in the woman's squad at that time. Li had brutally beaten Fan several times in order to force her to recite the "rules." Whenever Fan made any statements upholding Dafa or did Falun Gong exercises, the police would handcuff, beat, shock, and hang her up. Sometimes as the cuffs cut into her flesh, her screams were so miserable and unbearable that even the inmates could not sleep upon hearing them. Being hung for too long, Fan's feet became swollen. She could not put on her shoes, go to the toilet, or remove her pants herself. Sometimes when she made statements supporting Dafa, the police forced her to squat on the floor and cuffed her hands between the bed frames so that she could neither stand nor sit. The more she moved from pain, the tighter the cuff would become, and eventually the cuff would cut into her flesh.

It was very hot in June and July of 2001. In order to make practitioners more compliant, the police sent us to Yinhe Bridge in Anning District. They forced us to level the ground, transport and carry the dirt, and remove the stones. They did not allow us to rest for even a second. Whenever we wiped away the sweat, they accused us of laziness, delaying the work, refusing to work, and punished us with standing after work or points toward possible extension of our sentences. One afternoon, practitioner Cui Yumei really could not carry the dirt and a sympathetic inmate shovelled her a little bit less. Upon spotting this, policewoman Wang Yonghong, badge number 6223042, forced her to carry a leather bag of dirt. The bag was too heavy to be carried by one inmate. Wang then asked two inmates to carry the bag and put it onto Cui's back. Cui crashed to the ground, yet the police accused her of pretending to fall and not using her own strength. They ordered her to stand after work, and deducted 29 points (equivalent to adding 10 days to her sentence). Working like this in high temperatures and with no chance to wipe the sweat away or stretch our backs, we were only given half a bun for lunch and a 3.5 ounces of noodle soup for dinner. The other inmates could eat as much as they wanted. Facing the evil persecution, Liu Wenyu started a hunger strike. Several days passed, and the police exhausted all means to try and make her eat. Liu was not moved and continued the hunger strike. As Liu's life was in danger, the leader of the labour camp finally agreed to her conditions, allowing the practitioners in the second squad to have full meals. The half-month "starvation" was put to an end by Liu's hunger strike, yet she was only skin and bones herself. The practitioners said, "Liu Wenyu exchanged her life for our full meals."

In June 2001, just because she did not say "Thank you" on her way out of the head of the squad's office, practitioner Su Yuping was baked in the sun for three days. When she passed out, guard Wang Yixin shocked her to bring her around, hung her up with handcuffs for four hours, and then cuffed her to a bed frame for seven days and nights.

Practitioner Li Cuihong said one word to a practitioner in her room on the third day after she was illegally sent to the labour camp. The police decided she had violated the "rules" and cuffed and hung her up. She has permanent scars on her wrists from the cuffing.

On January 8, 2001, the local police again sent practitioner Wang Yuxia to the labour camp. She refused to get out of the car and the police ordered four inmates to carry her into the cell and hang her up by handcuffs. It was during the cold winter. They hung her for eight days and nights while she wore only a sweater.

On August 4, 2001, some inmates dumped their left over noodles in a bag and asked the practitioners to throw them away. Unwilling to waste food, the practitioners refused to do it. That evening, they refused to provide meals and charged the three practitioners with wasting food instead. In order to protest, the three practitioners held a hunger strike. One of the practitioners did not eat for more than ten days and endured various torture by the police. On one hand, the police told her they regretted punishing her, but on the other hand, they isolated her and ordered 7-8 inmates to hold her down on a bed for the prison doctor to forcefully feed her. Guard Pu Qi ordered the inmates to remove the only bed in the isolation room so that the practitioners had to sleep on the cement floor then scolded an inmate who learned the truth about Falun Dafa and helped to wash clothes for the practitioner. After two weeks on a hunger strike, the practitioner was very weak. However, Pu would not allow anyone to help her after she was force-fed and ordered to walk back to the isolation room from the medical office. She once passed out on her way to the toilet. Not only did they forbid inmates to give her a hand, the police viciously told her, "You are the only one who caused all this. Why didn't you eat?" Although the practitioner resisted the evil persecution, the police deducted 240 points (equaling an 80-day extension of her term) and gave her a warning. The police released Li Yuping, the main inmate leader responsible for triggering this event, on time without any punishment.