Female Practitioner Beaten Nearly to Death in Nanmusi Labour Camp

It was in the Nanmusi Female Labour Camp, Zizhong County, Sichuan Province that I first made the acquaintance of Tao Juhua. She seemed to be in her 30s. At that time, she was thin, with a dark complexion, yet was in very good condition spiritually. She remained determined in cultivating and safeguarding Falun Dafa, and did not give in to the evil persecution. In the Nanmusi Female Labour Camp, she suffered from the heavy pressure given by the guards and the assaults by collaborators [former practitioners who had gone astray due to severe pressure and brainwashing]. Nonetheless, she always maintained a state of righteousness and was dauntless in the face of pressure.

At the beginning of 2001, she was illegally sentenced to one year in a forced-labour camp. In January 2002, when we left the labour camp, we saw that she was still detained for forced labour in the Production Team. It was said that her sentence was prolonged for another year, and we do not have any recent news about her.

In the Nanmusi Female Labour Camp, Tao Juhua suffered from endless mental and physical punishment. However, in order to protect Dafa, she did not give in to the wicked disciplinary guards' abuse of power. When Falun Dafa practitioners from Sichuan were being continuously sent to the Nanmusi Women's Labour Camp, there was no specific disciplinary team for detaining them. Those practitioners, including Tao Juhua, were thus detained in the Production Team, where they were assaulted by other prisoners and forced to do heavy physical labour. In the Nanmusi Women's Labour Camp, the disciplinary cadres held Falun Gong practitioners under very strict surveillance whereas all the criminal prisoners - no matter if they were murderers, arsonists, drug addicts, or thieves - all had freedom. They were allowed to speak, and they could become accomplices of the guards to persecute Falun Gong. Every Dafa practitioner was surrounded and attacked by several prisoners. If the practitioners did not follow exactly what the perpetrators wanted them to do, the other prisoners could curse and beat them at will, and were even incited by the policemen to do so. Even the prisoners from neighbouring cells who came over to visit were also allowed to curse at and physically abuse practitioners. If some practitioners wanted to practice the exercises, they would receive severe beatings and shocks from electric batons. In such total absence of justice, all those Dafa practitioners who were determined in continuing to practice and cultivate Falun Dafa had the thought in their mind "Now that we have com e here for the Fa [the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance] no matter what difficulties we meet, we will safeguard and protect the Fa."

Afterwards, the Nanmusi Women's Labour Camp set up a team specifically for detaining Dafa practitioners, and Tao Juhua and some other practitioners were detained together. In order to force the Dafa practitioners to be submissive so that they could be easily brainwashed, the disciplinary guards held so-called "military training", trying to use military force to intimidate and threaten the practitioners to give in. The protection team is a team of hired thugs for the labour camp. Under such conditions, it's not hard to imagine the suffering of those practitioners who refused to co-operate with the evil and submit to the "military training". In the hottest period in 2002, every day Dafa practitioners were forced to remain exposed to the sun. They were not allowed to shower for weeks in a row. The evil people wanted to destroy practitioners' wills.

One time when Tao Juhua and several other practitioners demanded their right to practice the exercises, the leader of the 7th team, Zhang Xiaofang, became angry and brought electric batons to shock the Dafa practitioners. She shocked many practitioners with the batons without restraint. During the same night, Zhang Xiaofang also found a policeman from the protection team to lock Tao Juhua separately in the office and brutally beat her. The policeman did not stop beating her until she was almost dead. In those dark hours, each day we did not know what would happen next. In the labour camp, they used all kinds of means to destroy the wills of Dafa practitioners.
Even so, Tao Juhua remained steadfast in practicing Falun Dafa, step by step and day by day. She kept using peaceful means to safeguard Dafa. No matter how the evil persecuted her, she kept safeguarding Falun Dafa all the same. Every day when they called the roll, Tao Juhua answered in her peaceful and determined voice "Dafa practitioner is here." Every time, the disciplinary cadres got angry and the collaborators all came up to attack her. However Tao Juhua remained peaceful and quiet, and endured all the pressure with surprising determination. This was the determination and righteousness of a Falun Dafa practitioner who had let go of the fear of death.

There was one time when the disciplinary guards arranged for practitioners who were under strict surveillance to listen to tapes defaming Falun Dafa, and Tao Juhua rushed forward, took the tapes, and threw them onto the ground, breaking them. After that, the guards did not play the recorder any more.

There was another time when Tao Juhua answered: "Dafa practitioner is here" during roll call. The policeman from the No.8 team shut her up into a small cell. They handcuffed her for three whole days, with two hands on the iron door and nothing but her two toes touching the ground. In the heat, the policemen used a thick cotton quilt to cover her up until she could not breathe and lost consciousness. The policemen unlocked her handcuffs for fear that something might happen to her. For several months afterwards, her fingers were all numb.

She had been detained and tortured by all the teams that specialized in detaining Falun Dafa practitioners. In the end, all the policemen from several teams did not want her anymore, and they transferred her back to the production team for forced labour, where they continued to torture her.

There were several other practitioners in the Nanmusi Women's Labour Camp who remained steadfast in cultivating Falun Dafa and were inhumanly persecuted for refusing to co-operate with the evil. We appeal to all kind-hearted people around the world to show concern for the Falun Gong practitioners who are severely persecuted in China's jails; together, let's help to stop this evil persecution.