An Eyewitness Account of How Falun Gong Practitioners Were Tortured with Electric Batons, Stabbed, and Sodomized
"[His] screams and cries from the torture made us feel that we were living in hell." -- Labour Camp Detainee
LONDON, September 16, 2002 (European Falun Gong Information Centre) -- Westerners touring the main strips in Beijing can see construction projects, skyscrapers, Starbucks coffee shops, and many other symbols of modern, cosmopolitan life. Witnessing this scene, they might naturally assume that China is on the cusp of joining the world community as a prosperous and progressive nation.
My story, however, demonstrates quite a different picture of what the campaigns and policies of PRC leader Jiang Zemin have done to our nation.
According to the Laogai Research Foundation (http://www.laogai.org/), in China there are an estimated one thousand forced labour camps, in which four to six million people are forced to perform slave labour. Among these millions are hundreds of thousands (or perhaps over one million, according to some estimates) of Falun Gong practitioners who have been sent to forced labour camps--not for committing any crimes against society--but simply for refusing to renounce their beliefs.
I am one of them.
Having been tortured to the brink of death, I am now homeless and must constantly stay on the move in order to avoid further detention, forced labour and torture. I would tell you my name, occupation and other details, but this would only jeopardize anyone who ever knew me. Let me just say that I am from Changchun, that I am a practitioner of Falun Gong, and that at the beginning of 2001, I was illegally sentenced to a three year term at the Yinmahe Labour Camp in Jiutai City, Jilin Province.
A Living Hell
Soon after I arrived, I witnessed a guard shocking another practitioner of Falun Gong, Li Bochun, continuously with several electric batons. He also cuffed Li to a bed and ordered three inmates to beat him. Next, the inmates used the handcuffs to hang him by his arms for two weeks, which made Li's wrists fester. Although Li suffered a mental breakdown from this torture, he was not released or taken to the hospital for treatment.
In April 2001, instigated by the guards, criminal inmates forced practitioners to do heavy labour in an attempt to make them give up practising Falun Gong. When this method failed, the inmates resorted to raw violence, such as smashing practitioner Pan Gang's feet with a club, and hitting Yang Lidong on the head with an iron hook, which made him bleed profusely.
Practitioner Wang Hongtian from Dehui is thin and short, so the inmates put an extra heavy load of dirt on his back. When another practitioner reported this to guard Li Chengzhou, the inmates dragged him by his feet as they ran down a bumpy gravel road. Jiang Lide tried to stop them, so he was beaten and thrown into a pond.
Many practitioners started hunger strikes to protest the abuse. While force-feeding them, the inmates knocked out the front teeth of practitioners Zhao Xishun and Pan Gang with an iron bar. Jin, the prison doctor, forcefully stabbed the scalps of Lang Baimin and many more practitioners with needles in a perverse mockery of acupuncture.
The guards shocked Jilin practitioner Xiao Jinsong with several electric batons, finally torturing him to death.
The Persecution Targets Those Steadfast in Their Right to Freedom of Belief
Yang, the vice president of the Yinmahe Labour Camp who is in charge of inmates, and his section chiefs personally exhorted all squads to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. They tried to force the practitioners to write statements renouncing their practice of Falun Gong and make materials slandering Falun Gong. They were ordered to beat practitioners until they gave up their beliefs.
From what I witnessed, however, the practitioners did not waver, even in the face of the violence in the labour camp. All of the guards carried electric batons and used them without restraint to shock the practitioners. Often, they would use four batons at the same time to shock one practitioner.
Another policy of the Yinmahe Labour Camp is brainwashing. They forced us to watch videos and read books slandering and distorting the teachings of Falun Gong. Practitioners were strictly monitored 24 hours a day, and were not allowed to speak to each other. Thus, we were tortured both physically and mentally at the same time.
The Most Horrible Torture
The labour camp also used other extreme means to torture us, such as lashing us with iron whips, kicking, hitting our faces with shoes, etc., but the most horrible thing that I saw involved practitioner Xue Baoping from Henan. First, squadron heads Tang Bo and Zhao Fengshan along with guard Liu Xiduo pulled off Xue Baoping's clothes, then some police cadets helped to pull apart Li's legs and hold his head. The guards then forced a 2-inch thick electric baton into Li's rectum and shocked him for at least an hour. Xue's screams and cries from the torture made us feel that we were living in hell.
On the Brink of Death
After the guards shocked me repeatedly, my digestion was affected and I often vomited. By mid-June I was unable to take in food or water. I was often dizzy, with severe vomiting, and I passed out several times. By July 8, my life was in imminent danger. Afraid of being held responsible for my death, the labour camp reluctantly sent me home, where I began to recuperate. On August 16, after hearing that I was recovering, I was told the labour camp wanted to bring me back, so I went into hiding to avoid further torture.
The above are only some of my experiences. There are many such cases of torture and persecution in the Yinmahe Labour Camp.
From the European Falun Gong Information Centre
“The treatment of Falun Gong practitioners and others in Jiang Zemin’s forced labour camps is a disgrace to China and an affront to civilization itself,” said Peter Jauhal spokesman for the European Falun Gong Information Centre. “It is horrible to even read about the depths of depravity exhibited by officials and guards in the labour camp system, where man’s inhumanity to man is pushed to the ultimate level. How terrible must it be to actually live through it?”
Mr Jauhal continued, “People around the world realize that these are exceptional Chinese citizens who practice Falun Gong and stand up for their right to freedom of belief. They have done nothing wrong. In fact, they risk their lives every day to let their fellow citizens and the outside world know what is happening in China."
more ...