Misery Experienced at the Tuanhe Labour Camp in Beijing

Written by Wang Fangfu

I have been illegally detained for more than a year. During this time I have heard, seen, and encountered so much that I now realize what it means to be persecuted and what darkness really is.

In September 2001, a fellow practitioner and I went to Beijing to appeal and clarify the truth. On the way, the police searched us and found a "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance" banner. For this we were arrested. My fellow practitioner went on a hunger strike to protest the police's abuse of authority. She was in and out of the detention centre hospital five times, and was released from detention only after becoming emaciated, and hovering on the brink of death. Currently there are still Dafa practitioners being persecuted in that detention centre hospital.

I also resisted the unreasonable conduct of the police and refused to give them my name and address, or reveal where the banner came from. The police officers proceeded to persecute me in every possible dreadful way. They handcuffed my wrists behind my back, then stepped on my back, pressing me against the floor, and used a large wooden rod to lift the handcuffs causing them to cut deep into the flesh and damage the nerves around my wrists. My two thumbs were numb for more than six months, and to this day there are still scars around my wrists. The police also placed a wooden rod against the back of my legs; two people then stepped on the rod and rocked back and forth. I was not able to walk normally for more than a month afterward. Such agonising torture!

The police then stepped on my face very hard, pressing it against the concrete basement floor. My face was cut and bruised to beyond recognition. They hit me with their fists until their fists hurt, then used the bottom of their leather shoes to hit my mouth and teeth, and at the same time they plucked at my eyebrows and pulled on my hair while scolding me non-stop.

Late one cold, autumn night, I was awakened from a sound sleep, and taken from the cell to a gloomy building, for interrogation. The policemen stripped off my clothes, above the waist, and poured cold water on me, then opened the window to let the cold air in, and took pleasure in my non-stop shivering. They also plucked the hair from my armpits, nipples, eyebrows, and beard, and ordered me to take my pants off. When I refused, they stepped on my genitals. I told them that good would be rewarded with good, and evil with evil, but they laughed and said that they were not afraid of going to hell.

They interrogated me day and night using every trick imaginable; persuasion, threats, promise of reward, deceit, harassment, etc. One night, a police officer used my vest to cover my head, then startled me with the noise of sparks generated from an electric baton. He then applied electric shocks to my back, moving slowly to shocking my thigh, then shocking my neck, until I was paralysed and laid on the ground. My entire body was covered with red blisters from the electric shocks. If it were not for my faith in Dafa I don’t know how I would have survived.

We practitioners do not acknowledge any crime or persecution that is forced on us. I have lodged a number of complaints to the superiors and have gone on hunger strikes to protest these atrocities.

One time I refused to leave the interrogation room, and asked to see the police chief. Three people then dragged me from the third floor back to my cell. As a result, my clothes were torn in many places.

I was tortured like this for four months, and my illegal detention was extended again and again. They had no evidence to prove my "crime" but still sent me to the labour camp. I rejected the decision and appealed, as allowed by the law. Two months later, the decision was still the same. I did not accept that result either, and again lodged a complaint, as allowed, but the detention centre did not wait for the outcome of the complaint, and forcibly dispatched me to the forced labour camp.

On arrival at the holding area of the labour camp, I was asked to write a "guarantee statement" [A statement to declare that he or she is remorseful for practising Falun Gong and guarantees not to practsce Falun Gong again, not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong, and never again associate with any Falun Dafa practitioners.] promising to give up Falun Dafa practice. I had not caused any social disturbance, so I refused to write the guarantee statement. The police then ordered four to five people from the labour camp to forcibly hold me down. They beat and kicked me, forced my fingers to write the "guarantee statement," and forced one of my fingers to make a fingerprint. Due to the beating and trampling, my shoulder was injured, and my waist and the joints in my fingers became swollen. I could not get up unassisted for a month. There was no response to my appeal to the leader of the forced labour camp. I was monitored all day long and had no personal freedom. When I first entered the forced labour camp, the police had immediately started trying to brainwash me, slandering "Minghui.net" and said that they never persecuted practitioners, but my experience and the wounds on my body let me see through their charade.

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/1/31/31475.html