Individual Accounts

  • Ye Xiaofen Recounts the Torture She Experienced at a Brainwashing Centre and Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Jianghan District, Wuhan City

    On May 8th, 2007, I was reported and arrested for encouraging people to quit the communist party. I was detained in the Women's Detention Centre, and then transferred to a brainwashing centre in Jianghan District, Wuhan City, where I was brutally tortured. A policeman named Qu instigated henchmen to force me to listen to the communist constitution. I told them not to contribute to the persecution of Falun Gong. They would not listen to me. Instead, they pulled me off the bed and kicked me brutally. After three months of torture, my body was thin as a piece of wood. Police carried me to a Drug Rehabilitation Centre to do forced labour for a year.
  • My Experiences in the Haikou Brainwashing Centre, Hainan Province

    On June 25th, 2008, I was abducted by two policemen who forced me into a squad car and then took me to the Haikou Brainwashing Centre. Collaborators, former practitioners who have turned against Falun Gong under brainwashing and torture and assist in brainwashing and torturing practitioners, relentlessly badmouthed Falun Gong, and my practising Falun Gong. To try and force me to give up my cultivation, they yelled in my ear through a megaphone, and they hit my head with Falun Gong books. One person said that I would not be able to get out if I did not give up my belief, and that they would beat me to death and I had no chance of winning the fight.
  • The Persecution of Ms. Jiang Deyuan

    On June 17th, 2008, police came to my home, saying someone had reported that I distributed flyers about Falun Gong. They took me to the police department. In the detention centre, I went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Twelve days passed. Qin Shijun, the chief of the detention centre, sent me to the county hospital for forced-feeding. The doctor could not insert the feeding tube even after he tried for some time. He said, "We can force feed her after cutting her trachea open." Qin Shijun did not agree. I lost consciousness after the doctor injected me with an unknown drug. When I woke up, my hands were handcuffed to the bed rail in the detention centre. Tubing had been inserted into my nose.
  • My Experiences in the Haikou Brainwashing Centre, Hainan Province

    My name is Huang Yanqing. On the afternoon of June 25th, 2008, I was abducted by two policemen who forced me into a squad car and then took me to the Haikou Brainwashing Centre in Haikou City, Hainan Province. There I met the collaborators that I had known when I was in the forced labour camp the first time. They said that they had been looking for me for many years. The place was very dark and gloomy. They badmouthed Falun Gong, and my practising Falun Gong. I was handcuffed to the window in the toilet overnight many times. The worst thing was that after 10:00 p.m. when I got tired, they would beat me as soon as I closed my eyes to stop me from falling asleep.
  • I Was Bound to a Metal Chair for 17 Days in Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp, Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province

    I was detained in Changlinzi Forced Labour Camp. During these three years of persecution, I was bound to a metal chair twice in a small cell. Due to being tied to the chair without moving for so long, my feet, hands, arms, and legs became swollen. The metal rings cut deep into my flesh. Because we were kept in the dark, wet and mouldy labour camp, many practitioners developed scabies. I had scabies on my legs as I was kept on the metal chair for long periods. The area with the scabies began rotting. The guards used electric batons to shock me and force-fed me. They tried to deceive and threaten me. They also tortured me by not allowing me to sleep.
  • I Witnessed Falun Gong Practitioners Suffering Abuse in the Women's Prison of Wuhan City, Hubei Province

    I was a regular inmate in the Women's Prison of Wuhan City. At the end of 2003, another Falun Gong practitioner named Ms. Sun Xiuqin entered the prison ward where I was being held. There are many methods of torture used in the Wuhan Women's Prison. Inmates are never respected, guards will treat inmates really nicely only if the inmates are wealthy or powerful. They are really cruel to Falun Gong practitioners. They would try to force them to give up their belief, make them watch slanderous videotapes, and force them to do hard labour, day and night. If they didn't cooperate, they would be strung up to a metal door.
  • I Was Brutally Tortured in Zhongba Forced Labour Camp in Guizhou Province

    I am a Falun Gong practitioner in Guizhou Province. Since I wouldn't give up my belief in Falun Gong and insisted on practising, in 2001 I was detained and sent to the Zhongba Forced Labour Camp. I was brutally tortured there for three years. They used various inhumane methods to try to force me to give up my belief, and the supervisor at my workplace suspended my job and my salary. In Zhongba Forced Labour Camp I was forced to run in the yard for a very long time. They forced me to practise military marching manoeuvres, such as standing for a long time, kneeling down and standing up (sometimes on one leg) thousands of times. This "military training" lasted five hours in the morning and four hours in the afternoon everyday.
  • Child Beaten by Police for Asking about Her Detained Mother

    On January 16th 2009, I returned home and saw a mess everywhere. Dad was very haggard. Under my persistent questioning, he simply told me that mum had been arrested because of her distributing leaflets exposing the persecution and telling people the facts about Falun Gong, and was taken to Dashan Detention Centre in Qingdao. I could not control my agitation and went to Shen Tao, the director of the Political Protection Office, to ask for my mum. In 2004, he arrested her and tortured her. She could be in life-threatening danger: how could I calmly stay at home? Suddenly Shen Tao pushed me. I felt a searing pain in my back. I asked, "Why are you beating me?" He replied, "Who beat you? It served you right!"
  • I Was Cruelly Tortured in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp in Harbin City

    Ms. Song Wenjuan came from Heilongjiang Province. Because she practised Falun Gong, she was repeatedly tortured by the guards in Wanjia Forced Labour Camp in Harbin City. In order her to force Ms. Song to give up Falun Gong she was hung up, left out in the cold, beaten, and shocked with electric batons. Because of the torture, she lost consciousness many times and her left hand became completely paralysed. She also had to do slave labour.
  • Practitioner In Her Sixties Persecuted at the Liaoning Province Women's Prison

    In 2001, I was arrested while distributing leaflets exposing the persecution and telling people the facts about Falun Gong. The following year I was sentenced to a three-year prison term and incarcerated in Liaoning Province Women's Prison. The prison enforced starting work at six in the morning, stopping at ten in the evening, and going to sleep at eleven. Prisoners were frequently forced to work overtime to create more income for the prison. I was allowed only three to four hours of sleep each night. Every week the prison provided only two meals of fine flour and rice in limited quantities. The rest of the meals were all coarse bread.
  • A Mother Appeals for Her Daughter in Jail

    I am the mother of a Falun Gong practitioner. My daughter has been detained for six months. I call out her name in my dreams and awaken in tears again and again. From 1999 to 2009, my daughter, Jiao Xuemei, was arrested and detained four times. During the past 10 years, she has been persecuted again and again. Our family has suffered great loss financially and has suffered tremendous mental pressure. On June 16th, 2008, on the eve of the Olympic Games, officers from Xishandao Police Station again detained Jiao Xuemei and took her to the Tangshan No.1 Detention Centre. The Lubei Court put her on trial on September 19th and sentenced her without evidence of any wrongdoing.
  • I Was Tortured and Persecuted by Jiamusi City Government Officials

    On April 20th, 2002, I was arrested by police officers and sent to Huangpu Detention Centre. Several policemen violently beat me. I was taken out of the detention centre one night and sent to a small, enclosed room, where eight policemen threatened to inject me with medicine and send me to a psychiatric hospital. I didn't cooperate, so four of the officers left the room while another four remained to brutally beat me and threaten me. I became unconscious due to the torture and was taken back to the detention centre early the next morning. I couldn't walk by myself and had to lean on the guards for support. I protested with a hunger strike, and was then tied to a chair, where guards forced a feeding tube down into my lungs. They continued to insert the tube and didn't stop until I lost consciousness.
  • My Experience at the Nanmusi Forced Labour Camp

    On June 26th, 2008, I was transferred from an addiction treatment centre in Sichuan Province to the No. 7 Section of the Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp. Three days after I arrived, I was forced to perform slave labour. Whenever we entered or left the workshop's main door, we were required to report to the guards, otherwise we were not allowed to use the toilet. Since I did not report for two days, I had to wait until 11:00 p.m. to use the toilet. Shortly after this incident, the guards required all practitioners who were not "transformed" to work in their cell for about 15 hours a day, rather than the workshop.
  • Mr. Wang Yajun Unable to Take Care of Himself After Being Tortured by Guards in Jilin Forced Labour Camp

    My name is Wang Yajun. I was arrested at home on May 16th, 2007, by police for attending a Falun Gong experience sharing conference. I was later detained in Heizuizi Forced Labour Camp in Changchun City, Jilin Province, for 18 months. On June 17th, 2008, I went on a hunger strike. I was then subjected to more persecution. Under the instigation of the police, drug addict inmates tied me to an iron bed. They handcuffed my hands and legs. Four vicious addicts hit me in the genital area. They also used a pair of slippers to hit my face, and they pulled my hair. After kicking and punching me with their fists, they started to force-feed me. My lower back was injured because of the torture. It bled and festered and developed a hole as large as a fist.
  • Mother's Pain

    In 1994 I was so fortunate to start practising Falun Gong. I looked like a new person: the diseases were all gone. After July 1999, when the persecution started, my siblings and I were all persecuted. My mother was devastated. After the onset of the persecution, I was ordered to a brainwashing centre every day. One day as I returned to my work place after the brainwashing session, my supervisor did not allow me to go home and tried to force me to write a guarantee statement to quit cultivation and a "regret statement" to slander Falun Gong. My mother passed away because she was scared to death. My heart hurts because of sadness and pain.