Individual Accounts

  • The Torture I Suffered at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp, in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province

    In 2005 I was arrested at my home by the local police and the thugs from the neighbourhood committee. I was sent to the notorious Masanjia Forced Labour Camp where I was detained for three years. I was tied to a "Dead Person's Bed" and they gave me intravenous injections and force-fed me with unknown drugs every day. After the drugs I felt numb in my head and legs. I was tied to the bed day and night. I even had to relieve myself on the bed. I was also force-fed corn flour paste. When the paste had gone bad they still fed it to me. I was not only covered in the smell of excrement, but also had nasal mucus all over my face
  • Bearing Witness to the Cruelties Committed at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp

    First I wish to tell you about the heavy forced labour practitioners have to perform. Every day, practitioners have to work for 17 hours. The labour is generally making handicrafts, with most of the products being artificial flowers. Between August and September, we were forced to cut garlic or peel ginger for more than 10 hours a day. Many practitioners' skin broke open and festered. We made the flowers in our cells, which included spray painting. Most of the sprays are toxic, which affected our breathing. Those doing such work also had headaches, vomited and were fatigued.
  • Assistant Professor at Tsinghua University Reveals How She Was Persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

    My name is Mrs. Wang Jiuchun. I was an assistant professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its head Jiang Zemin began brutally suppressing Falun Gong practitioners. About fifty practitioners at the Falun Gong Assistance Centre in Tsinghua University were arrested and later sentenced to prison or forced labour camp terms. Among them, one practitioner was beaten to death. Other practitioner professors at Tsinghua University were placed on long-term surveillance. I was taken to a brainwashing centre six times, detained at the police department twice, and imprisoned in a forced labour camp for a year and a half. My home was ransacked twice by the police. I was subjected to severe physical and mental tortures. I was ordered to give up my belief in "Truthfulness, Benevolence, Forbearance".
  • Mr. Lu Zhiyong Persecuted in Xinhua Forced Labour Camp in Mianyang County, Sichuan Province

    I arrived at Xinhua Forced Labour Camp in Mianyang County that afternoon at 4 p.m. Only then did I realize that I was taken there for a year and half of forced labour. I was tortured in all kinds of ways. Under police orders, the personal "cangues" [monitors who supervise the behaviour of practitioners] made me stand from 6 a.m. till midnight, and they frequently punched me in the chest, often to the point where I couldn't speak or get up from the bed. I would have acute pain once I spoke and sharp chest pains if I moved. The police tied me up eight times during one ten-day period, increased the use of electronic batons from one to four, and beat me with spiked clubs. When I resisted the attempts to smear my face on the toilet floor, the "Personal cangues" and guards pushed my head into the urinals.
  • Cao Dong's Wife Tells the Story of His Detention in Tianshui City Prison, Gansu Province

    I am the wife of Cao Dong, a Falun Gong practitioner from Beijing. On May 21st, 2006, Cao Dong met with Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice-President of the European Parliament, and told him about the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Two hours after the meeting, Cao Dong was arrested by State Security agents. Before the Chinese New Year's Eve, Cao Dong was sentenced to five years in prison. His defence lawyer said that the only "evidence" used to sentence him was a false oral confession.
  • My Experience While being Detained in a Mental Hospital Three Times

    When the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, I went to Beijing to appeal and was thrown into a detention centre by police. The guards failed to force me to give up Falun Gong. Thus, they turned to their last weapon - saying that I had a mental disease. They sent me to a mental hospital. In the hospital, several persons held me down and forcefully injected me with some kind of drug. Shortly after that, I lost consciousness. After I woke up, I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed that I had motionless eyes, messed up hair, and blood at the corner of my mouth due to the forceful injection! I burst into tears. They had mistreated me into such a miserable state! I repeatedly requested that I be allowed to leave the hospital, and I told them that I was not sick. The reason they treated me violently was because I did not give up practising Falun Gong.
  • A Teacher Recalls Her Experience of Physical and Mental Abuse at the Baimalong Women's Forced Labour Camp in Zhuzhou City, Hunan Province

    One night in December 2005 National Security officers suddenly surrounded my home and broke in and arrested me. I was eventually sent to Baimalong Women's Forced Labour Camp. This place is notorious, known as a living hell. I was sentenced to one year of forced labour. No matter how much those criminals verbally abused me, I would face them with a smile. Because of my persistence in my faith and non-cooperation with the persecutors' schemes, the criminal inmates gave me a hard time. I would be beaten even if I simply set my cup down, washed a dish or walked a little bit slow. Later on they tortured me by forcing me to squat in an awkward position. I could not hold the position and fell to the floor. They hit and kicked me. They put their knees on my head, mid-section and on my back. I had bruises and injuries everywhere. I was severely tortured, until I was more dead than alive.
  • A New Practitioner from Jiamusi Arrested by Xiangyang Police Station Officers and Sentenced to Forced Labour

    On September 28th, 2006, up to six policemen from Xiangyang Police Station broke into my home with the excuse of checking for registered permanent residents. Then they began to search. They took two Falun Gong books, said that I practised Falun Gong, and dragged me into a police car. The police took me to a detention centre. After two days I was taken to a forced labour camp. At the forced labour camp I was given corn buns to eat. All the food there was of poor quality and everyone who ate the buns got diarrhoea. I had to do hard labour everyday. If I did not read the regulations, the guards would beat me. Practitioners could not say they practised Falun Gong. If you said you practised Falun Gong, you would be beaten.
  • Direct Experience of Persecution in Shanxi Province - a Statement from Ms. Zhou Yunhua

    "On August 7th, 2006, a fellow practitioner and I went to distribute Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution. Someone reported us to the police and we were arrested. I was sentenced to forced labour. In the forced labour camp, I met a "transformed" practitioner, but I did not know that she had been "transformed" when we first met. I told her that we should expose the wrongdoings of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), so she turned me in. The guard ordered two drug user inmates to search me, and to strip off my clothing and shoes. They stole my cash and watch and forced me to stand for two days and nights without sleep. I could not take it any more and, against my will, wrote a guarantee statement to renounce Falun Gong."
  • I Miss My Mum

    I am the daughter of Falun Gong practitioner Liu Yanchen. Unfortunately, I can no longer see my dear mother, since she was arrested and repeatedly beaten by Communist Party officials because she practised Falun Gong. After her detainment, she could not do the Falun Gong exercises for a long time, and eventually she died from a stroke. Because my father suffered tremendous mental pressure and had several breakdowns my aunt had to adopt me.
  • A Prisoner's Testimony: Division Leaders Forced Us to Persecute Falun Gong Practitioners

    I was sentenced to a Shandong Province Forced Labour Camp. Under orders from guards I participated in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Certain other inmates and I used different ways to persecute the practitioners, including having them face a wall for a long time, beating and kicking them, as well as beating them with batons. For doing this, guard Sun Fengjun promised to reduce our terms. So whatever they ordered us to do, we did it. If we did not follow their orders, they would beat us and extend our terms. All the persecution that happened to the Falun Gong practitioners was according to orders from the division leaders. We know that Falun Gong practitioners are good people.
  • Exposing the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in Shandong Province No. 1 Women's Forced Labour Camp

    From my own experience, I knew that imprisonment in a forced labour camp was just like entering a demon's den. Besides insolent guards, there were one or two inmates assigned to monitor and torture practitioners. The inmates cooperated with the guards to carry-out brainwashing, involving instilled falsehoods and absurdities, in attempts to force practitioners to "reform." If these measures were counter productive, the guards would strike out by themselves. For example, division head Sun Juan would kick the older practitioners' naked calves with her shoes on. If you asked, "Isn't beating people not allowed here?" She would answer flagrantly, "Is this beating you? What I did was to educate you." She often declared openly and shamelessly, "We often denigrate you practitioners or even beat you. Why don't we do the same thing to passers-by on the street or others but only to you? It is because we love you."
  • 50-Year-Old Paraplegic Practitioner Jin Chengshang is Persecuted, Robbed and Sent to Prison

    In 1996 I was involved in a traffic accident and became paraplegic. My bedsore healed miraculously soon after I started the practice of Falun Gong. On March 10th, 2005, more than 20 policemen broke into my home. Four young strong policemen cruelly cuffed me and forced me onto a chair; they almost killed me. They also held my wife down in the toilet and cuffed her. They took away personal property worth more than 50,000 yuan. I was taken to Harbin City No.4 Detention Centre. Because there was no nursing personnel to help me, the bedsores on my hips, buttocks and back all festered with running fluid, blood and oozing pus; it smelled terrible. I was sentenced to five years in prison.
  • Jing Suo's Letter--Incarcerated Falun Gong Practitioner Exposes Inhuman Conditions Inside the Fushun Prison

    My name is Jing Suo. I am a Falun Gong practitioner, and I was arrested for practising Falun Gong and sentenced to four years in prison in 2004. On June 23rd, 2006, a guard drank a lot of alcohol and beat me for no reason. I held a hunger strike to protest the inhuman treatment, but the captors force-fed and tortured me. They inserted a rubber tube into my stomach through my nose, and used lots of napkins trying to stem the blood flow from my nose. The tube damaged my nose, throat, oesophagus and stomach. They put me on a bed, handcuffed me to the corners of the headboard and tied my feet to the corners of the foot-board, and during the heat of summer, they covered me with blankets. They incited the inmates to force-feed me concentrated salt water and slap my face to keep me from closing my eyes.
  • 65-Year-Old Li Manting's Account of His Suffering in Yushu City and Changchun City

    In 2002, I hung a banner saying "Falun Gong is good" in town and police arrested me. In order to protect other practitioners I refused to give my name and address. Police removed my trousers and brutally beat me with a one-inch-wide plastic tube all over my buttock. Two or three guards pulled my two arms behind my back and tried to handcuff my hands behind my back. Finally they held me down on the ground and someone put his knee on the back of my head. My hands were cuffed behind me. They pulled the handcuffs up, which was extremely painful. Then they suddenly let the handcuff go loose, which made them tighter. They did this repeatedly, which made the handcuffs cut into my flesh and, it seemed like, into the bone. I was in extreme pain and cold sweat ran down my face.