Practitioner in China

(Clearwisdom.net) During the night of the 8^th day after the Chinese New Year, Shi, the head of Wanjia Labor Camp, leading a bunch of male policemen carrying weapons, police rods and electric batons, broke into the female practitioners' cell. The practitioners were all asleep at the time. The police dragged the practitioners from their beds and pulled them out into the hallway by their hair. They rampantly beat them with rods and electric batons, and smashed their heads against the wall. After the beating, the police forced the practitioners outside in the freezing temperature. These female practitioners had nothing on except undergarments which were torn up during the beating. After being frozen outside, they were locked in male prison cells and hung by their wrists in the men's restrooms for the entire night. They were sent back to the female prisoners' team the next day. When the police were wildly beating up and shocking the practitioners with electric batons, they accidentally wounded themselves. The electric batons, which seemed to be out of charge when used to hit practitioners, shocked the police instead. Toward this immediate retribution to their vicious actions, they expressed no regret, and instead, went public on television and newspapers, brazenly claiming that Falun Dafa practitioners were the ones who beat and wounded them! These law enforcement people without conscience are publicly performing inhuman deeds, making up stories, confusing right and wrong and misleading the public.

On May 1^st, many practitioners' hands and feet were bitten and wounded by rats. The condition of the prison cells was humid and the prisoners who were assigned to watch the practitioners 24 hours a day did not allow them to talk. If a practitioner broke their rules and talked, they would seal the practitioner's mouth with tape and not allow her to sleep. Practitioners requested the labor camp to make changes to improve the situation. However, instead of respecting human rights, the labor camp intensified the torture of practitioners. During the night, the labor camp head and chief guards, along with some male policemen and prisoners rushed into the female practitioners' cell and said to them, "Wanjia Labor Camp is built for you. We can do whatever we want." Then, they dragged out the younger practitioners and beat them; some were locked up and beaten in a separate room. They sent one female practitioner to every group of male prisoners. After the brutal beatings, they tied practitioners to specially designed "iron chairs" [torture instruments] and sexually harassed them by moving their hands all over their bodies. After the practitioners went on a hunger strike to protest their inhumane treatment, the police tortured them by force-feeding them, and instead of proper tube feeding, they continuously pulled out and inserted the tube into practitioners' stomachs, causing terrible pain. A practitioner whom we call Aunt Wu fainted during this torture. These police said, "Our intention is to cause you pain." When Aunt Wu regained consciousness, she had blood in her bowels for several days. A practitioner who was tied up on an iron chair had both of her hands injured and has still not recovered.

On May 24^th, many practitioners were still detained even though their terms were completed. Practitioners who were detained for more than half a year beyond their terms requested that the labor camp release them unconditionally. After being denied their rightful request, practitioners had no choice but to go on a hunger strike and they refused to be force-fed. The labor camp then gathered all the policemen and criminals to brutally beat up these practitioners. They forced practitioners to lie down and violently dragged them around on the cement floor and sandy rock road. Practitioners' clothes and pants were torn and covered in blood; even their heels were badly scraped. The cruel beating went on until the practitioners were almost dead. Several female practitioners were placed in a group and thrown into male prisoners' teams where the head of the camp, Shi, along with four or five policemen came in and beat the practitioners again. When they realized that some practitioners were near death, they stopped the beating and tied them to the iron chair and did not untie them for three to four days; even the use of the restroom was denied. Some practitioners were tied to it for more than a week, causing their bodies to swell up. When they were untied from the chair, they were tortured to such an extreme that they had to crawl to the restroom. The police, who did such terrible deeds to these innocent female practitioners, sent them to the hospital for emergency treatment only when they realized that some practitioners were almost dead. Many female practitioners were jailed individually in male prison cells. They were hung in men's restrooms and the chief guard of the Section Five prisoners' team would send male inmates into the restrooms at midnight. When the male prisoners molested the female practitioners, nobody responded to the practitioner's call for help. In the labor camp, there are some female guards who know that Falun Dafa is good and its practitioners are good people. When they are on night duty, they keep a close eye on any male prisoner going to the restroom where a female practitioner is hung, to protect the female practitioner from any possible harm.

Practitioners who went on hunger strike were usually sent to male prisoners' teams. The police poured cold water on the floor and forced practitioners to squat down. If they were not careful, they would end up sitting in the cold water. They were also forbidden to talk. If a practitioner talked, even a single word, the police would hang the practitioner on the window frame, rip off her socks and stuff them into her mouth. Sometimes, the police dipped the socks into the spittoon before stuffing it into the practitioner's mouth. The window was kept open so that a chilly wind blew onto the practitioner. At night, a loud speaker is used to prevent practitioners from sleeping. When a practitioner fainted from being hung for so long, the police would pour cold water over her until she regained consciousness, and continue to hang her. They would also torture practitioners by pressing a practitioner's head under water so that she could not breathe.

When the female practitioners were sent back from the male prisoners' teams, usually, they could not walk or move and some could not even bend their backs. Under such conditions, the police still forced them to attend drills. If a practitioner refused, she would be dragged out and beaten. Later the practitioner would be sent back to the male prisoners' teams and hung again. Instead of being sent back to her original team, some practitioners were sent to the 12^th group head office where the guards and chief guard along with some vicious people would hang her up and brutally beat her. A guard whose last name is Wang used to be an athlete. He is tall and tough and is the one who would personally hang practitioners up and beat them brutally and mercilessly. Most of the practitioners in the affiliated hospital of Wanjia Labor Camp were beaten up by the head of the hospital. Some practitioners were unable to walk for days, and some could only crawl. Because the environment where the practitioners were locked up was very humid, most practitioners contracted scabies. The hospital leader asked three or four criminals to forcefully hold down a practitioner while he used razor blades to scrape off the infected flesh piece by piece from the practitioner's body. Even the inmates could not bear to watch the brutal scene and cried. The head of the hospital said while he was "treating" the practitioner, "My intention is to torture you." A doctor without any professional ethics who brutally tortures practitioners has lost his humanity. The practitioners who refused to cooperate with these illegal and inhuman actions by refusing to recite prison regulations and participate in drills were hung up in the conference room with only their toes touching the floor and beaten. Some police stood on the windowsill and jerked the rope from which the practitioners were hanging to cause more pain. If a practitioner fainted during the torture, they would pour cold water on her until she woke up, and then continue the torture until they got what they wanted from the practitioner.

All of the above are events that I witnessed and experienced in person at Wanjia Labor Camp.

Posting date: 8/25/2001
Original article date: 8/15/2001
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Translated on 8/19/2001
Chinese version available at http://minghui.cc/mh/articles/2001/8/15/14819.html

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