Slave Labor and Brainwashing of Innocent Women -- the Inside Story of Masanjia Forced Labor Camp

(Clearwisdom.net) The No.1 Female Camp of Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province is a concentration camp where female Falun Gong practitioners are illegally detained, forced into slave labor and violently tortured.

The main work there is clothing manufacturing. During off-season, when clothing orders are light, camp prisoners are forced to work for other manufacturing units or make handicrafts. The No. 1 Female Camp is known to outsiders as "Shenyang Yihua Clothes Factory." Most of their products are military cotton overcoats. They also make products for individual retailers such as for the Wuai Market in Shenyang City. Their product line includes brand-name sportswear and down coats such as the brand name Jia Yuan. In addition, the labor camp also makes export goods, such as casual wear, sports suits and pajamas. Their handicrafts are also exported. Not only are the detainees paid no wages, the camp also increased their workload in both time and intensity so they can boost the productivity and profits.

The detainees have no days off during the week. In the whole year of 2000, they had no more than 7 days off. Their everyday work hours are from 6:30 -- 11:30 a.m, 12:30 -- 4:30 p.m. and 5:30 -- 10 p.m, sometimes even until midnight, totaling 14-16 hours. Furthermore, the camp management often lengthens working hours arbitrarily, claiming a tight schedule, deadlines, and other excuses. For example, the lunch and dinner breaks as well as bedtime can be assigned to overtime work with no apology. Sometimes, the labor camp officials cut short the deadline by forcing detainees to work continuously until 3 to 4 a.m. the next day. There were times when they were forced to work 36 hours nonstop. Because of the excessive workload and high stress, a large number of detainees suffer from bruised and even atrophied muscles on one side of their buttocks. Many have swollen legs and irregular menstruation. Some even faint while working, due to exhaustion. These excessive work hours have caused serious damage to the health of laborers who were enslaved.

Everyone works like a robot. They are not allowed a single moment of rest. Their output must increase daily. If they make any mistakes or cause any quality control problems or there is a need for major reworking of an item, the laborers have to pay for the materials. They must bring their unfinished jobs to their prison cells to complete. Police or the head detainees [detainees selected to boss others] often punish those who are less productive by cursing, face slapping, forced squatting, forced lifting up of their rear end for a long time, electric baton shocking or sentence extension, besides other abuses.

Case 1: Falun Gong practitioners Chen Liyan and Sun Yulian were forced by the head detainees to maintain the difficult posture of lifting up their rear end for one hour before bedtime because they didn't finish their required work on time.

Case 2: On March 7, 2001, No. 3 team of No. 1 Division at No. 1 Camp received a batch of yellow, nylon-silk material for making export casual wear. Their order was for 300 in five days. The quality requirements for export products are very strict, and the key processes were all assigned to Falun Gong practitioners. The vicious police forced practitioners to work from 8:30 a.m. on March 11 to 4 p.m. on March 12, for 36 hours nonstop. The practitioners didn't leave the work platform for a day and a night and were extremely exhausted and hungry. However, the police kept pushing and yelling at them for 36 hours straight. They were not allowed to eat lunch on March 11 and no overtime meal was provided.

The people enslaved there are in different age groups, varying from 14 years of age to over 60, all of whom have to work. People who are sick are never permitted to be absent, except in the case of exceptionally serious illness. They are forced to return immediately to work after receiving intravenous drips, even if they have a notice for rest from a doctor. Oftentimes, handicapped prisoners and people with a serious illness can be seen being pushed or carried to the workplace and forced to do what they could. People can be assigned to do heavy labor at any time, such as loading and unloading carts and carrying bags. After they finish, they have to immediately return to the workroom and resume their routine work. People there often say, "I'd rather die than live here. However, I am not allowed to die. I hope I can get out of here alive." Everything was done by force. The police often say things like, "The labor camp is a government institute designed to forcefully reform people;" "This is where we bend people's temper," and other offensive rhetoric. Everyone is surrounded by an atmosphere of suppression and terror.

The prisoners here come from all over the country. Drug abusers, prostitutes, thieves, gangsters and con artists are all mixed together. Other than forced labor, the camp authorities never implement any positive education. In the labor camp officials' words, people can only become worse in the labor camp. For the past two years the number of repeat offenders increased dramatically and many people have gone into committing multiple crimes.

Here, the daily schedule is strictly reinforced. Most police here are very good at using violence and coercion. The daily restroom time is 9:15 a.m. -- 9:30 a.m. and 3:15 p.m. -- 3:30 p.m. People are not allowed to talk during restroom breaks so they won't miss their work time. Only cold water is available for drinking, washing and showers. Hot water showers provided on holidays have to be purchased and paid for by the inmates.

Falun Gong practitioners not only had to endure physical torture from the forced labor, they also have to bear mental torture. They don't have any personal or verbal freedom. To punish the most devoted practitioners, the labor camp officials put them into "repeat prisoners" groups, which have the heaviest workload, the strictest discipline and the worst criminals. In addition, two inmates accompany each practitioner 24 hours a day. Each practitioner sleeps between the two prisoners and is followed even when she goes to the restroom. The inmates have to report to the police regularly. If they don't have the practitioner under control, their sentences will be extended. Here the practitioners are not allowed to study Dafa or do exercises, nor can they talk to each other. Their letters must be opened and examined by the police before they can be received or sent out.

In the period between May 1^st, 2000 and May 2001, the labor camp enforcers used force to brainwash all practitioners and barred their families from visiting. They blocked all communication to and from the outside world. Many practitioners' family members wrote and called in to inquire whether their loved ones were still alive. In order to carry out the government's orders and achieve a "brainwashed" quota [number of people who are forced to give up Dafa cultivation], the thugs acted ruthlessly and used all means in torturing practitioners. They used the "car wheel method" [several thugs take turns brainwashing a practitioner until the practitioner is exhausted and gives up] to reinforce brainwashing. They forced the practitioners to listen to, read and watch TV programs and articles that slander Teacher and Dafa. The police took the same tune as the national media, shouting, "You'll never be able to walk out of the labor camp's doors as long as you don't give in! Yield, or die!" They forced the devoted practitioners to sit on stools, from 8 a.m. to midnight, nine days in a row. Some practitioners were forced to stand, squat, be slapped on the face, hit by an electric baton, whipped with a steel rod, confined in solitary cells and deprived of sleep, and other abuses, for refusing to cooperate with the evil.

Case 1: Zhang Huishuang, 45, is a resident of Benxi City. Policewoman Zhang Yan, over 50 years old, forced her to stand still 40 days non-stop and shocked her with an electric baton for 5 days. Once, she was continuously shocked from 5 a.m. (or p.m.) [Note: from original article, it is not clear whether it is a.m. or p.m.] to 11 p.m.

Case 2: Lin Yan, 28, is a nurse in Huanggu District, Shenyang City. Zhou Qian (former head of No.3 team of No.1 Division at No.1 Female Camp), and Wang Yanping (head of No.1 Division of No.1 Female Camp, responsible for forced labor education) shocked Lin Yan with an electric baton to force her to give up her belief. The electric baton kept burning Lin Yan's skin while the policewomen shouted, "Are you going to reform or not? You must reform, like it or not." The unbearable pain made Young Lin Yan cry out. In the end she broke down from the torture and wrote the "three statements" in tears [Falun Gong practitioners are forced to write three statements: repentance statement, guarantee statement and criticizing statement under great pressure and physical torture, to give up their beliefs and slander Falun Gong]. Afterwards, Lin Yan felt so ashamed for bowing to the pressure and signing these documents that she wanted to die rather than renounce her belief. In her extreme grief, she attempted to harm herself and was rescued after emergency medical treatment. The labor camp feared exposure of this incident. They blocked all the information. No one took the responsibility for this incident. Zhuo Qian, the abuser, was transferred to No.2 Female Camp to continue her brutal brainwashing work. Another abuser, Wang Yanping, was still the head of No.1 Division. However, Lin Yan's family had to pay the 8,000 Yuan [about $1,000 USD] operation fee for her medical treatment. This incident was not resolved with any explanation.

During this period, enforcers from No.1 Female Camp sent 10 practitioners to No.2 Female Camp for a brainwashing experiment. They used all kinds of means to torture the practitioners. For example, practitioner Su Juzhen was hung up and handcuffed with both feet off the ground. We later learned that Su Juzhen's right leg was permanently disabled and she is crippled now. After practitioner Wang Manli refused to give up her belief, even though she was electrically shocked, they punished her, forcing her to squat, and beat her up, and then the police applied so-called mental pressure. They began to punish Wang's fellow inmates. They forced other inmates to squat with her and deprived them of their sleep, so everyone would blame Wang Manli.

The police also used so-called "family influence" to entice practitioners to give up Dafa. At first they did not allow practitioners to meet with their families and cut off all contact. Taking advantage of their desire to see each other, the police ordered the family members to persuade practitioners to give in. In the meantime they told the practitioners, "If you do not give up, your husband's promotion, your child's school enrollment, army recruitment, and Party membership will all be jeopardized. Your children will be discriminated against by the society." The officials of the labor camp also extended practitioners' illegal detention terms at will. Some practitioners' detention terms were extended by 9 to 12 months. Those include Liu Xiufen, Xu Xiuxia and Li Jinghua. In the brainwashing period, a police conversation was overheard in which it was said that Jiang Zemin's criminal regime selected Masanjia Forced Labor Camp as a "model camp" in China and their experience will be spread to the whole country. It was required that by the end of 2000, the brainwashing success rate should be 100 percent.

Masanjia Labor Camp is indeed a Nazi-style concentration camp. All they do is torture Falun Gong practitioners. They never offer any explanation for the extended detention after practitioners' terms are expired. The officials forbid the practitioners to appeal. They often claim, "You have no right to appeal. Even if you are allowed to appeal, you must not complain and call for justice." Some practitioners could not tolerate these unlawful acts. They went on a hunger strike to ask for their right to appeal. However, the camp police tortured practitioners by force-feeding and administered forced injections. For the practitioners, it was an extremely horrendous experience. Practitioners Qi Zhenrong and Zhang Huishuang have been force-fed for more than two months. They are in critical condition. Nie Jing, a practitioner from Jingzhou City, has been on a hunger strike nearly a month and is detained in No.3 Division of the No.1 Female Camp. Liu Fengmei was forced to jump off from a high building and suffered from lumbar vertebrae comminuted fracture. Though she was sent back home, the officials from the labor camp named Sheng Yin, the head of No.2 Division in No.1 Female Camp, often made phone calls to terrify her family, "Do not tell others. Do not have contact with other practitioners. Otherwise, we will get you back here anytime."

The forced brainwashing is carried out by law enforcers and is illegal. Wang Yanping, head of the No.1 Division openly claims, "The government sponsors what we do here. Even though you are not telling lies, the government does not agree with you." In fact, the "government" they mentioned is no more than a bunch of evil dictators. And the camp officials themselves have turned into cold-blood murderers. They are facing their eventual punishment according to the law.

On November 4, 1999, fellow inmates beat Chen Liyan, a 31-year-old practitioner from Gaizhou District of Dalian City, unconscious, as she practiced the exercises. Her brain was damaged and her eyesight was severely affected. The diagnosis from an ophthalmologist from Shenyang Medical University showed that the possibility of blindness could not be excluded (the certificate of the diagnosis is archived in the hospital). Chen Liyan was a college English teacher; now she cannot read. The intention of all the tortures is to force Falun Gong practitioners to give up their cultivation practice and their belief in "Truth, Compassion and Tolerance."

List of names of some of Falun Gong practitioners being enslaved in No.1 Female Camp [all cities in Liaoning Province]:

Zhou Qin, Chief of No.1 Female Camp; Cell Phone: 011-86-13940252801

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2001/12/27/22052.html

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