September 29, 2002

(Clearwisdom.net) Since July 20^th, 1999, the Hewan Forced Labor Camp in Wuhan City, Hubei Province has participated in illegally detaining and persecuting Falun Dafa practitioners. It is notorious for the guards' cruelty and referred to by many as the "Dark Labor Camp."

Hewan's drug rehabilitation center was originally designed for treating drug-addicts, but now it is used to persecute Falun Dafa practitioners. Every day the Dafa practitioners detained in the labor camp are forced to complete extremely heavy work loads, unpacking large quantities of boxes without tools, collating pages of books by hand, doing tedious needlework, and inserting advertisements into newspapers for long hours. They also have to endure humiliation and torture. They are forced to squat down to eat their meals, which are extremely poor in quality and contaminated with sand and rat feces. Once in May, the labor camp "improved" the meals and provided the prisoners with a meal of stewed meat of some sort. As a result, over 70% of the people fell ill with symptoms of vomiting and diarrhea. Furthermore, the ill people had to pay for the medication. Many Dafa practitioners have suffered greatly, and their health has been severely affected. Li Jianhua cannot walk steadily, and his eyesight has deteriorated drastically. Guo Bizhen's body is swollen and covered in rashes, which causes her to itch severely. The labor camp guards instruct the drug addicts to monitor and torture Dafa practitioners, including Ye Lechuan.

The illicit activities conducted by each division of the Hewan Forced Labor Camp include the following:

No. 1 Division forces the prisoners to bind pirated books, many of which are pornographic in nature.

No. 2 Division forces the prisoners to align and bind magazines. It also forces the prisoners to process a food product called "Jiaotou" for export. Each prisoner must cut 65 lbs every day, and whoever cannot finish the quota is not allowed to rest. The division authorities also said that they would tally the quota until the time of release from the prison. If the quota is not fulfilled, then the prisoner would not be released.

No. 3 Division forces the prisoners to produce voltage transformers.

In No. 4 and 5 Divisions, the prisoners work outside the labor camp. These two divisions allow the prisoners to pay cash for a reduction in their terms.

No. 6 and 8 Divisions are for female prisoners. The prisoners are forced to perform work such as unpacking boxes and collating books. The factory of No. 7 Division, owned by the division head and an official from the Judicial Bureau, is used specifically for making products for export. The division head owns an imported Japanese car, a big luxury in China. In the No. 7 Division, prisoners have a place where they can gamble, and the labor camp officials collect a "protection fee." In the No. 7 Division, there is another place called "the suite," which is actually a brothel. The labor camp officials collect a "protection fee" for that enterprise, also. The No. 7 Division also provides drugs for sale to prisoners. In May 2002, two inmates died from drug overdoses.

Posting date: 10/15/2002
Original article date: 10/15/2002
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Translated on 10/3/2002
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2002/9/30/37281.html

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