By a Falun Dafa practitioner from Jilin Province

(Clearwisdom.net) "Our labor camp has been recognized for being an outstanding labor camp!" One day in summer of 2001, the police from the Changchun City Heizuizi Women's Labor Camp were very happy when their director came back from Beijing with an "honor." Actually the Heizuizi Labor Camp is a dark and dirty place full of terror. The "award" and bonus were gained through Falun Dafa practitioners' blood!

The Heizuizi Women's Labor Camp is located near Jingyuetan, which is a suburb of Changchun City. More than 1,500 Falun Dafa practitioners are detained here and it is actually a place for the dictator to persecute Falun Gong as well as torture and kill Falun Dafa practitioners. For every Falun Dafa practitioner detained here, the labor camp can get 4,000 Yuan RMB per year (500 Yuan is the average monthly income for an urban Chinese worker) in funding from the government. In over two years, the unlawful officials have used these funds as well as the money extorted from the families of the prisoners and the slave labor of prisoners to build two new buildings. All the work areas of the officials and guards are now brand new.

1. What Kinds of People are Detained Here?

Before 1999, not many prisoners were detained here. After 1999, the labor camp was too full to hold any more. Batches of practitioners from 70-year-olds to teenagers and from all walks of life have been sent here. The labor camp has 7 teams; every team has about 200 people. About 25 or 26 people live in one room, and the two-level beds almost fill each room. Two people sleep on one bed. A small amount of prisoners who committed minor offenses are detained here too. They only account for about 10% of the total prisoners. The guards use this 10% of the prisoners to watch practitioners, and sometimes to beat practitioners. These prisoners have become the guards' minions and they can get their terms reduced if they are tough on practitioners. Evil reigns here, as bad people punish good people. Here all the principles of the world have been turned upside down!

According to policy, prisoners should work less than 8 hours everyday. In reality, Falun Gong practitioners have been forced to work for more than 16 hours, from 4 or 5 a.m. until 10:30 at night, sometimes until 2 or 3 a.m. and they never have a break or a weekend off. When it's a holiday, instead of resting on a bed, they are only allowed to sit on the floor and do a "self-examination." [An institutionalized form of writing a self-criticism, apology, or denouncement that has been a part of the government ideology] The labor camp unconditionally uses the labor of the prisoners and the profit they create to give better benefits and bonuses to the guards. The labor camp reports to its superiors that the prisoners only work for 7 or 8 hours each day. Some Falun Dafa practitioners attempted to contact the related department and sue the labor camp for their illegal conduct. However, their letters were intercepted and they got punished. The officials in the labor section said, "This is China, don't mention labor law to me here!"

The so-called "rate of transformation" is actually the rate of "brainwashing" in which the labor camp treads on citizens' freedom of belief. The "brainwashing rate" is the main criteria for receiving an outstanding award. In order to reach the standard of the "brainwashing rate," the guards use any kind of malicious method that they can think of. Their usual method is working on your mind. All the practitioners who are newly sent to the labor camp have to go through "brainwashing." The guards use all desires, human thoughts, deception, and threats to play with practitioners' minds. Next they deny them sleep. As soon as they close their eyes, the guards will beat them up. The guards use former practitioners who renounced Falun Dafa to brainwash newly arrived practitioners so as to destroy their willpower. For those firm practitioners, the guards beat them up as brutally as they wish, and use electric batons to shock them. Cries of pain can be continuously heard from the interrogation room. For the practitioners who refuse to write the "five statements"[such as separation statements, repentant statements, a renunciation, etc], they punish them, making them stand or kneel down, handcuffing their hands to an upper level bed, covering their heads with plastic bags, or chaining their arms and legs onto an iron bed. Many Falun Dafa practitioners have bruises and blood all over their bodies. Some have been tortured until they have become physically disabled, and some were tortured to death. One practitioner first wrote the "statement of separation" (which renounces Falun Gong) under high pressure, but later she canceled her "statement of separation." As a result her jail term was increased by 3 months and she was not released even then. So she refused to wear a prisoner's uniform and nametag, and her term was increased for another 3 months. Another Falun Gong practitioner refused to break with Falun Dafa even at the risk of her life. She had an argument with the guard in public, and the guard could not win the argument and didn't know what to say. So the guard became very angry, pushed her into the police car and sent her to jail directly under the charge of stirring up the people and not obeying the management of the labor camp.

In the labor camp, practitioners' letters were always checked, the everyday items that their family sent in was confiscated. The labor camp guards regularly checked the practitioners' beds and asked prisoners to do undercover work among the practitioners.

The Jiang and Luo regime has continuously, secretly ordered the labor camps to "defame, bankrupt financially, and destroy physically," with "no penalty for beating to death, all deaths due to beatings to be counted as suicide," and to "directly cremate after beating to death without identifying the body." So the labor camps use the most vicious and inhuman methods to force Falun Gong practitioners to write the so-called "separation statements, repentant statements, or a renunciation." However, the genuine practitioners are willing to pay any price to clarify the truth to all the people around them in that environment full of terror and evil, including the guards who torture them. They exposed the evil, spread the righteous Fa and tried to save the guards. They showed their great mercy, compassion, and tolerance. In the Heizuizi Labor Camp, many practitioners insist on studying the Fa and doing the practice. Once the guards catch them, the guards will increase their jail terms for 3 months and also put them into solitary confinement, shock them with electric batons, and chain their hands and feet. When they find any practitioner practicing meditation, they will punish her by forcing her to sit there for one day and one night without moving. If the practitioner makes a move, the guards will whip her with a leather whip. Practitioners' whole bodies were cut and bleeding. The guards also force-fed the practitioners who went on hunger strike. For the practitioners who refuse to wear uniforms and nametags, they will beat them and throw them onto the ground, forcing them to wear the uniform. If the practitioners don't obey, they will be dragged into a sealed cell for solitary confinement and detained inside for 15 days to one month. The guards' violence is so rampant that it is simply unthinkable.

The Falun Dafa practitioners in Changchun City never forget their fellow practitioners. Dafa banners can often be seen outside the high walls of the labor camp. The music of "Pudu" and "Jishi" can often be heard above the labor camp. The might torrent of Fa-rectification and the evil's elimination is making evil tremble with fear and anxiety.

Posting date: 5/26/2002
Original article date: 5/17/2002
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Translated on 5/21/2002
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2002/5/17/30380.html

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