The Persecution I Experienced in the Zhuanghe Detention Center and Masanjia Labor Camp

(Clearwisdom.net) I am 26 years old and live in Dalian City, Liaoning Province. I went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on January 29, 2000, and was arrested and taken to the detention center in Zhuanghe, a city near Dalian.

I was imprisoned for half a year, having been originally told that I was being detained for 15 days while I was under "investigation." They simply added a new term of detention every 15 days. On February 15, the wardens ordered one male and five female Falun Gong practitioners, including myself, to remove our sweaters and forced us to go out onto the roof of the building. The temperature that day was -10 degrees Fahrenheit; the wind was cutting and snow accumulated on the ground. There was a line of armed police standing beside us holding electric-shock batons. They ordered us to hold a drill posture while standing on the side of the roof that was in total shade. The six of us were tortured like this from 8 a.m. to noon. We were forced to stand still the whole time, losing all feeling in our hands and feet. We were not allowed to eat lunch, and we were ordered to continue to hold the posture together with more practitioners who were brought into the detention center in the afternoon. Sixteen practitioners stood in the bitter cold with only thin shirts on. The head of the detention center went up to ask every one of us if we were willing to write repentance statements. If not, we would have to hold the posture in the cold continuously. An old practitioner almost passed out. I felt that my head became numb and my bones and muscles had become detached, as if they didn't belong to my body any more. The wardens claimed they were ordered to torture us by their superior. Later, the head warden found that all of our faces had turned gray, so he ordered us to pause because he was afraid of putting our lives in danger. Afterwards, I could hardly move.

The next morning, the police took us to an open area covered with thick ice. They ordered us to do push-ups on the ice. Our hands were freezing painfully, turning red and gradually developing blisters. Later they ordered us to return from the parade ground by doing frog-leaps. All of us, regardless of age or sex, were forced to stand holding a fixed posture. Anyone who couldn't persist would be shocked with an electric baton. The hiss of the electrical discharge mixed with the groans of pain made the scene terrible. The head of the wardens stood at the side with a look of enjoyment on his face. The political instructor of the armed policemen, who was in charge of this horrible activity, kicked anyone whose posture was not up to his standard. A female practitioner was kicked and knocked down several times. Seeing that this failed to daunt me, the political instructor pulled me out and kicked me down, using all his force.

I personally witnessed several armed policemen gang up and beat a male practitioner all at once. They cuffed his hand to a railing and then pulled him hard outwards. They used several electric batons to shock his face, neck and feet simultaneously. His head began bleeding from the brutal treatment.

They also whipped us with split bamboo canes, a torture commonly used in Chinese jails and known to cause severe pain. Several of these whips were used until the point of breaking. No matter how they persecuted us, none of us yielded to write repentance statements.

Having exhausted all cruel means, they forced us to work in our cells. At first, they ordered us to package firecrackers. Everyone had to finish a certain quota each day. Later, we were also forced to do other work. We would not be allowed to sleep if we didn't finish the quota. We always worked until late at night, and our hands were full of blisters. In the hot and muggy summer, 20-30 people squeezed onto the same wooden bunk, and the floor of the cell was full of people too. It was crowded, dirty and stinky, with flies everywhere. The soup they provided us was nothing but a mixture of mud and bugs. It was hard to find even a leaf of a vegetable in it.

Over time, more and more practitioners were sent to the Zhuanghe Detention Center. On July 23, we heard the wardens beating a male practitioner in the corridor. They roared as they beat him, "You dare to refuse to write a repentance statement...." We shouted out the window, "Stop beating us! We are not criminals!" But they didn't stop. The wardens took him back to a cell and instructed the detainees there, "You can beat him any way you like if he still refuses to write...." No sooner had I gotten up the next morning, than I heard someone shout outside, "A Falun Gong practitioner was beaten to death!" I found out later it was actually the same man who had been beaten the previous day.

Three days later, on July 27, 2000, we were sent to Masanjia Labor Camp, where I was assigned to the fourth team of the first division in the second female camp. The head of the team is Zhang Xiurong and the head of the first division (also vice general head) is Wang Naimin. The general head of the whole second female camp is Su Jing.

Upon my arrival, some people who had betrayed Dafa (former practitioners who were unable to withstand the extreme persecution, who had succumbed to the brainwashing in Chinese jails and labor camps and were now used by the government to do "reform work" on others) immediately came up to besiege me and try to brainwash me just as I sat down. The ordeal lasted until three o'clock the next morning. They took turns, endlessly trying to brainwash me. Every day, they tried from morning to night. Half a month later, Zhang Xiurong became impatient and she threatened me again and again and forced me to stand in a fixed posture for a long time. One day, when Zhang was on duty, she asked me if I would write a repentance statement. After I refused, she grabbed me by the hair and dragged me to the office, slapping me along the way. A prisoner named Yang Jianhong, who had been chosen by the warden to "monitor" other inmates, also slapped me a lot. Then that night, the group of collaborators worked hard trying to "transform" me until four o'clock the next morning.

From that day on, I was beaten frequently. A lot of other practitioners at Masanjia experienced the same. In my cell, there was Li Yanjun, Zhang Yongli, Ge Chunling, and in the second team there were Zou Guirong, Su Juzhen, Lin Ping, Jing Ping, Wang Li, Chen Jianxin, Pan Qi and some others. I don't know all their names. Yin Liping and Zhao Shuhuan were brought to the camp after me, and they were at once beaten and tortured too. When those who had been brainwashed betrayed Dafa worst, they would become even more evil than demons. They threw the practitioners' heads against the wall of the bathroom so hard that the porcelain tiles smashed. Some practitioners' feet were terribly swollen from electric-shock torture. They couldn't move at all. Some were beaten so badly that the wounds covered their bodies. The lesions caused by the wardens pinching their faces and bodies had become purple and black, even putrid and festering.

The camp warden, Su Jing, once watched the thugs beat me up. The vice warden, Wang Naimin, once shocked me with two electric batons at the same time. The thugs persecuted me like this for 40 to 50 days. Afterward, they beat and tortured me every time I refused to write materials to slander Falun Gong. Zhang Xiurong and the betrayers carried on torture sessions as long as possible. They humiliated me by not allowing me to go to toilet so that I had to relieve myself in my trousers. The collaborators monitored me every day and night. When they saw I didn't squat down low enough, they cursed and said, "Squat down, otherwise we'll peel off your trousers." They took turns every two hours around the clock to force me to maintain the squatting posture without let up. It caused tremendous harm to my mental and physical health. The scars beside my temples left by the torture can still been seen today.

This is what I experienced in the Zhuanghe Detention Center and Masanjia Labor Camp. I hope the kindhearted people of the world will come to know the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong and that more people will be awakened and join together to stop the persecution.

Some of the leaders at Masanjia Labor Camp:

Su Jing, female, 52, the general head of the second female camp. Telephone: 86-24-89210074 ext 305;

Zhang Xiurong, female, 32, the head of the second team. Telephone: 86-24-89210074 ext 382;

Wang Naimin, female, about 50, the vice head. Telephone: 86-24-89210074 ext 310.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/5/23/30696.html

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