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Harbin Women's Prison Brutally Tortures Falun Gong Practitioners
(Clearwisdom.net) In the ninth division (the third squad) Since Yang Hua became the head in 2002, the guards there have tortured Falun
Gong practitioners. In order to force practitioners to give up their beliefs,
the police ordered practitioners to bend over and stand for nights on end with
no more than two hours of sleep. During the winter, practitioners were told to
walk outside from morning until night. The guards often beat practitioners with
police batons or electric batons. Ms. Zheng Jie, the former head of this division, was rewarded for persecuting
Falun Gong practitioners. In January 2003, she was transferred to the package
workshop, where the torture has escalated. The police do not give practitioners
enough food, and punish other inmates who bring more food to practitioners. They
often brutally beat practitioners and even bring male police to beat female
practitioners. Policeman Yu Yongcheng curses female practitioners, and beats their breasts
and private parts. One time the police were beating practitioners so hard that
some of the criminal inmates could no longer stand it and came to stop them.
However, the police would not stop, and beat the criminal inmates as well.
Practitioners Dong Limin and Cai Mi were so severely injured that they almost
died. Zheng Jie also sent practitioners to small cells and ordered the guards there
not to give them food and to beat practitioners about their privates including
pinching their inner thighs. Throughout the winter, he ordered the practitioners
to sit on cement floors for days. Practitioner Guo Songmei from Jixi was cruelly
tortured. She was locked in a small cell with her hands cuffed behind her back
and in leg irons. They tortured her with the iron chair and force-feeding. Her
whole body became swollen. Her lungs were severely damaged from the perpetual
forceful feedings. She was sent home on March 6, 2003 and died soon after. In the eighth division (the first squad) Since April 2003, all practitioners in the prison have been on strike to
protest the persecution. The police began brutally torturing the practitioners.
They hung the practitioners at the heads of their beds 24 hours a day. The
practitioners legs and feet swelled to the point they felt like they would
explode. Huang Jin, the vice-head of this division, whipped practitioners with
key chains and kicked practitioners in the lower abdominal areas. After hanging
the practitioners for more than ten days, they sent them to the small cells and
increased the torture there. They let inmates arbitarily beat practitioners.
Several inmates often beat one practitioner. In July 2003, the practitioners started to do group exercises. The police
immediately closed the doors and windows and called armed police to beat them.
They sent 15 practitioners to small cells. The prison then transferred Zheng Jie to this division on September 1, 2003.
She started to torture Falun Gong practitioners en masse on September 3. The
police brought more than 50 practitioners into the hallway between the male
prison gates and forced them to do an "intensive drill." They forced the
practitioners to run constantly, do frog jumps, stand on one foot, or do
"airplane."1 They punched, kicked, beat, and hung those practitioners
who could not do it. The police ordered inmates to beat the practitioners. At
night, the police brought the practitioners back to their cells but continued to
torture them by tying them with rope, sitting them close together, and depriving
them of sleep. They beat practitioners who fell asleep. Practitioners including
Zhang Yanfang developed internal bleeding from the beatings, however, the police
still did not stop the torture. The torture in this division has continued for more than a month and is
currently becoming more serious. The police are still bringing around 20
practitioners to the male prison to do "drills." Some practitioners are being
tortured in workshops and small cells, and some are hanging by their wrists in
the dormitories. In the "training squad" This squad was for newly-arrived practitioners. Last year, the police locked
the newcomers on the third floor to brainwash them. The police from the training
squad, the personnel from the "610 Office,"2 and the division heads
took turns attacking the practitioners. The "610 Office" used various methods
including beating, cursing, sleep deprivation, cuffing from behind, and other
physical punishment. They tried to freeze practitioners outside during the
winter and deprived the practitioners of sleep without reciting the prison
rules. They violently suppressed any peaceful protests by practitioners. The
head of the squad, Lv, once lead several members to beat practitioners. They
knocked the practitioners to the ground and stepped on the practitioners' faces.
Lv also rubbed her shoes back and forth on practitioners' mouths. This squad is now using the same torture as the first squad. Around September
20, 2003, police brought the practitioners to an outer boiler-room building and
they started the "intensive drill." The police ordered inmates, including Hou
Yuchen, to beat those practitioners who could not run. The practitioners' bodies
were covered with wounds. On September 27, the police cuffed more than a dozen practitioners from
behind and forced them to bend over while standing. We could not imagine how the
police would torture them once back in the dormitories. In the seventh division One time the practitioners practiced group exercises. More than thirty police
guards came and brutally beat them. Practitioners bled from their mouths and
noses. Guards pulled practitioners from the top bunks directly to the ground.
Practitioners could barely breath after landing hard on the ground, yet they
were tortured further. In the first division The police brutally beat the practitioners if they did the exericises. The
head of the squad Xia ordered several criminal inmates to call out practitioners
one by one and bring them into the electric workshop where they covered the
practitioners' eyes, taped their mouths, cuffed their hands behind their backs,
punched, kicked, and beat the practitioners with electric batons. It is against
the law to allow inmates to use handcuffs and electric batons. The most cruel tortures are in the small cells The police apply many tortures here, such as cuffing from behind, anchor
chains, iron chains, and iron chair. Sometimes, the practitioners were cuffed
for months. They were cuffed from behind and anchored to the ground with chains
so that they couldn't lay down. They had to constantly sit until the skin was
rubbed away from the hip. The police only provide two bowls of corn soup daily.
The police force-fed the practitioners if they refused to drink the soup, yet
practitioners were not allowed to use the bathroom. During the winter,
practitioners are allowed to wear one thin layer of clothing and are forced to
sit on a bed board or iron chair with handcuffs and leg irons. They could hardly
walk when finally released from the cuffs. The police force-fed practitioners as soon as they refused to eat. The police
used very brutal methods and would not stop even when practitioners vomited
blood. They used a instrument to hold the practitioner's mouth wide open, and
left it in place 24 hours a day. They also force-fed the practitioners with
alcohol and some unknown drugs. They deprive the practitioners' visitation rights and withhold all telephone
calls and letters. The prison initially refused to accept some practitioners.
But the detention centers bribed the prison. Sometimes the prison takes 3,000
Yuan3 in order to accept one practitioner. Whenever being inspected,
the prison would hide Falun Gong practitioners. Personnel responsible for the tortures Prison Director Wang Xing: 86-459-6359454 1 2 "610 Office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.3 Yuan is the Chinese currency. The average monthly salary of an urban worker in China is 500 Yuan.Posting date: 11/5/2003 |