NEWS -- Dec. 18, 2003 Falun Dafa Information Center, www.faluninfo.net
Chinese authorities are sending prison and labor camp directors to
the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp and other camps like it to learn more
"effective" torture methods.
The Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp in China's Hebei Province is one such camp that has gained recognition for its ability to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their beliefs through torture. Because of its evident success, Chinese authorities are routinely sending prison and labor camp directors from around the country to Gaoyang to learn more "effective" torture methods.
In addition to the rounds of prison directors, authorities have also sent to Gaoyang many Falun Gong practitioners who have repeatedly resisted torture, evidently hoping that the more radical methods used at Gaoyang would work where others failed.
Ms. Cui Suzhen, 61, was transferred from a labor camp in Shijiazhuang City to Gaoyang because authorities were unsuccessful in forcing Ms.Cui to discontinue her practice of Falun Gong. Ms. Cui went on a hunger strike in order to protest her illegal detention and the persecution of Falun Gong in China.
According to reports from those who were held at Gaoyang, on three separate occasions the labor camp guards force-fed Ms. Cui large quantities of human excrement. The guards also continuously beat her, shocked her with electric batons, used pliers to pinch her skin and crush her nipples, and buried her in snow for extended periods of time.
Ms. Liu Haiqin, a former employee of Handan City's Bureau of Finance was transferred to Gaoyang from a labor camp in Shijiazhuang. Because she refused to sign a "transformation statement" renouncing her practice of Falun Gong, Ms. Liu was handcuffed and forced to squat for sixty hours, all the time suffering shocked by the guards with cattle prods (electric batons).
Ms. Song Jiaxian is a 39-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Chengde. Gaoyang guards tortured her with a technique called "tying the ropes". Victims report that this torture consists of a rope wound tightly around the neck and arms while the arms are forced up behind the body making it very difficult to breathe. The pain generated from this torture is so severe and intense that victims often lose control of their bodily functions. Guards applied this torture to Ms. Song 14 times, leaving both her shoulders dislocated.
Survivors of the Labor Camp say the women's section of Gaoyang employs a variety of torture techniques on Falun Gong practitioners, including extreme sleep deprivation, electric shocks, electric shocks while the victim is submerged in water, inserting needles under their fingertips, burying them alive to the verge of suffocation, stuffing used sanitary napkins into their mouths, and hammering nails into their toes.
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NEWS -- Dec. 18, 2003
Falun Dafa Information Center, www.faluninfo.net
Background
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa (about), is a practice of meditation and exercises with teachings based on the universal principle of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance." Practiced in over 50 countries world-wide, Falun Gong has roots in traditional Chinese culture. With government estimates of as many as 100 million practicing Falun Gong in China, China's then-Communist leader, Jiang Zemin, outlawed the peaceful practice in July 1999 (report). Since that time, Jiang's regime has intensified its propaganda campaign to turn public opinion against the practice while imprisoning, torturing and even murdering those who practice it. The Falun Dafa Information Center has verified details of 841 deaths (reports / sources) since the persecution of Falun Gong in China began in 1999. In October 2001, however, Government officials inside China reported that the actual death toll was well over 1,600. Expert sources now estimate that figure to be much higher. Hundreds of thousands have been detained, with more than 100,000 being sentenced to forced labor camps, typically without trial.
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER -- Gail Rachlin 917-501-4441, Levi Browde 914-720-0963, Erping Zhang 646-533-6147, or Christina Chai 917-386-5068. Email: contact@faluninfo.net, Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/
