A Partial List of the Atrocities Committed at the First Women's Forced Labor Camp in Shandong Province -- -- Cruel Physical and Mental Torture, Slave Labor
(Clearwisdom.net) According to incomplete statistics, from July 20,
1999 to the time of this writing, 30 Dafa practitioners from Weifang City, Shandong
Province have been verified as
being tortured to death and more than 300 have been illegally sentenced to serve
time (mostly 3 years) in the forced labor camp. Of the total verified deaths of Falun Gong
practitioners throughout the country, Weifang City accounts for the highest of
any province to date. Of more than 100 female Dafa practitioners illegally
incarcerated in the forced labor camp, some have been thrown into the First
Women's Forced Labor Camp in Shandong Province, otherwise known as the
"Living Hell" to these female practitioners who have suffered, and
continue to suffer from the most appalling atrocities. The following is an incomplete compilation of the atrocities at the First
Women's Forced Labor Camp. It contains the names of some female
Dafa practitioners from Weifang City currently incarcerated there. Facts of the Persecution against Dafa Practitioners inside the First Women's
Forced Labor Camp in Jinan City, Shandong Province Since July 20, 1999, the First Women's Forced Labor Camp in Jinan City,
Shandong Province started to illegally detain female Dafa practitioners. Since
the beginning of October 2000, a large number of Dafa practitioners who went to
Beijing to appeal for Falun Dafa were brought back to Weifang and incarcerated
in the First Women's Forced Labor Camp in Jinan City. At one time, this forced labor camp
incarcerated over 800 female Dafa practitioners. Hence, the institution expanded
its disciplinary staff (essentially hired torturers) from four to five platoons,
each of which is led by the most wretched and depraved disciplinary guard as its
captain. In the past four years, the head of the First Women's Forced Labor
Camp, Jiang Lihang, has been leading the five captains of the torture platoons
as well as many other lead torturers in persecuting illegally incarcerated
female Dafa practitioners. The captains of the torture platoons are as follows
(all women): Wang Shuzhen, Sun Yuhua and Zhao Jie (former and current captains
of the 1st Platoon), Xu Ruiju (captain of the 2nd Platoon), Yang Anrong (captain
of the 4th Platoon), and Niu Xuelian (captain of the 5th Platoon). They either
personally torture or direct their subordinates and collaborators to
torture female Dafa practitioners both physically and spiritually. ["Collaborators"
are former Dafa practitioners who have succumbed to the atrocious torture,
renounced their belief in Falun Dafa, and now work at the forced labor camp
torturing Dafa practitioners for money or in exchange for reductions in their
own terms.] The following incomplete compilation of persecution is but a sampling of the
countless atrocities committed by the staff at the First Women's Forced Labor
Camp. Sources in China indicate that the forced labor camps
continue to design crueler torture methods and use them at an alarmingly
increasing frequency. The torture facts provided by this author are followed by
a complete explanation of the torture, if available. 1. Physical Torture Methods 1.1 Forced to Hold Painful Positions for An Extended Time: Sitting Board For a long period of time since October 2000, female Dafa practitioners at
the First Women's Forced Labor Camp had to wake up at 5 AM and were not allowed
to go to sleep until after midnight. Each day they were made to sit still on
hard benches without any break, with their hands placed flat on their knees and
their backs perpendicular to the ground. Anyone who dozed or spoke during the
torture would immediately suffer from savage beating and kicking by the inmates. [Sitting Board: Every day, victims put their hands on top of their
laps, with backs straight and sitting on benches 18 hours per day. This
continued for over fifty days. The authorities even limited victims' restroom
use time. Because of the long time spent sitting on hard benches, victims'
buttocks grew big sores that hurt badly. Victims could not even urinate
normally because of the pain. The labor camp was very humid, and the police
would not allow victims to have ventilation or the chance to get some
sunlight. Because the victims were locked up for so long in these conditions,
countless red scabies, which were extremely itchy and painful, grew everywhere
on the bodies of the victims. (Link
to a torture case)] 1.2 Forced to March for A Long Time [Locked in a Small Cell: A Small Cell is a room of less than 3
square meters. It has no window, no bed, no water, and no toilet. A victim is
locked in a small cell for months, having to eat, sleep, and excrete in the
same small area. Since the height of the room is less than 1.5 meters, one
cannot stand up straight. To exacerbate the agony, the guards often handcuff
the victim to the small cell door so the victim cannot sleep for many days.
Moreover, the small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. During the
night the rats are running around. The stench in the small cell is so bad that
it is difficult to breathe. (Link
to a torture case)] 1.3 Forced to Hold Painful Positions for an Extended Time: Standing and
Squatting in a Square The First Women's Forced Labor Camp also hired a lot of male guards to help
with the tortures. The male guards would make the female Dafa practitioners
stand facing a wall all day long, with their nose pressed against the wall at
all times. Often times the elderly Dafa practitioners would collapse from the
position, and thus suffer from cursing and beating. Dafa practitioners were also
frequently forced to squat in a square for an extended time. [Forced to Stand for a Long Time: The victim is forced to stand,
facing a wall, all day long, usually from dawn until midnight. This punishment
is often combined with the deprivation of food, water, sleep, and use of the
toilet. This abuse usually lasts several days. If victims cannot stand still,
they will be severely beaten. Sometimes, the guards will then force-feed
victims with drugs.] [Forced to Squat in a Square: This means that the victim is forced
to squat in a square floor brick measuring 30 by 30 cm [approximately 1 ft.
by 1 ft.] for a long time. The head must be raised and the feet cannot
cross the demarcated line. Otherwise, the victim would be beaten, kicked,
pulled by the hair and slapped on the face. Usually, a victim would sweat all
over after squatting for only 2 or 3 minutes. The guards, however, forced
victims to squat for 16 to 17 hours straight. (Link
to a torture case: Ms. Hao Airong)] 1.4 Injury to the Body: Mosquito Coil Burn The guards often burn Dafa practitioners with lit mosquito coils (mosquito
incense that, when lit, generates a special fume that kills mosquitoes) on the
back, leaving their backs covered with ulcerations from the severe burns. [Burning: The police have used cigarettes, cigarette lighters, and
mosquito coils to burn fingers, toes, faces, nipples, vaginas, and other parts
of practitioners' bodies. While burning them, the police would say, "I
will stop when you give up Falun Gong." (Links to cigarette burn torture
cases: Mr.
Fu Hongwei and Ms.
Zhao Fengying)] 1.5 Hanging Upside Down The guards would punish practitioners who got up at 4 A.M. to practice the
Falun Gong exercises by hanging them upside down. They tied their legs together,
bound their hands behind the back, and hung them upside down from 4 AM to 6 AM.
This abuse often lasted many nights. Some practitioners were hung upside down
intermittently for as long as 6 months. 1.6 Exposed to Freezing Temperatures Some practitioners were stripped of their clothes and tied to the bed by
their limbs with their head hanging off the edge of the bed. Then the guards
opened all the windows in the room in the winter and left the practitioners in
the freezing temperature. 1.7 Pulling the Limbs towards Four Directions The depraved staff tied both of a practitioner's arms to the bedposts. Then
they spread her legs and tied them to the footboard of the bed with her ankles
hanging over the footboard. This is done so that the legs cannot touch the bed.
Next they tied one end of a bed sheet to her waist and tied the other end to
another bed across from this one, raising the practitioner's waist in the air.
Thus the victim's body is pulled toward four directions as tightly as the face
of a drum. This is an extremely cruel torture. 1.8 Slitting Wrists and Promoting Festering of the Wounds The depraved staff would slit across the entire wrists of Dafa practitioners
and force practitioners to wash and brush the wounds, which caused the wounds to
fester and swell. Many practitioners were left with rings of visible scars on
their wrists, bearing silent witness to the sadistic torture. 1.9 Savage Beatings The police at the forced labor camp encourage inmates to watch and torture
Falun Gong practitioners, with the incentive of reduced prison terms. The
inmates at the First Women's Forced Labor Camp are experts in savage beatings.
They constantly slap practitioners on the face, kick them on the lower abdomen,
punch them on the breasts, hit practitioners' heads with their elbows, use their
leather shoes to crush and grind practitioners' bare feet. Sometimes eight to
nine depraved inmates took turns savagely beating up one practitioner all night
long. All of them use different torture devices. Some use bamboo sticks to flog
practitioners; some use their shoe soles to slap practitioners; some use their
fingernails to pinch practitioners; some use their feet to kick; some use their
fists to punch; some use their palms to slap. The police reduce more time from
the inmates' terms when they increase the brutality of the savage beatings. The police themselves also beat up Dafa practitioners. On the dawn of October
27, 2000, all Dafa practitioners incarcerated in the 5th Platoon began a group
protest and demanded their immediate, unconditional release. The captain of the
5th Platoon, Niu Xuelian, ordered the disciplinary guards to keep pouring water
into the cells until they had turned the entire floor into water dungeons.
Meanwhile, she ordered a large number of male policemen to beat up the Dafa
practitioners in the 5th Platoon. Around 7 PM, a S.W.A.T team arrived at the
forced labor camp and added additional violence against more than 100 female
Dafa practitioners in the 5th Platoon. Police cars and fully armored S.W.A.T
teams surrounded the building while over twenty heavily intoxicated police
officers, under the lead of Captain Niu Xuelian, broke into the corridor and
started to shock Dafa practitioners with electric batons. When Niu and the
intoxicated police officers dragged Dafa practitioners around on the floor by
their hair, other male police officers pounced at practitioners on the floor and
choked them until they lost consciousness. 1.10 Shocking with Electric Batons The police at the First Women's Forced Labor Camp often shock Dafa
practitioners with multiple electric batons for many hours. The most wretched
torturers among all the disciplinary guards are the husband of Captain Niu
Xuelian of the 5th Platoon and the husband of disciplinary guard Zhang. Both of
their husbands are policemen at the forced labor camp, and both take sadistic
pleasure in targeting practitioners' palms, soles of the feet, and the top of
the head [these are especially sensitive areas]. Large blisters covered many
practitioners' forearms and gave them excruciating pain. After the blisters were
broken, the wounds would fester, adding to the pain. One elderly practitioner
was overwhelmed with pain. [Electric Baton Shock: Electric shock batons are also known as cattle
prods. This is by far the most common torture used by the police against Falun
Gong practitioners. Practitioners have been shocked with as many as a dozen
batons at a time, with voltage as high as 30,000 volts, often for several hours.
Countless practitioners have suffered flesh burns, some have ears, hands, or
feet charred from the electric shocks. The police have shocked practitioners'
eyes, nipples, and penises. The police have also forced these batons into
practitioners' mouths or vaginas to shock them. Many Falun Gong practitioners
have died from electric baton shocks. See Figure 6 in "Illustrations
of Torture Methods Used in Chinese Detention Centers and Forced Labor Camps,
Part 1"] 1.11 Locking Up in a Small Cell The disciplinary guards locked up determined practitioners in solitary
confinement in "Small Cells" for a very long time. Some were locked in
the "Small Cell" for months. On July 27, 2000 alone, more than 40
female Dafa practitioners in the First Women's Forced Labor Camp in Jinan
City, Shandong Province were hauled into separate "Small Cells." [Locked in a Small Cell: Solitary confinement, widely condemned
around the world, is among the cruelest tortures against Falun Gong
practitioners. In China, police have used tortures beyond usual solitary
confinement against Falun Gong practitioners. Locked in a small cell is
only one of the many types of solitary confinement. A Small Cell is a
room of less than 3 square meters. It has no window, no bed, no water, and no
toilet. A victim is locked in a small cell for months, having to eat, sleep,
and excrete in the same small area. Since the height of the room is less than
1.5 meters, one cannot stand straight. To exacerbate the agony, the guards
often handcuff the victim to the cell door so the victim cannot sleep for many
days. Moreover, the small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. During
the night the rats are running around. The stench in the small cell is so bad
that it is difficult to breathe. See Figure 11 and 12 in "Illustrations
of Torture Methods Used in Chinese Detention Centers and Forced Labor Camps,
Part 1." (Link
to a torture case)] 1.12. Punitive Force-Feeding When Dafa practitioners in the First Women's Forced Labor Camp went on hunger strikes, the disciplinary guards would torture them with
punitive force-feedings. Usually there would be two military policemen dragging
a female practitioner across one end of the corridor to the other end. Then they
kicked her to the ground and pressed one foot against her rib cage while other
guards pried open her mouth. Or, they would force a black, hard, foul-smelling
and thick industrial rubber tube into her nose. Blood would gush out the nose
and throat from almost all the victims, causing them to cry out in agony. The
appalling wails of agony and the noises of the electric batons haunted the
corridor all day long. In order to cover up their crimes, the guards would
broadcast trashy music at the maximum volume. Some practitioners were tortured
with punitive force-feeding over a period as long as 6 months at a time. [Punitive Force-Feeding: This is another torture commonly used by
police against practitioners, and it is the number one cause of deaths of
Falun Gong practitioners. Almost every Falun Gong practitioner who has gone on
a hunger strike in forced detention has suffered from abusive forced-feeding.
Many practitioners not even on hunger strikes have also been tortured using
this method. The purpose of police force-feeding is never to nourish, but rather to
punish practitioners and to cause so much pain that they will renounce Falun
Gong practice. To that end, the police have used many different means to cause
excruciating pain and injury, including: Inserting and Withdrawing the Feeding Tubes Repeatedly: The police
usually use a tube inserted through a practitioner's nose to force-feed.
Often, even when the tube is already inserted, the police pull it out again
and re-insert it. This can be repeated many times. Many practitioners have
died from the tube piercing their lungs. Leaving the Feeding Tubes in the Stomach: This is another way to cause
pain. Practitioners tortured this way are usually handcuffed. Knocking out Teeth to Force-Feed: To force practitioners to open their
mouths, the police resort to the most barbaric violence, knocking out
practitioners' teeth, tearing apart practitioners' lips, or even poking holes
in practitioners' cheeks. Force-Feeding Saturated Saltwater: This causes intense pain in the gut.
Many practitioners have died from this because of the resulting dehydration. Forced-Feeding Vinegar/Liquor: Several Falun Gong practitioners have
died from this. Force-Feeding Hot Pepper Oil/Mustard Oil/Boiling Water: These cause
burns and intense pain in the esophagus, stomach, and intestines. Force-Feeding Urine/Feces (Link to a torture case: Ms.
Guo Hongyu)] 1.13 Forced Injections of Neurotoxic Drugs Some determined Dafa practitioners were administered forced injections of
drugs that damaged their central nervous system. Afterwards, they kept drooling
and their faces became distorted. Some practitioners died after the forced
injections of these drugs. (Link
to a torture case) 1.14 Tied to a Chair for Days Because Ms. Zhai Jinping was very determined in cultivating in Falun Gong,
Capatin Niu Xuelian of the 5th Platoon stuffed her mouth with a rag and tied her
to a barber chair for two days. It is a torture similar to "Iron Chair
Sitting." Forced to Sit for a Long Time: A victim is forced to sit still for a
long time, often for many days. This punishment is often combined with the
deprivation of food, water, sleep, and the use of the toilet. This torture can
result in poor blood circulation to the lower limbs, necrosis in the buttocks,
and nerve damage from the waist down. There are several variations of this
torture, including: Iron Chair Sitting: A victim is shackled to a chair made of iron wires
for more than a week. The wires hurt the victim's buttocks. See the
illustration in "Iron
Chair Device Used by Jiang Zemin's Regime to Torture Practitioners." Board Sitting: A victim is forced to sit on rough wooden boards. Triangle Board Sitting: Sitting on an iron board with sharp peaks and
grooves. This often causes the victim's hips to bleed and fester. See Figure 5
in "Illustrations
of Torture Methods Used in Chinese Detention Centers and Forced Labor Camps,
Part 1." 1.15 Deprivation of Sleep The staff deprived practitioners of sleep, or allowed them only three to four
hours of sleep every night, in order to crush their willpower. Ms. Sun Mingxiang
is a very determined practitioner, and was once denied of sleep for three
consecutive days. [Deprivation of Basic Physiological Needs: Police have exploited any
and every basic physiological need or sense to torture Falun Gong
practitioners. Anyone not obeying will be viciously beaten. Common examples of
deprivation of Falun Gong practitioners' basic physiological needs include
deprivation of sleep, food, water, use of toilet, sanitary napkins, shower,
change of fresh clothes; prohibition of eye contact and talk; bombardment with
deafening high-pitch sounds, being subjected to glare of intense lights.] 1.16 Restrictions of the Use of the Toilet To prevent different cells of Dafa practitioners from engaging in
conversations in the restroom, the staff in the forced labor camp set up a
strict schedule of using the restroom. Each cell may use the toilet twice in the
morning, afternoon, and evening. Everyone must report in advance if she wishes
to use any of these toilet breaks, or she is not allowed to use the toilet at
the scheduled hour even if the need is urgent. Every cell of practitioners must
form a line to go to the toilet. The staff would curse everyone if the line was
slightly disorderly. Fearing to cause unnecessary inconvenience to others, many
practitioners chose to restrict their intake of food and water so as to minimize
their need to use the restroom. Under the daily distress and pressure, many
practitioners began to suffer from a disorder in this regard. There is no using
the toilet at night. Whoever needs to use the toilet has to use a large plastic
bucket in the cell which contains both feces and urine, which permeates the room
with an unbearable stench. 2. Mental Torment When a new Falun Gong practitioner arrives at the First Women's Forced Labor
Camp, the disciplinary staff will first subject her to forced
brainwashing sessions. If she refuses to renounce Falun Gong, they will ask the
"collaborators" to help with the forced brainwashing efforts.
Normally, they will form teams of two collaborators, taking turns in
brainwashing a Dafa practitioner. Sometimes they will form teams of three, four
and up to six collaborators, taking turns watching one Dafa practitioner and
depriving her of sleep. If she refuses to renounce Falun Gong in writing, she
will be completely isolated from all other Dafa practitioners or kept awake
until midnight or even until 3 AM, to be woken up again as soon as 5 AM. Some
Dafa practitioners were forced to sign a pre-written guarantee to renounce Falun
Gong while they were only half conscious due to the deprivation of sleep. Next
they would be forced to watch video programs and materials slandering Falun
Gong. Thus these collaborators drag the newly arrived practitioners deeper and
deeper into the abyss of hell until they too become depraved collaborators who
no longer conduct themselves according to Truthfulness, Compassion, and
Tolerance. Whenever there is a news broadcast or an interview on TV that slanders Falun
Gong, the staff will pull all Dafa practitioners back from the slave labor
early, and force them to watch the program. Then they are forced to write
"experience sharing reports" to express approval of the fraudulent TV
program. In addition, the First Women's Forced Labor Camp in Jinan City
publishes its own internal newspaper, Xinyuan Monthly, with the
exclusive purpose of slandering Falun Gong and to shatter the faith of Dafa
practitioners. To encourage collaborators to write articles slandering Falun
Gong for Xinyuan Monthly, the forced labor camp rewards each author of
such articles with the reduction of one day of their sentence per article. Since
the initial visit of the "Masanjia Labor Camp Lecture Team" led by a
former assistant principal Zhu Xiuzhi, from an unknown elementary school in
Jiutai City, Jilin Province, in November 2000, the First Women's Forced Labor
Camp has been arranging similar liars to come and deceive Dafa
practitioners. The forced labor camp willfully deprives Dafa practitioners' families of
their visitation rights. They forbid determined practitioners to meet with their
family during visiting hours, hoping to crush their will. Falun Gong practitioners are also deprived of their freedom to communicate
with the outside world via mail. Each practitioner can send out no more than one
letter per week to her family. They cannot seal the envelopes because the police
have to read the letters first to make sure there is no undesirable information
in the letters. The police also check each incoming letter first before a Dafa
practitioner can read it. The steadfast Dafa practitioners can neither send out
nor receive any letters. 3. Slave Labor [Enslavement in the Forced Labor Camp: The forced labor
camp is a machine of corporate dictatorship. With no worry about the source
and availability of Falun Gong practitioners as slaves, the captive workforce
is driven to the limit, regardless of whether the incarcerated practitioners
are sick, disabled from being beaten, or weakened by the intolerable
conditions. There is no concern for living conditions in forced labor camps
and forced detention centers because any improvement in condition will
subtract from profits. Illegally incarcerated Dafa practitioners are simply
treated as objects from which to extract the maximum amount of labor, to be
released when half-dead, and replaced with new ones.] In order to maximize the revenue and bonuses from making export goods, the
First Women's Forced Labor Camp in Jinan City has been enslaving Dafa
practitioners daily to work for extended hours to make export products. Dafa
practitioners are herded like farm animals to storage rooms or remain in their
cells to perform hard labor for extended hours like slaves. Dafa practitioners
were woken up at 5:30 AM every day and forced to work nonstop until 10:30 PM, 11
PM, or even midnight. Practitioners only get half an hour for breakfast, lunch
and dinner. To finish orders for export goods, the forced labor camp often forced Dafa
practitioners to work overnight, resulting in an average of 13 to 16 hours of
hard labor every day. Dafa practitioners are driven as slaves beyond their
limit. Anytime they slow down their work pace due to exhaustion, the police
curse them fiercely. Even college girls were forced to continue with the hard
labor when they had exceeded their physical limit and turned pale. Filling
pencils is a tiresome and messy job. Even elderly women in their 50's and 60's
must carry boxes that weigh approximately 55 lbs. Even those practitioners who
are allergic to lactoprene and lead are denied any break. The storage room of
the 5th Platoon is located in the windowless basement. The storage room is so dark
that it requires artificial light in the daytime. Dafa practitioners are forced
to paint on glass bottles with ink containing benzene, even though the storage
room is not ventilated and is the least suitable environment for exposure to
benzene (a colorless, volatile, flammable and toxic liquid). The toxic benzene
is highly damaging to the human body. Although exposure to benzene causes Dafa
practitioners to feel nauseated, vomit, lose their appetite, and suffer from
fatigue, the police persistently force practitioners to work extended hours of
hard labor, including those practitioners who are on hunger strikes. Slowing
down the work pace will result in immediate insults and sneering from the
police. After Dafa practitioners are relieved from hard labor at 11 PM or midnight,
they are forced to write reports about themselves. Some practitioners have to
stay up until 1 or 2 AM to finish the report. Some elderly practitioners in
their 60's are struggling with great difficultly with their life as a slave.
Dafa practitioners frequently collapse in the storage room or in the cell due to
extreme exhaustion. The forced labor camp has made a huge fortune out of the labor of Dafa
practitioners. The police keep getting rewards and bonuses for being slave
drivers. Within two years, the First Women's Forced Labor Camp
has earned a fat profit from enslaving practitioners and extorting money in
every conceivable way. With the money, it has started to build a state-of-art
office building, visitor center and a large furnace room. The brutal physical tortures, tremendous amount of pressure, and difficult
forced labor have driven some Dafa practitioners to mental collapse. Because of
the tight control of information in China, it is difficult to obtain complete
statistics. In the 5th Platoon of the First Women's Forced Labor Camp alone, three Dafa practitioners have suffered from severe mental collapse.
Dafa practitioners who did not renounce their beliefs from the punishment of the
"Sitting Board," and other determined practitioners, were forced to
march non-stop for over ten hours, or else suffer a harsh beating. Anyone who
refused to comply would be hauled to separate "Small Cells" where they
suffered from escalated torture secretly.
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/12/8/62057.html
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