Exposing the Crimes of the Wuhan Women's Prison: Forced Labor in Dangerous Conditions Without Sleep

By a Wuhan Practitioner

(Clearwisdom.net June 23, 2003)

I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Since July 20, 1999, the regime of Jiang Zemin has violated the Chinese constitution and persecuted Falun Gong practitioners. For more than three years, I have been deprived of basic civil rights. Today, I want to tell the public my personal experience and hope to awaken those kind-hearted people.

In 1999, Jiang started his rampant persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. As a Dafa practitioner and citizen, I knew that I should tell the truth to the government and let them know how I benefited from practicing the Falun Gong exercises. Later on, some practitioners and I avoided the obstacles set by police officials on the way to Beijing and went to Tiananmen Square. Before we were able to cross our legs to meditate, police officers came over and beat us until our faces were swollen and bruised. At that time, Tiananmen Square was full of cars and policemen. They handcuffed us behind our back and pushed us into the police cars. A police officer said they also arrested seven or eight Falun Gong practitioners from Shandong. Among them was a male practitioner who was so badly beaten that he could not stand up. We were sent to a police station in Beijing. Once we entered the door, we saw several practitioners who were hung up by their arms from steel doors. The police station was filled with Dafa disciples from all over the country who had gone to Beijing to appeal.

Later on, we were illegally detained in the Wuhan Women's Detention Center. The police officers there brutally tortured Dafa practitioners. Once, eight or nine prisoners beat Dafa practitioner Zheng Wangying from Hankou, Hubei Province. Some pulled her hair; some kicked her head; others kicked her lower body and kept swearing at her. Such things happened frequently. One day in December, a policeman named Wang and some prisoners took off our outfits and shoes. Some practitioners wore some underclothes and some only wore underwear. They tied our hands and feet and held us down on the freezing ground for three hours. At 10:15 PM we were allowed to go back to our dorms. At that time, the policeman Wang laughed wildly and said, "If you are not ill tomorrow, I will respect Falun Gong." As a matter of fact, we were all right the following day. In the early morning, the police officers used the same means to torture us. They ordered us to stand on the concrete ground with bare feet and then sprayed cold water on our feet. They also used scotch tape to seal our mouths.

In January 2000, I wrote an appeal letter and wanted to go to the state appeals office directly. Surprisingly, there were over one hundred police officers in front of the gate. They lied to me, saying that they were receptionists especially for Falun Gong practitioners who had appealed in Beijing.

In the detention center, they often handcuffed Dafa practitioners from the back, made us sleep on iron beds, and force-fed us. Beating and cursing happened as frequently as eating. In order to sentence me to jail, they fabricated a confession from me attributing to me things that I didn't say or do. Normal contact between people was claimed to be incitation and collaboration. Later on, I started my three-year life in prison.

After I came to the Wuhan Women's Prison, I didn't have any freedom or right to speak at all. Just as with other practitioners, I was not allowed to contact or speak to the prisoners, let along mention Truth, Compassion and Forbearance to them. I belonged to the first group of practitioners who were sentenced to jail. The police officers and the officials in prison talked to me many times. They attempted to force me to slander Master and Dafa according to their requests. I told them honestly, "I didn't commit any crimes. Our Teacher teaches us, as practitioners, we should first be a person with high morals and cultivate our Xinxing [heart and mind] in any situation. We should only do good deeds and no bad deeds. Encountering conflicts, we are required not to fight with others. In addition, we should always put others before ourselves."

In order to force me to give up my practice, the prison guards almost tortured me to death. The second day when I was in the prison, they forced me to stand for a long time and didn't allow me to sleep normally. Sometimes I was only allowed to sleep one or two hours per day and sometimes I couldn't close my eyes for several days. Every day the guards uttered words slandering Master and Dafa. They also attempted to instill bad thoughts in my mind. If I rejected them, they forced me to stand in front of a gate and exposed me to freezing wind. The police officers also assigned several prisoners to monitor me. The extent to which they monitored me was directly tied to whether they received praise and a decrease in their sentence terms. The worst prisoners who monitored me were Liu Ying and Xu Xiuping. They always created difficulties for me. If I was so sleepy and closed my eyes or if I didn't listen to the police officers, they would beat, curse, or kick me or clip my eyelids. They also hid my winter clothes. They forced me to do heavy labor alone that needed several people to be completed. They didn't allow me to take a bath. If I wanted to go to the restroom, they would approve it if they were in a good mood and not allow it if they were in a bad mood. Once, a kind-hearted prisoner helped me change my shoes. Those two reported it to the police and asked the police to criticize the prisoner. Moreover, they threw my shoes away. They not only monitored me but monitored other prisoners to prevent them from being sympathetic to me. Whoever showed sympathy towards me received punishment by them. Prisoners who monitored me were rotated one group after another.

During the first several months, I was forced to work in the workshop without normal sleep. It frequently happened that if prisoners were not careful enough, they could hurt their hands or even become disabled. I often fell asleep in front of a dangerous machine because I was so sleepy. For safety, I splashed my face and head with cold water. Sometimes, I slapped and kicked the steel machine to keep myself awake and avoid falling down. I was actually in an unconscious state. Later on, I was asked to stay in the Middle Squad and stand day and night. The cell supervisor asked many prisoners to "help" me, which meant to attack me. The prisoners reported every word and action of mine to the cell supervisor. Even though I was not ill at all, they forced me into a hospital. The cell supervisor, police and about eight prisoners force-fed me with some unknown medicines. During those periods, I was tortured badly so that I lost my clear state of mind. I conformed to their wishes and read and copied the bad materials they gave to me. I often spoke wrongly and misspelled words at that time. There were several times they forced me to read those bad newspapers. Every time it hurt me as if a needle had pricked my heart. But the cell supervisor still asked me to read aloud.

During the 2001 Spring Festival, when people got together with their families, I was detained in a small cell and tortured by Liu Ying and Xu Xiuping. I couldn't describe their cruelty using human words. On the third day I was forced to stand, my whole body started to swell. My face was red as red paper. The supervisor knew the prisoners who monitored me were torturing me but she pretended not to be aware of it. I experienced the same torture every day. I walked unsteadily as though shocked by electricity. Sometimes when I was eating, I fell down with the bowl in my hands. Other prisoners laughed loudly. I also fell down when I went to the restroom. When my family visited me, they dared not ask or speak even when they saw my whole body was swollen. The cell supervisor saw my dangerous state and asked a collaborator [former Falun Gong practitioner who has gone astray due to severe pressure and torture and now helps the authorities to persecution fellow practitioners] to brainwash me. The collaborator wrote something horrible. The supervisor then asked me to read her words and told me if I did so I could go and sleep. I would rather bear the unbearable suffering than read one word. To transform me quickly, the evil supervisor didn't allow me to go to the toilet the last day. I was hungry, cold and suffering. When the situation became so horrible that I could not even distinguish daytime and nighttime, my righteous thoughts degenerated and I followed their requests. In the end, I wrote the letter claiming I had given up Falun Gong. After I was forced to add the words of those police officers, I was allowed to sleep. Those police officers even shamelessly claimed that the addition of those words was for my good. In 2001, Luo X, the head of the "610 Office" [an office established by the Jiang regime to carry out the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners] visited the Wuhan Women's Prison. A prisoner asked me, "If Luo X asks you whether you continue to practice Falun Gong, what will you answer?" I said, " I am sure I would say 'yes'. Dafa is great. Although I wrote something I didn't want to write, I never gave it up in my heart." I recited Master's scripture whenever I had time.

Later on, I heard that Peng Min had lost her life safeguarding Dafa. This made me realize that my compromise with the evil was wrong, although it happened under the severe persecution. So I stated immediately that I would continue to practice Falun Gong. The cell supervisor then closely monitored me. Because my heath condition was bad, they sent me to a squad established especially for the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. I then met Xu Xianglan, Mi Xiaoping, Cui Hai, Liu Guiqing and 9 other practitioners. We shared our understandings of Dafa everyday. I told my fellow practitioners frankly that my mind was clear a long time ago. When the supervisor of the squad talked to me, I told them without hesitation that the three letters were written under coercion and severe persecution. I had already awoken to the truth.

Xu Xianglan told us that she was arrested on a bus. Without any reason, the police officers put her into a detention center. Afterwards, her husband and daughter were also arrested. So were some other employees in her husband's workplace. Those employees had had confessions extorted and been badly tortured. Under such conditions, Xu Xianglan had given in against her conscience. The police officials had illegally taken away all her cash and property and closed her own private company. The company was legal with all the necessary documents. The police had closed it only because they were Falun Gong practitioners. When the police did this, they didn't provide any evidence or even write a piece of paper to explain. Xu said she never gave up practicing Falun Dafa in her mind. She wrote a solemn statement and submitted it to the officials in the prison. In the statement, she spoke the truth that had been constrained in her heart for a long time. We all read her statement. Later, we used our spare time to study the Fa together, shared our understandings and turned in a collective statement, in which we reported the persecution to the officials of the prison.

I wrote my persecution experiences and solemn statement. Because I told the truth, the cell supervisor flew into a rage. She wanted to send me back to the original squad. Later on, since I copied Master's scriptures, she increased the persecution on me and put me into the worst cell called the "Reflection Cell." There, I fully experienced the torture of dampness, mosquitoes, pain and a long time without a bath. After 16 days without a bath, I had to endure the unbearable odor that I gave off. The "Reflection Cell" was used to detain the worst prisoners. Since the persecution of Falun Gong, it has become a den for torturing Falun Gong practitioners. The police officers put determined practitioners who resisted cooperation and refused to write letters stating that they had given up practicing Falun Gong into the "Reflection Cell." They handcuffed the practitioners behind their back and didn't allow them to sleep. The prison officials, cell supervisors and prisoners took turns brainwashing Falun Gong practitioners. Practitioner Xiu Zhongmin was persecuted there and her body swelled up. She was also not allowed to see her family. Wei Yuexiu in our squad, about fifty, was also tortured in the same way because she refused to cooperate with cell supervisors. Once, a prisoner said she recited Master's scripture in her mind and they grabbed a dirty cloth from a table and stuffed it into her mouth. It was no use to tell them the facts about Falun Dafa and reason with them.

Just because we firmly believed in Dafa and wanted to continue to be good people, we experienced such torture. As long as I spoke some good words for Dafa, the cell supervisor threatened me. To relieve the persecution on fellow practitioners, I asked to see the director of the education section but was refused. The cell supervisor forced me to write the so-called guarantee letter many times. She threatened that if I didn't write it, they would send me back to the original squad. During the Moon Festival when officials investigated every cell, we reported the persecution we experienced to them. Later on, they issued orders and sent me back to the original squad. Since I had returned, the cell supervisor sought any excuse to persecute me and asked the prisoners to monitor me. In the end, they handcuffed me and didn't allow me to sleep. The police officers often tried to brainwash me. They also forced me to read bad materials and watch TV. I was not allowed to sleep for dozen of days but asked to finish tasks that a normal prisoner had difficulty completing. They told me if I could not finish the job, I couldn't sleep. I was so tired I almost collapsed. Sometimes, I could not remember how to do the work. There were a few supervisors who were kind-hearted and let me sleep for a while. However, after the directors of the police officers found out about it, they woke me up immediately and handcuffed me. Director Zhang handcuffed me so tightly that it was very painful. When I asked them to relax the cuffs, they disregarded my request and some of them cursed me. One night, my two legs were so painful all of a sudden that I could not stand on the floor. At that time, I was tied to a metal bed and could not sleep. Someone reported my situation to the cell supervisors. They disregarded me but commented sarcastically. I was tied until the following day. The last few days in the prison, they asked some collaborators to spread lies. I used the principles of the Fa and pointed out each of their unrighteous hearts.

I told the prison officials many times that it was worthless to try to force me to give up practicing Falun Gong; I had experienced in person that Master is great and most benevolent. It is Master that purified my body and mind. In the past three years, I also experienced systematic persecution by the Jiang regime. They have formed the system that "the higher level officials pressure the low level officials; the prison officials pressure the cell supervisors; and the cell supervisors pressure the prisoner" to commit crimes. They have utilized all means to ruin our bodies and deprive us of our basic human rights. The greatness of Dafa and the evil of the persecution are so distinguished from each other. This strengthens my determination in cultivation.

Written on July 23

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/6/23/52735.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version