By a Falun Dafa Practitioner from Liaobei (Liaoning Province, China)

(Clearwisdom.net) On January 29, 2004, I was transferred from Tieling Forced Labor Camp to Liaoyang Forced Labor Camp, where the persecutors continued to torture me. Right after I arrived, Section Head Zou read through every detained practitioner's file and came up with an individual torture plan for each practitioner. For the female practitioners, the perpetrators used high-voltage electric batons to shock them, forced them to stay awake for long periods of time, and forced them to perform heavy physical labor for over 20 hours a day. This kind of abuse lasted for more than 8 months. Because of serious lack of sleep, some practitioners' minds became unclear and they wrote the "Three Statements" against their will. These practitioners were then exempted from the hard labor outside the forced labor camp.

The practitioners who refused to write the "Three Statements" were treated as slave laborers. They were forced to lay foundation stones for a railroad. One day, the head of the group, Ms. Sun Aiqin, led the practitioners to work on the railroad. One female practitioner fell asleep sitting on the rail (because she had been deprived of sleep for a long time). Even the loud horn of an approaching train did not wake her up. Some fellow practitioners risked their lives to drag her off the rail and saved her life. All the money earned by the practitioners' hard labor went into Sun Aiqin's pocket.

In a steel mill, the practitioners were forced to make steel sheets. Practitioners were divided into teams of 3 people, and each team had to finish 7 to 8 tons of steel sheets per day. At night, the practitioners were forced to work overtime, sometimes until dawn. In such a harsh environment, every practitioner made time to recite Fa and practice the exercises. When the guards found out, they put some practitioners into confinement cells (tiny cells, iron cages). Inside the confinement cell, one cannot stand, sit, or lie down; one has to keep the same position 24 hours a day. Practitioners were tortured like this for an entire month. As a result, muscles on the practitioners' buttocks were ruptured. The perpetrators did not give the practitioners in the confinement cells enough to eat. Some practitioners' limbs were stretched (using handcuffs and shackles) inside the confinement cell. Some practitioners were handcuffed inside the cells for extended periods of time.

Once the female practitioners were led to a train station with some male inmates, and ordered to clean out trash that had been there for over 10 years. A female practitioner was having her period at that time. She was so tired that her face looked very pale, and her mind became unclear. Yet she was still forced to do hard labor. A kind-hearted guard asked this practitioner to go fetch some water (so that she could rest a bit). When the head of the group Gu found out, she cursed the female practitioner badly, accusing her of being lazy. This practitioner was forced to continue the hard work. Because of the heavy load of physical labor, this practitioner suffered from extreme exhaustion, and her face has been very pale since then.

Unloading trash from the train cars, the guards ordered the male inmates to work inside the cars and the women to work on the ground beside them. As a result, the practitioners' faces, heads and necks were all covered with trash. The perpetrators beat and cursed the practitioners once they saw they were a little slow. Once a man with a video camera came to videotape the scene. The perpetrators were afraid that the media would expose their crimes, so they separated the practitioners from everyone else who was present.

After moving the trash, I and other practitioners were forced to take a cold shower. The cold water made everyone tremble. After returning to our room, the they forced us to do manual labor. After the incident, the guards became afraid of being exposed. They wouldn't let us wear inmate's clothes when going outside to work. They forbade us to talk to anyone while working, and after that we did not wear uniforms anymore. When someone asked who we were, the guards answered, "They are workers we hired."

Once we went to Liaohua to move a huge pile of trash made of rotten leftovers. Once we stepped on the pile, the stinky water covered our feet. Many practitioners vomited on the spot because of the odor. The guards watched us from dozens of yards away. We were usually not allowed to take a bath after work, yet we were told to head directly to the bathroom and take a shower before entering our rooms. The driver asked us to wash the truck immediately after we returned. Still, we had manual labor to do inside the rooms at night.

We went through these horrible tortures during the first eight days and eight nights in Liaoyang Forced Labor Camp. During these days, we were permitted to sleep for less than 2 hours each day. Yet we persisted in practicing the exercises, studying the Fa and reciting the Fa every day. Some practitioners saw a row of lotus flowers or a row of Buddhas on the book while reading Zhuan Falun; some saw Teacher's Law Bodies smiling at us while reading. We knew that Teacher was encouraging us, and we were moved to tears.

The hard manual labor we did was for several different plants, and the smell of various kinds of rubber badly irritated the nose. The poisonous gas resulted in headaches and tears running from the eyes of everyone. The sticky rubber made our hands' skin come off layer after layer. Being afraid of the poisonous gas, the guards kept far away from the worksite. Sometimes we were forced to use needles to attach 5 to 6 hundred small pellets to a Styrofoam core. Each practitioner had to finish 10 Styrofoam cores per day. Our thumbs were rubbed so much that they bled with excruciating pain. Yet we still could not finish the allocated workload.

February 6, 2000 was a date for seeing visitors. Visitors from Tieling were not allowed to see us, and the food and things they brought for us were left at the labor camp. When the guards came back to work, they ordered us to throw away all the food that our relatives brought for us. In the next three months, we were not allowed any visitors. In May, our family members were notified to come visit us. This time, we were given one day to eat the food they brought us. On the next day, all the food that we could not finish had to be thrown away.

From February 9, 2000, the practitioners were forced to only do hard manual labor. On February 17, a very heavy workload was established. Since then, we worked until late in the night. After we returned to our dorm, we persisted in Fa study and practicing the exercises. After locking the door, the guards stayed and listened secretly outside the door. Once they heard us reading Dafa books, they broke in and asked us who was reading. To protect the Dafa book, a practitioner said, "I was reciting." The guards took her into the office and beat her, tortured her with electric batons and pricked her with needles until they became tired.

Once we were working, a person, who looked like an official, knew that we were Falun Gong practitioners and were good people that follow "Truthfulness, Benevolence, and Forbearance." He came to us and said, "Don't think that society looks down upon you; actually you are the greatest people."

After we returned to our dorm, we immediately started to study the Fa. The Dafa books of 3 practitioners were found by the police guards and forcefully taken away. When they went to ask for their books, the guards beat them ferociously and used needles to prick them. A few days later, the guards met their retribution: guard Liu got sick and was sent to the hospital, where she received an intravenous drip. Because her blood vessel was very thin, it took the nurses many tries until the needle finally went in. The right hand of the guard (head of the group of guards), who had slapped the face of a 63-year-old practitioner, was seriously burned. Heaven punishes the wicked people.

The most unforgettable incident was during the hot summer of 2000. To make money, the guards made us take apart the bags used to hold concrete mix. There were 100 bags in each bundle, and each practitioner was forced to take 10 bundles. After we finished the work, the plant owner who brought the work said that we were taking advantage of him by not working hard enough, even saying that each bundle had less than 100 bags in it. He used that as an excuse to not pay for the work. The guards loudly quarreled with the plant owner saying, "I would have believed you if you say other people were opportunistic; yet these Falun Gong practitioners would never do anything like that. If they write a few sentences of lies on a piece of paper, they don't have to be here suffering. They could go home and work for more than 1,000 Yuan a month. They will never lie to anyone. Under the baking sun and among the dust of concrete mix, they are working without gloves and masks. It's even hard to breathe here, and they cough out little pieces of cement from their lungs. They would never lie or cheat people."

The plant owner had nothing to say and paid the right amount of money. Although the guards said those things to protect their own benefit, it reflected the practitioners' righteous thoughts and righteous actions. We earned people's trust and created a great image and mighty virtue for Falun Dafa practitioners.

One year later, after the female practitioners were released, they jointly filed a lawsuit against the persecutors to the Provincial Judiciary Department. The main contents of the lawsuit are:

1. Sun Aiqin, head of the female group in Liaoyang Forced Labor Camp, seriously violated the law of labor by forcing a work overload. Sun illegally made money for herself by doing that, and in the process, persecuted the practitioners.
2. The forced labor camp extorted money from the practitioners, forcing them to submit 360 Yuan per year as the "Reeducation fee." The "Reeducation fee" is already given to the labor camp by the government. Sun Aiqin used this method to further extort money from the practitioners. Those practitioners who refused to submit the money were illegally held in the labor camp after their terms were up.

The Provincial Judiciary Department sent some officials to investigate the issue. After the officials collected evidence from many sources, they confirmed that the charges in the lawsuit were all true. They decided to dismiss the group formed by female Falun Gong practitioners in the labor camp and remove Sun Aiqin from the position of group head. Some police guards with a sense of justice said, "Falun Gong is great, it helped us eliminate a big evil (Sun Aiqin). Too bad we weren't able to make that happen earlier." The 360 Yuan per year extorted from each practitioner was returned to the practitioners. The director of the forced labor camp was also removed from his position.