Tortures at Beijing Women's Forced Labor Center: Starvation, Sleep Deprivation and Violence

January 19 2004

(Clearwisom.net) In August 2003 the Beijing Women's Forced Labor Center established a team called "Strike the Immovable," that focused on persecuting Falun Gong practitioners who persisted in their belief. The tortures there were very cruel.

1. Starvation

Practitioners who refused to give up their beliefs were detained in a 20 square meter room. Each of them was given only one bun a day. The bun was divided into 2 or 3 pieces, one piece with a bowl of vegetable soup (with only roots and rotten leaves) for one meal. In winter time water was given to practitioners only when it was cold. One time Li Xiuying, the team leader, was examining the food delivery. When she discovered that one of the staff gave a practitioner an extra half-bowl of noodles, she scolded the staff member saying: "How dare you give her so much food. Once she has enough food, it will be harder for us to change her. Are you going to write the letter denouncing Falun Gong for her as well?"

2. Sleep Deprivation

Falun Gong practitioners were deprived of sleep. Recordings were broadcasted to viciously attack Dafa. Practitioners were forced to listen. When practitioners were extremely sleepy, and as soon as they closed their eyes, they would be beaten or scolded. The police would pull their eyebrows or their hair. In general they could only sleep at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., and were forced to get up at 4 a.m. Some practitioners were not allowed to sleep for over 20 days continuously.

If practitioners refused to change, violence would be used against them. The police ordered prisoner drug addicts and prostitutes to severely beat practitioners, in exchange for special benefits. They bound practitioners' hands and feet, and stuffed wet towels in their mouths. They then turned the stereo up to maximum volume so that people outside could not hear what was really going on in the room. One, two, or three of them would beat each practitioner. Often they beat practitioners on the head, in the face or kicked them, especially on the sensitive parts of the body. They cursed practitioners without showing any humanity. When they were tired of beating and kicking them, they would brutally slap practitioners with the heels of their shoes, in the nose, eyes, head, chest, belly, and the private parts of the body. The police did not intervene. They ignored the crimes and were even amused by them. The police in fact had ordered all of it.

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