By Yu Ming from Mainland China

(Clearwisdom.net) Editor's note: The author of this article, Yu Ming, had been abducted and taken to Beijing's Lugu Police Station in late October of 2003, and was later sentenced to forced labor. Since he is known in the Beijing labor camps as being steadfast in his belief in Falun Dafa, Mr. Yu is currently still being held in the "Dispatch Center." We hope that the international community will pay attention to his situation.

Tip line of Dispatch Center: 86-10-61291199 ext. 8220; 86-10-61291199 ext. 8118
Info line of Dispatch Center: 86-10-61294968

Tip line of Tuanhe Labor Camp in Beijing: 86-10-61292590; 86-10-61294581

Info line of Tuanhe Labor Camp in Beijing: 86-10-61293362

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Later, the police in Brigade Two started to force me to stay up late at night. Practitioners who refused to give up their belief in Falun Dafa were not allowed to go to bed until after midnight, sometimes even past 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. But, they were woken up at around 5 a.m. to run laps and do calisthenics. In the worst situations, practitioners were not allowed to sleep at all. As soon as the eyes closed, the police would curse and kick the practitioners, saying that dozing off was breaking the rules. Many people were thus persecuted to a cloudy sensorial state and to a point of physical exhaustion, and eventually gave up their belief because they could no longer withstand such torment. Beijing practitioners Chen Gang and Li Chunyuan were once forced to stay awake for 15 days straight.

During the day, we also had to clean the toilets, bathrooms, and trash dumps. These chores were all done by the steadfast practitioners.

By late June 2001, it was already very hot. Every day, Lu Weidong, Fang Yingwen, Lu Mingqiang, Wu Yinchang, Cheng Wei, Yang Shuqiang, Wang Jiping and others, about ten of us, were dragged to the drill ground to stand under the scorching sun. Ni Zhengxing, Deputy Captain of Brigade Two, forced us to stand on one foot for two or three hours at a time, not allowing us to move. Oftentimes people would pass out because of heat stroke. At the time, I suffered from a severe fungal infection of the skin, yet I was not spared this torture.

One day after we finished standing in the blazing sun, we were taken inside to stand some more. I sat on the ground as both of my feet were oozing pus. Ni Zhenxiong did not let me off -- the labor camp police were in a constant state of readiness to find excuses to intensify the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. He came over and growled, "Stand up," as he pulled me up. Before I could steady myself, he let go of his grip and I fell, knocking my head on the ground. This infuriated Ni, as he thought I was deliberately antagonizing him. He lifted me up and forcefully threw me to the ground. My feet scraped up against his leather boot, resulting in a large abrasion and bleeding.

After I got up, I said to Ni, "I am not being defiant. I have been feeling sick and dizzy the last few days. I have reported my condition to the police. The captains on duty last night and the night before all have records of it. You can go and check the records." Upon hearing this, Ni barked, "You are going against the government on purpose!" Since other practitioners were present, he dragged me to his office and showered me with kicks and punches like a madman. While beating me hysterically, he yelled obscenities at the top of his voice. He then grabbed my neck hard, attempting to choke me to death. I could not breathe and felt that I was going to die. Realizing that I would die if he did not let go, Ni then backed off.

I gasped for breath and felt like my neck was severed. Ni was also exhausted, and left for lunch as if nothing had happened. I sat on the floor in excruciating pain. I felt awful and did not want to eat anything.

When Ni came back refreshed from lunch and a rest, he was very angry when he saw me still sitting on the floor. He shouted, "Didn't you say you're sick? Something is wrong with your feet? Come on, I'll take you to see the doctor!" He then called in another policeman to take me. I said to them, "You're forcing me and beating me illegally. I won't go to see the doctor." Without a word, Ni rushed out to get a pair of handcuffs and put them on me. He then tried to drag me out by tugging on the handcuffs. I held tight onto the rail of the stairs with both my hands. The handcuffs cut deeply into my flesh. Even now there is still a prominent scar on my wrist. Ni saw that he couldn't move me, so he told the policeman to shock my hands with an electric baton. My hands went numb and I let go of my grip. Ni knocked me down to the ground, and then dragged me downstairs by my feet, down the staircase. My head was knocking against each of the cement stairs and it was extremely painful. After he dragged me out of the building, he continued to drag me over the asphalt ground for dozens of meters more before finally stopping at the clinic.

The doctor there felt repugnance towards Ni and did not want to treat me as Ni had demanded. Ni was very angry and grasped my arms and fiercely twisted them backward. I felt excruciating pain and I heard a slight crack. My arms almost broke. Since Ni did not want a repeat of Lu Changjun's situation (Lu Changjun had his spine broken from beating), he stopped and took me back to the brigade. The clothes on my back were all torn and my back was covered with bloodstains.

Later, practitioner Wu Jinchang in Brigade Two lodged a letter of complaint concerning Ni Zhenxiong's atrocities. For a long time, the labor camp put on a facade as if it was conducting an investigation but did not take any corrective action. Ni continued unabated with his wanton torture of the practitioners. Many people were injured at his hands, including Chen Hongxin, Mu Junkui and others.

If a practitioner, because he could not withstand the brutal violence and physical torture, was compelled to write the so-called "Five Statements" (statements promising to break away from Falun Gong) against his will, that did not mean that the mental persecution ended there. Every day, these practitioners who gave in under pressure were required to study slanderous materials concocted by Jiang's regime. After a period of study, they had to write up their understanding of these materials, which had to criticize and condemn Falun Gong. If their writing did not meet the police's expectation, the police would immediately intimidate them. Under such circumstances, these former practitioners had to, against their conscience, denounce and not mention anything good about Falun Gong at all times. There were monitors in the rooms. Every move the practitioners made was under the constant surveillance of the police.

According to China's so-called laws and regulations (not legislated rules), forced labor education is just a type of administrative punishment, not criminal punishment. The labor camp detainees are not criminals, yet they are treated with much more stringent measures than criminals in jails. The police secretly arrange undercover informants in each unit to monitor every word and move of every practitioner. If anyone who had given up his belief in Falun Gong under pressure came to realize that the persecution was illegal, and wanted to tell the police that Falun Gong is good, he would be immediately subjected to sleep deprivation and physical punishment, including high-voltage electric shocks. It is not difficult to imagine how hard it is to speak out the truth and follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance, and to be good people in the Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp.

At the beginning of April 2001, the Tuanhe Labor Camp removed its high-voltage electrical wire from the labor camp's walls. Three days later, there was a visit by national and international non-governmental organizations under the escort of government officials. These changes and the visits resulted from frequent interviews by the national media, and with international governmental and non-governmental organizations. They were also based on a proposal put forth by representatives of the National People's Congress and Commissar of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Committee, to convey the idea that labor camps are an "internal affair of the people" and to show improvement in the area of China's human rights. In the days that followed, the labor camp embarked on large-scale renovation -- new landscaping, constructing new buildings, putting in new lawns and lots of flowers, raising birds and other animals... there were even fish bowls, televisions, and desks in the dormitories. In the division where Falun Gong practitioners were detained there was now a library and Karaoke facility, among other amenities. Newcomers to the Tuanhe Labor Camp could easily be fooled by the external façade; little did they know that the new buildings, flowers, lawns, and small animals were but a smokescreen to distract, and to conceal the criminal acts occurring in the camp.

Not only that, every time there was an outside visitor or inspection from above, the whole labor camp would be educated on how to deceive the visitors: every division had to repeatedly watch videotapes made by the labor camp on how to answer questions from international reporters, forcing practitioners to give a uniform answer and to lie to the media. The blatant lies were ridiculous. For example, if one were asked if there were physical or verbal abuses by labor camp personnel, the answer must be an emphatic no; Falun Gong practitioners could not say that they were arrested for practicing Falun Gong, but for "disturbing social order." If one were asked about the meals in the camp, you had to say that every month we had so much flour, oil, meat, vegetables, and other such nonsense. In addition, determined practitioners were threatened with repercussions should they speak the truth. Policeman Ni Zhenxiong held a meeting to threaten us: If reporters asked, you could not say that you had been beaten in the labor camp, or mention that there was a dispatch location. One time, there was a reporter visiting the Third Division on the first floor in the east building, but several dozen people who refused to be "transformed" or who could be "problematic" in the Third Division had already been relocated to the training center at the north side of the building. Therefore the reporter only saw the carefully rehearsed play. Every time outside visitors came, the labor camp's meals suddenly improved that day, and the routine public physical punishment of Falun Gong practitioners for the day would be cancelled and a ball game substituted.

The moment the visitors left the front door, the physical punishment resumed. Tuanhe Labor Camp's deceptive tactics to fool the outside visitors were inexhaustible, and were all despicable. To convince the outside world that it was "civil," the labor camp adopted a gradation measure for the detainees in the labor camp. It categorized the detainees into five different classes. The top class was given milk and eggs for breakfast, meat and vegetable for lunch, allowed to receive training for employment, or try their hand at farming, and be off on weekends. In reality, all the non-transformed practitioners were relegated to the lowest class and strictly supervised. They were subjected to high-pressure brainwashing, forced to stay up all night, sent to the "Intense Training" unit, confined in small cells, tied up, given only bread crusts to eat, and were not allowed to buy any food or daily necessities, among other forms of persecution. All these cruel torments were meticulously covered up by the new measures at the camp.

The persecution site, in the "Intense Training" unit in the fortified building was never open to outside visitors, and all the Falun Gong practitioners who dared to speak the truth were never allowed to be interviewed by visiting journalists. Therefore the official reports were nothing but pure deceit to fool and conceal; none were true. To the Falun Gong practitioners who refused to give up their practice, Tuanhe Labor Camp was a living hell.

One day in June of 2001, around 11 or 12 in the morning, all the steadfast practitioners and the so-called "not thoroughly transformed" practitioners were gathered in the first storage room behind the courtyard. The police broke with the norm and let us watch a movie video. The Third Division's practitioners were placed in the second storage room, and the Seventh Division's practitioners were put in a small one-story building at the other end of the storage area. We were not allowed to move around. Later on we learned that that day there were large numbers of international, Hong Kong, and domestic media reporters visiting the labor camp, and the only people that were allowed to work outside or play ball games were those who had been "adequately transformed."

Three practitioners, who were transformed and carefully coached by the police, were interviewed by the media, and they spoke highly of the living conditions and human rights situation in the labor camp. Later on they were praised by the labor camp authorities and released from reeducation ahead of time. At the same time, there were two un-transformed practitioners (Yang Haidong and Fang Bing) that were arranged to be interviewed by the media. Afterwards, the media praised the open nature of the interview, and the permission to talk to any labor camp personnel at will. Actually, these two practitioners simply did not know the dark inside story of the labor camp. Later on I met with Mr. Yang and Mr. Fang and learned that at the time, on the day of the media interview, both of them had just been transferred to Tuanhe Labor Camp and did not know the inside story of the camp. The labor camp cunningly used them to perform for the media, and they were completely unaware of the actual situation.

What was especially nauseating was the interview with Jiang Haiquan, the deputy section manager of the education office in Tuanhe Labor Camp. When the media asked him, "How did you go about transforming Falun Gong practitioners?" He unashamedly replied, "Just like today, how you and I calmly talk about our personal viewpoints. To transform or not, that is all the individual's free choice." How could it be like that! In little more than one year, in Beijing's Tuanhe Labor Camp, tall buildings sprang up from the original one-story construction, and "garden units" from grounds overgrown with weeds. It became a city-wide model for a "civilized labor camp," and then quickly developed into a national example. How many people know that the new buildings, flowers, plants, trees and especially the road and those ditches were soaked with many practitioners' blood and sweat! It is the historical testimony of their persecution. Therefore in the Chinese labor camp, the advertisements of "civilized" and "beautified environment" are used to deceive and mislead the Chinese people and the international community.

(To be continued)

Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/2/23/45389.html
Part 2: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/2/24/45429.html
Part 3: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/2/26/45356.html

Part 4: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/2/27/45438.html

Posting date: 2/29/2004
Original article date: 2/28/2004
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/2/11/66827.html

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