Wangcun Labor Camp Persecutes Falun Dafa Practitioners With Forced Hard Labor

(Clearwisdom.net) Wangcun Labor Camp is the third branch of the First Labor Camp of Shandong Province. It is located in Xibaoshan of Wangcun Village, Zhoucun District, Zibo City, Shandong Province. Bi Hua, the party secretary of the First Labor Camp, was promoted to assistant director of the labor bureau of Shandong Province for his work in persecuting Falun Dafa. The party secretary of the third branch camp is Wang Yongjia. These two persons directed and participated in the persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners.

In October and November 2000, Bi Hua and Wang Yongjia assembled armed police from other locations to torture Dafa practitioners. Every practitioner was handcuffed and shocked with electric batons. Some practitioners were simultaneously shocked with multiple batons, up to ten at once. The police knocked practitioners to the ground, stomped on their heads, and shocked practitioners on sensitive areas such as the mouth, tongue, and genital areas. The odor of burning flesh was everywhere. Dafa practitioner Zuo Songtao from Qingdao City was tortured to death in the ninth brigade during this period. The assistant leader Zheng Wanxin in the ninth brigade was primarily responsible. Because of his achievement in persecuting Falun Gong, Zheng Wanxin was promoted to the leader. Later, on August 24, 2001, because the number of practitioners detained in the ninth brigade reached 700 to 800, they were relocated to the fourth branch camp in Guanzhuang Town, Zhangqiu City. The name was changed to the Second Labor Camp of Shandong Province. The 800 to 900 female practitioners detained in the original fourth branch camp were relocated to other places. The director of the newly-named Second Labor Camp is Sun Jiyin, and the party secretary is Wang Jianyong, who is specifically responsible for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. The Second Labor Camp has four brigades. The leader of the ninth brigade (formerly the eleventh brigade, newly organized) is a person with the last name of Jing. The leader for the tenth brigade, newly established, is a person with the last name of Liang. The leader of the eleventh brigade (formerly the ninth brigade) is Zheng Wanxin. The leader of the twelfth brigade (formerly the tenth brigade) is Zhao Yongmin, who was reappointed to be leader of the tenth brigade.

Every day, practitioners were forced to work from 5:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., and sometimes to 12:00 a.m. There were only two bathroom breaks, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. The most common work was making imitation eyelashes. The raw material for the eyelash is very thin. Three or four stuck together were no thicker than a hair. An eyelash consists of several hundred thin hairs. To save electricity, a room 500 square feet in size had only four 40-watt fluorescent lights. Workers eyes became painful after working only a short while. All people had some degree of eye-injury. Some people in their 30's had to wear presbyopic glasses, normally needed only by elderly people for far sightedness. All the people in the eleventh brigade of the Second Labor Camp and in the Northern Prison and Labor Camp of Weifang were making eyelashes. The labor cost for making one eyelash is 0.20 Yuan (1 US dollar is about 8 Yuan). The practitioners were paid nothing. The money was paid to the brigade. Most of the eyelashes were for export.

In addition to making eyelashes, practitioners were also forced to make electromagnetic coils for an electric instrument manufacturer in Zhoucun District, Zibo City. The manufacturer sold the coils to a company in South China. Police said the coils were exported to the United States. The copper thread used to make the coils is only 1 millimeter in diameter. The thread had to be stretched straight in order to wind the coils. Each coil had over 100 rounds. The thread had to be stretched once each round. Many workers hands were worn out and bleeding. After a while, they could not straighten their fingers.

Practitioners were also forced to draw on glass vases with paint and silver powder for a company in Weihai. Many people were squeezed into one room to work. The paint smell made people dizzy; some vomited. Other work included making plastic flowers for a handcraft company in Wucheng County, Dezhou City, making cloth rabbits, and cutting off thread ends from clothes. Police assigned jobs every day. If someone could not finish the job, he had to work overtime. Moreover, he would be labeled as having "thought problems." Practitioners were not allowed to rest on Sundays, the holiday given by law. Tools used for the work were bought with practitioners' own money.

Other brigades also strung pearls and wove wool carpets. The tenth brigade assigned heavy workloads for weaving carpet. Under the extreme pressure of the physical work and mental torture, six practitioners courageously ran out the door. Due to malnutrition, they were weak in their arms and legs, and could not run fast. They were caught not long after they ran out. The six practitioners were punished with extended jail terms and confinement in a small jail cell. Practitioner Li Shande in the tenth brigade was tortured to death (the exact circumstances are not yet clear). The leader of the tenth brigade, Zhao Yongming, was responsible for the above two incidents. Li Shande was a teacher of Dezhou City. After his death, the tenth brigade was dissolved, and the original four brigades were reduced to three brigades. They were the ninth brigade, tenth brigade (formerly the eleventh brigade), and the eleventh brigade (formerly the twelfth brigade). Authorities tried to cover up the truth of the torture with these re-organization tricks.

The Second Labor Camp of Shandong Province committed many crimes still not known to the outside world. I suggest that all the practitioners who suffered torture there step forward and write what they know in order to expose the evil, so that kind people can learn the truth of the persecution in the labor camp.

(Editors' Note: The vicious incidents of Dafa practitioners being brutally tortured and forced to do hard labor reflect the evil nature of the police in labor camps. As practitioners, we should resist the orders and instructions of the persecutors and do as described in Teacher's new article "Stop the Evil Acts with Righteous Thoughts" to stop the evil acts and crimes toward cultivators with practitioners' righteous thoughts, instead of tolerating and cooperating with the persecution.)

February 20, 2004

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/2/23/68124.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version