|
The Story Behind Making China's "Sanitary" Chopsticks -- Exposing Slave Labor Practices Inside Chinese Labor Camps (Part Three)
(Clearwisdom.net) Part 1: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2004/3/25/46394.html
(continued)
10. Methods of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners not only include cruel
torture but also forcing high intensity labor in Changchun Heizuizi Female
Forced Labor Camp in Jilin Province. Overworking practitioners is a method used
by the officials of the Forced Labor Camp to break down Falun Dafa practitioners
physically and mentally. For example: each person processing the masks is
required to finish 500 pieces per day when it is only possible to do about 300.
Each person processing handicraft products on small clothes is required to
finish from 100 to 150 pieces per day. It is impossible to finish. Any
practitioner who doesn't finish the unreasonable quota, is punished and beaten.
So, the curses and the threats happen every day.
Under extreme mental pressure and harsh physical labor Falun Gong
practitioners can't practice Falun Gong in Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced
Labor Camp, so their physical bodies have become very weak. Many of the
practitioners have heart disease, high blood pressure, cough up blood, have
pulmonary disease, or are in a coma and bleeding. Even though some practitioners
can't get up, the police still force them to go to work. As long as the
practitioners can still breathe, they have to work.
Changchun Nanguan District Sanitation Materials Factory (Mask Processing
Factory) and Changchun Yuping Crafts and Fine Arts Factory (The Clothes of Ling
Puppets Handicraft Products Processing Factory) have contracts with Changchun
Heizuizi Female Forced Labor Camp.
Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labor Camp also forces the practitioners to
collate book pages which is very hard to do. The first procedure for processing
a standard book is called collating large pages for a book. The shape and size
of the large pages are the same as the pages of the regular Chinese newspapers.
While folding a large page, the person has to make sure that the page numbers
match and are in the proper order. Then, gradually fold the large page down to
the standard size of a book. One large page is called one "Tai" and there are
about eight or nine "Tai" for one book. Because of the large quantities, these
large pages can be stacked as tall as a person. Folding fifty pieces is called
one "Da" (some books use one hundred pieces for one "Da") and five "Da" are one
package. People who work fast can finish between nine to eleven packages in
fifteen to eighteen hours. Beginners can only finish two or three packages. The
work is monitored for both quality and quantity. If a person folds the large
page just a little bit off center, it will be very easy to cut off the words or
the page numbers when doing the third procedure which is when they cut the pages
down to size. Falun Dafa practitioners are all beaten and cursed by the police
and the criminals during the folding procedure.
The folding board for the big pages is made of bamboo. It is about 38cm long
and 6cm wide. It is also used as an implement of punishment. Liu Lianying, the
head of the Second Brigade, beats Falun Dafa practitioners with the bamboo
folding board, especially on their faces and mouths. From 1999 until 2001, Falun
Dafa practitioners Zheng Donghui, Zheng Sixiang, Xu Gongchun, Tian Xiuhua and
others all suffered from this torture so much that their faces and eyes were
swollen and there were big knots on their foreheads.
An article revealing the crimes committed against practitioners in this place
was written by a Jilin Falun Gong practitioner and published on the Minghui.net.
In the article, she pointed out that the purpose of forced labor for Falun Dafa
practitioners in the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labor Camp is to try to
destroy the practitioners' will. She wrote: "On March 8, 2003, the officials of
the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labor Camp continuously forced Dafa
practitioners to sort soybeans and only allowed them to sleep less than two
hours a day for three days, using the excuse the work being a rush job. While
sorting out the soybeans, the practitioners were so tired that our eyes were
dim-sighted. Regardless, we had to carry the bags of sorted soybeans from
upstairs to downstairs. Each bag weighed about forty five kilograms and we did
over twenty tons. Next, we had to carry up the bags of unsorted soybeans from
downstairs to upstairs. Each of these bags weighed about sixty-five kilograms.
In all, we moved over seventy tons. At that time, no one knew how many old,
young and sick people were involved processing this rush job. I continuously
carried bags sixteen times round trip in two hours and another practitioner who
worked with me did seventeen round trips in the same time. During this 'rush
job,' some practitioners hurt their backs and some even threw up due to complete
exhaustion."
A Jilin girl who was just twenty-two years old in 2004, said: "On January 8,
2003, I was transferred to the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labor Camp,
where they assigned me to the 'performing team.' After that, I was separated
from others. I was not allowed to go out of the ward nor was I allowed to talk
with anyone during times allotted for bathing or going to the bathroom. I was
not even allowed to have a meal downstairs. In the daytime, I wasn't allowed to
close my eyes, to sit with my legs crossed or to stand in front of the windows.
We couldn't even look each other. That was not all, I was forced to attend
brainwashing sessions, read propaganda and watch television programs all
defaming Falun Dafa. This was the first time in my twenty years of living that I
felt how terrible it was to lose my freedom."
"Because I persisted in practicing Falun Dafa, policewoman Xiao Aiqiu talked
to me several times. When she saw that didn't work, she decided to not allow my
mother to visit me and threatened me several times that if I didn't give up
Falun Gong I would have to stay there longer and would be locked in solitary
confinement. I got sores that festered very fast. She didn't dare to touch me,
so she only kicked me several times. Under the tremendous mental pressure and
fear every day, I could hardly sleep. Sometimes I woke up from nightmares even
though I had just fallen asleep. I felt much older than twenty during that
period of time. Later, I became scared, very emotional and nervous, and I didn't
want to talk with anyone. I couldn't take it any more and almost went crazy.
Previously I had been such an active and bright girl."
The girl said that after she wrote the "Renouncement Statement" (the written
proclamation giving up practicing Falun Gong), which was contrary to her inner
belief, she was released from the solitary ward, where she had been confined for
thirty-five days. Then she was sent to work in the workshop and to practice
dancing.
She also said: "Our regular work and rest schedule was that we got up between
4:30 and 5: 00 AM. After washing our faces and brushing our teeth, we
immediately went to work and went to sleep at 8:30 PM. Sometimes we were forced
to work overtime until 9:00 or 10:00 PM. The latest time was past midnight and
we had to get up at 4:00 AM in order to finish the rush work. Our only rest time
was when we had a meal or when we went to the bathroom. It was even scheduled
what time we could go to the bathroom. They only allowed us to have twenty
minutes to finish the whole process from lining up in order and counting
people's numbers, getting down to the canteen and having a meal, washing the
dishes, and counting the numbers before going back upstairs, so we had to eat
quickly. After a long period of time, many people developed stomach problems by
doing it this way.
The girl who continuously refused to give her name: "In Changchun Heizuizi
Female Forced Labor Camp, the First Brigade was required to make butterflies and
birds. The Second Brigade was making birds and collating book pages. The Third
Brigade was making the birds and collating book pages. The Fourth Brigade was
collating book pages and processing the small toy clothing craft products. The
Fifth Brigade was making various birds. Some of the birds were made of feathers
while others were made of paper. The Sixth Brigade was making the birds and
processing the small toy clothing craft products. The Seventh Brigade was making
birds, small toy ship craft products and sewing products. In addition to that,
they also processed some other products such as advertisement banners, paper
bags, paper boxes and other things. The bird and butterfly craft products and
small toy clothes were exported to Japan, America and other countries. Every
year the brigades regularly turn over a lot of money to the Changchun Heizuizi
Female Forced Labor Camp, the rest of the money all becomes the warden's bonus,
so the production quantity directly relates with the warden's benefits."
"The performing teams don't have a fixed output in the Changchun Heizuizi
Female's Forced Labor Camp, but they do have this in the fifth brigade. We were
not only doing the work but also rehearsing dances. There were no words to
describe how tired we were. Whenever we hurried up to finish an order of
product, we had to continuously work overtime. It seemed that we would just get
to sleep, and it was already time to get up. People were so tired that they
could go to sleep standing up. Every time when a holiday was coming such as May
first, July first or October first, we were required to rehearse dance
performances over and over from the morning until the evening. After dancing the
whole time, we couldn't feel where our feet were. The exhaustion and the extreme
mental pressure made me rapidly age. Now, I already have some wrinkles on my
face and I look a several years older than I did a year ago. Once policewoman
Xiao Aiqiu told me to bring a dancing tape to the workshop and put it on the
table, which I did. However, there was a box of glue on the table too. When she
saw that the tape was next to the box of glue, she yelled: 'If the tape gets
dirty, I will kill you.' Another time while going downstairs to rehearse the
dance, Xiao Aiqiu told me to hold her drinking glass and said to me: 'If you
drop my glass, I will kill you.' One time before the formal performance, a dance
wasn't prepared enough, and she said to me: 'If your performance tomorrow isn't
good, I will shock you to death with an electric baton.' It was as if a tape, a
glass, or a performance was more valuable than my life. One time I saw the
policewoman Wang Limei shock an over fifty-year-old practitioner because she
insisted on practicing Falun Dafa. When I heard the sound of her being
electrically shocked, I felt as if the electric baton was shocking my own body.
I can never forget that scene."
Another Falun Gong practitioner who wrote to the Minghui.net said: "I was
abducted by the police from my home on March 16, 2003, and was sentenced to a
year and half of forced labor in the Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labor
Camp. Their excuse was that I was found to have a Falun Dafa book. Most of the
people who were held at the facility were Falun Dafa practitioners and the rest
were criminals. Every day, we were processing handicraft products such as birds,
butterflies, and small toy clothes in the workshops of the third brigade. It was
said that those were exported overseas. There were over thirty people in our
workshop."
"One day in May or June 2003, we were working in the workshop. About 2:00 PM,
the labor camp police suddenly shouted at us to close all the windows and not
look outside. So all the windows were closed but they forgot to close our
workshop's windows. What happened? What were they doing? Some Falun Gong
practitioners and I looked outside through the open windows. We saw four medical
workers with masks and isolation clothes carrying a person on a stretcher. They
had come from the ward opposite the second brigade. The person on the stretcher
wore the camp's clothes. Her head was covered and she didn't move at all. While
stepping down, the wind blew the cover off of her head and we saw her face. It
seemed that she was dead. They carried her out of the camp gate and took her
away in a vehicle. Meanwhile the automatic door was closed and we couldn't see
any more."
"Later on, we asked around privately and found that the person who was
carried out of the camp was a Falun Dafa practitioner and she was indeed dead.
We didn't know her name and we didn't know how she had been tortured to death.
This is because the practitioners were not permitted to talk to each other in
the Forced Lobar Camp. Hopefully, some practitioners who were released from the
second brigade of Changchun Heizuizi Female Forced Labor Camp can expose the
facts of her murder to the public. |