Facts Surrounding the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in the Ninth Brigade of the Shayang Labor Camp in Hubei Province

By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Hubei Province

(Clearwisdom.net) On April 17, 2004, all of the Falun Gong practitioners who were illegally detained in the Wuchang Shizishan Compulsory Drug Rehabilitation Center (in Wuhan City, Hubei Province) were transferred to the Shayang Labor Camp in Hubei Province. The male practitioners were assigned to the Third Brigade, and the female practitioners were assigned to the Second and Ninth Brigades. Practitioners who were transferred to the Shayang Labor Camp included those who had been imprisoned in the Denglin Labor Camp. All of the practitioners were forced to attend an over two-week-long brainwashing session after they arrived at the labor camp. Liu Qun was a guard specially trained to be in charge of brainwashing practitioners in the Ninth Brigade. She was 26 years old and talked a lot. She didn't allow others to argue with her and was very overbearing. She had gone to other places many times to learn brainwashing techniques. Another guard, Liu Bing, was 28 years old and had graduated from a junior college with a law degree. She often lost her temper with practitioners and was specially trained in brainwashing. Guard Cai Zhengying was 40 years old and once played a role in a drama that slandered Falun Gong in the 2003 "Spring Festival Performance," which was broadcast throughout the labor camp system. She too was specialized in brainwashing. Currently, Cai is leader of the Third Squad in the Ninth Brigade.

When I got to the Shayang Labor Camp in April 2003, there were 12 squads in the Ninth Brigade. The First and Second Squads were dedicated to brainwashing, and they were called "conversation rooms." The two conversation rooms contained drug addicts who were personal cangues (1) who monitored Falun Dafa practitioners newly arrived at the labor camp. Also in there were the so-called "instructional assistants," who specialized in brainwashing. If they were not able to shake the practitioners' faith with their twisted logic, they forced the practitioners to stand for a whole day from morning to night. The practitioners had to stand with their feet tied to each other, their hands tied to the sides of their legs, their eyes open and heads raised up. The guards did not allow practitioners to lean on the beds, talk to each other, or go to the bathroom without permission. The instructional assistants, guards and drug addicts insulted practitioners at will and cursed the founder of Falun Dafa.

Ms. Yang Yanhong, a Falun Gong practitioner from Yingcheng City, Hubei Province, was forced to attend a brainwashing session again from May 10 to May 25, 2003. Her fiancé, Mr. Zhan Wei, had died as a result of abuse by policemen in January 2003. This helped her to realize that giving in to the brainwashing was wrong. Prison guard Cai Zhengying told the instructional assistant that Ms. Yang was hostile toward society and she could be broken down from this angle. During the two-week-long forced brainwashing, Ms. Yang was tortured every day until 1 or 2 a.m. The guards forced her to stand or squat all day long. There were a few times that she could not take it any more, so she lay down on the ground. The drug addicts pulled her up and forced her to stand. Sometimes Ms. Yang was forced to do slave labor. She was forced to thread the filaments in small light bulbs used in flashlights. Other prisoners had to finish threading filaments packaged in boxes weighing about 5-5.5 pounds every day in the workshop, but Ms. Yang had to thread 6.6-7.7 pounds of filaments. She suffered pain in her loins and her back. Ms. Yang once secretly told me that the conversation room was the worst place to go. To brainwash her, the guards and the cangues beat her many times. At around 1 or 2 a.m., Ms. Yang was exhausted and couldn't stand up straight any longer. A drug addict named Li told her that she could go to sleep right away, as long as she wrote the so-called "disassociation statement" (2). Ms. Yang refused to write it. Another drug addict and Li ordered her to squat down. After squatting down for about half an hour, Ms. Yang could not endure it any more and refused to squat down. Li held her hands behind her back and kicked her to force her to kneel down. Ms. Yang could not help crying out and lay down on the ground. Li was not able to pull her up, so he humiliated her by tearing apart her clothes, forcing her to take off her shirt and verbally abusing her. The instructional assistant told Liu Bing the next morning when she came to work. However, Liu Bing simply told the instructional assistant to feel free to coordinate with the cangues.

Ms. Huang, a practitioner in her 60s from Enshi City, Hubei Province, was sentenced to three years in labor camp. She gave in to the pressure at first and wrote some things against Falun Dafa, but she became clear-headed after some time and realized her mistake. So she was sent to the conversation room with Yang Yanhong on May 10, 2003. Ms. Huang just kept one thing straight in her mind, that she had gotten her health back because she practiced Falun Gong. In order to brainwash her, the guards didn't allow her to sleep. They forced her to hold a bucket filled with excrement and walk back and forth on the drill grounds during the daytime, and squat down in the evening. I once saw Ms. Huang Qiuzhen from Xianning and Ms. Liu Xiuying from Ezhou holding buckets of soil and walking back and forth on the drill grounds for many days. Many practitioners were forced to compromise because they couldn't withstand the constant abuse of their minds and bodies. If these practitioners renounced their actions later on, they were again sent to brainwashing sessions for further abuse.

During the busy farming season, the Ninth Brigade was dispatched to help the male brigade to pick peanuts and ginger, to hoe weeds, plant peanuts and so on. This year, we had to pick honeysuckle, a Chinese herb, for ten days every month. We had to pick 11 pounds of honeysuckle every day. For the rest of every month, we had to do slave labor in workshops. We made colored lanterns, cigarette lighters and small trumpets. These products were all very intricate and required good vision and skillful hands. For example, to make cores for cigarette lighters, we had to use medical tweezers and finish about eight specific procedures. To make colored lanterns, we had to use a welding torch and a special kind of fluid and went through very complicated sets of procedures. The procedures for making the small trumpets were the most complicated. The wiring on the trumpets were as thin as a hair, and two people in the second brigade damaged their eyes because of the long hours of making the small trumpets. The fluid used to make trumpets was corrosive, and a lot of people reported that their hands were festering in January 2004.

There was a period of time when Liu Qun and another guard named Zhang were in charge of the workshops. They only allowed us to go to the restroom at most twice a day. They assigned a specific person in each team to wash dishes. Many people had to hold back their need to use the toilet if they were not allowed to go to restroom. We had to deal with the dirty dishes also. We started to work in the workshops in June 2003. Every day, we worked until 2 or 3 a.m., sometimes even to 4:30 a.m. After we returned, we took a quick bath and by 6 a.m. it was time to start work again. We had such a schedule every day. One day in early November, most of the practitioners suddenly became seriously sick, with runny noses, tears, coughs and high fevers. Some took intravenous injections for several days. Everyone was very pale. Gong Shanxiu, head of the Ninth Brigade, Cheng Yu, assistant head of the Ninth Brigade and Sun Hong, squad leader of the Third Squad realized that people could die from such a high intensity of labor, so they shortened our work time to 11 p.m. Soon Sun Hong was hospitalized for an operation, and a guard named Huang and Liu Qun took charge. Liu Qun didn't allow anyone to disagree with what she said. Since 2003, the labor camp has admitted many senior practitioners who didn't have much education. They generally had poor health conditions. For example, Mr. Wang from Yong'an, Xianning district was 63. Even so, the elderly practitioners still had to work in the workshops every day and had to finish their work quotas.

When I left the Ninth Brigade in May 2004, there were still over 50 practitioners there. I heard there were over 40 practitioners in the Second Brigade. Some practitioners' terms expired in June and July. In the Ninth Brigade, we had to jog every morning and shout slogans. We had to shout out loud during roll call. If we refused, the guard on duty punished us by forcing us to stand facing the wall without moving for long periods of time. After the evening roll call, the guards often gave us a lecture. Gong Shanxiu, head of the Ninth Brigade, and Cheng Yu, the assistant head, often said in their admonishment, "As long as you come to the labor camp, you have to obey our orders here. You must always remember your status as a labor camp prisoner. Your only way out is by obeying orders." Sometimes to depict the so-called "civilized reformation or education," they required practitioners to write to their families and tell them that they had been living a good life in the prison. Actually, we had a very tight schedule every day. Only after late 2003, were we allowed to not work a full schedule on the Chinese New Year and October 1 (National Day). We were given only five minutes to brush our teeth, wash our face and use the restroom in the morning. Both our minds and bodies were constantly in a very tense state, and we experienced a feeling of terror and gloom that was hard to describe.

Contact Information -

Gong Shanxiu, head of the Ninth Brigade, female, age 37, (cellular) 86-13971847312
Cheng Yu, assistant head of Ninth Brigade, age 25 or 26, (cellular) 86-13986961030 (cellular)
Cai Zhengying, squad leader of the Third Squad, (home phone) 86-724-4066382

Telephone number of the Ninth Brigade, 86-724-4066330

(1) "Personal cangues": a "cangue" is a wooden collar worn by prisoners in the past. It is now used to indicate the person who was designated to monitor the behavior of practitioners.

(2) "Disassociation statement": a statement to declare disassociation with Falun Gong and to promise not go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong.

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