Atrocities Witnessed in Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp

By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Hebei Province, China

(Clearwisdom.net) On July 22, 2004, the county 610 Office illegally arrested Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Liu Huifen and sent her to the detention center. They also tried to extort a ransom of 20,000 yuan from her family. To protest this persecution and to discourage them from making further claims, her family refused to pay. On August 18, the authorities sent Ms. Liu to the Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp's Fifth Division for one year.

Since former president Jiang Zemin's regime started persecuting Falun Gong in 1999, the methods that the Gaoyang Labor Camp officers have used again Falun Gong practitioners have been extremely brutal, obscene and despicable. Besides the usual physical punishments, they have used snakes, lizards, heated irons and suffocation in the form of burying practitioners alive for a period of time. Practitioners that refused to be "transformed" in labor camps from areas including Shijiazhuang, Tangshan, Zhangjiakou, Beijing, Xinjiang, and Heilongjiang, were commonly sent to Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp. Therefore Jiang's regime favored this labor camp and awarded it a certificate of "achievement," and rewarded the warden with a large sum of money.

When Liu Huifen arrived, there were about 100 practitioners at the camp but there weren't many non-practitioner prisoners.

Practitioners have protested the persecution ever since it began, and have endured pains that ordinary people could not. With righteous thoughts and actions, the environment in the labor camp has been constantly changing. The warden and deputy warden of the labor camp have since been arrested for "abuse of power" and for making "unconstitutional arrests." Although their cruelty has decreased, they are still committing evil acts.

Practitioner Ms. Wang Junhua, from Zhangjiakou District, was sent to Gaoyang Labor Camp for forced "transformation." Three team leaders beat her simultaneously with electric batons until she lost consciousness. A practitioner from Zhangjiakou, Ms. Li Cuilian shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" Deputy team leader Li Xuejun beat her with an electric baton. When he got tired, he made a prisoner beat her. He told the prisoner to remove Ms Li's sock and stuff it in her mouth if she shouted, "Falun Dafa is good" again. Once, a prison guard put shackles on a Beijing practitioner, and tried to inject him with unidentified substances. Li Cuilian stopped him and said, "We practitioners have no sickness." For saying this, they took her to the pig farm and beat her on the face with leather boots until her mouth was black and blue and swollen. Her body was covered in mud, and one of her shoes was missing. Another female practitioner who had to feed the pigs witnessed a prison guard taking a male practitioner to the field and beating him to the ground with an electric baton. He was screaming horribly and lost control of his bladder.

Five or six practitioners in cells on the second floor, including Ms. Cao Jinhua, who is almost 60 years old and Ms. Zhao Suiying, who is 37 years old, were very weak from the relentless abuse and could not get up. During this year's Chinese New Year, the prison guards lied to them, saying they were going to be given a medical checkup, and ordered several prisoners to carry them out. Some practitioners were not even allowed to put on an overcoat. Instead of being taken to a clinic, the practitioners were left on a dunghill for a day. Their clothes were filthy as a result of this abuse.

The torture methods that prison guards have deployed are unimaginable.

At mealtimes, everyone is sent to the cafeteria. They give people very little time to eat and start hustling them to finish up. Often, one has to leave before finishing eating. No food is allowed to be taken back. The prison guards claim that they are wasting money "supporting" the practitioners. In the labor camp, practitioners do not get to eat vegetables. Sometimes when the practitioners were sent to the field to work, they harvested a few plants of a very bitter vegetable and let everyone chew a few leaves. The main food they serve is a very salty noodle that's almost inedible. Regardless of the food, there is usually not enough cooking gas and so the food cannot be cooked. Therefore, we practitioners were often given dried food and water, or a few pieces of preserved vegetable. During summer they cooked a "green bean soup," but you couldn't find any beans in it. There was so little to go around that sometimes people could only have a little bit while others didn't even get any. Sometimes we were served dumplings on Chinese New Year, but they weren't cooked thoroughly. Since they are often stuffed with pork, they could not be eaten.

The Gaoyang Forced Labor Camp uses various deceptions to cover their crimes to the outside world. For example, they serve a few pieces of carrot, radish, rice noodles and few greens in the soup (no salt) and claim this as serving "four dishes and a soup."

The prison guards and team leader's family members as well as retired guards have opened little shops inside the camp and charge exorbitant prices.

When officials from supervising organizations come to "inspect," the labor camp authorities make the non-practitioners prisoners lie to them and hide practitioners who aren't feeling well. In reality, the supervisory officials are just as corrupt as the guards and have their own interests at stake. So the officials and guards deceive each other and hide their own transgressions.

As of late June 2005, there are still 70 to 80 practitioners at the labor camp. A handful of practitioners have been "transformed" but they are not able to do much harm. Also, in various cells and lunchrooms there are now fewer banners that slander Master and Dafa.

The prison guards had been receiving phone calls and flyers from practitioners on the outside that clarify the truth. They had been shaken tremendously, and they cannot relax at any time of the day or night. Some of them have read the "Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party" and asked outside people to help them withdraw from the CCP on the Internet.

August 30, 2005

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2005/9/11/110174.html

 Yearly Archive   Printer Version