Changlinzi Labor Camp in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province Tortures Practitioners to Force Them to Give Up Their Belief

By a Falun Dafa Practitioner from Heilongjiang Province

(Clearwisdom.net) In August 2002, police from the local police station broke into my house and insisted that I write the Three Statements. After I refused to do so, a group of police dragged me into a police car. They demanded my family members to open my study and confiscated the portraits of our Teacher, all the Falun Dafa books, and audiotapes. After they took me to the police station, they shackled me to a metal chair and handcuffed my hands behind my back. Later, they transferred me to the police sub-bureau. The police pressured me to tell them my contacts and how we were connected. My family members begged me to cooperate so that I could be released sooner. I did not betray my fellow practitioners. The police sent me to the Wanjia Labor Camp for further persecution. In the Wanjia Labor Camp, I met several practitioners. One police officer slandered Falun Dafa in front of us. Later, a division head talked to all the practitioners. This division head was very vicious and later met with karmic retribution because of his persecution of Falun Dafa. After the talks, several practitioners wrote the Three Statements. The ones who refused to do so had to squat on a one-foot-square tile until bedtime. All the Falun Dafa practitioners in the training camp were closely monitored. They were not allowed to talk. They were ordered to recite the prison regulations. A few days later, I was sent to the Fifth Brigade of the Changlinzi Labor Camp.

I. The Torturous Brainwashing Tactics in the Fifth Brigade of the Changlinzi Labor Camp

The Fifth Brigade of the Changlinzi Labor Camp is a new brigade established specifically for brainwashing Falun Dafa practitioners. The three brigade leaders are Zhao Shuang, Yang Yu, and another person with the last name of Zhang. The three leaders and several instructors were all very vicious. The common criminal inmates who were selected to watch Falun Dafa practitioners were the roughest ones from various brigades. The head of the inmates was nicknamed "Knife, Gun and Canon"; ::; he had bribed the legal officers in order to avoid a prison term and was instead sentenced to a labor camp. In the labor camp, even the doctors had to apologize to him after saying something inappropriate, to avoid retaliation. This man committed murder again when he was on parole, and other officers were even implicated.

When people came to the Fifth Brigade, they would be subjected to a body search first, and then the brainwashing would begin. For those practitioners who refused to write the "Three Statements," the police would apply the following tortures:

• Pushing: the practitioner's mouth is sealed with tape, and they are forced to lie face down with the chest touching the floor; the head is pressed to the floor by a chair with a person sitting on it; the practitioner's arms are held to their sides, then roughly pushed forward to form a 180º arc up over their back and down to the floor in front of the head.

• Splitting: splitting the fingers and toes with hard implements.

• Bending: bending the practitioner's legs in painful positions.

• "Counting Ribs": a hard object is used to painfully poke the ribs one by one.

• Chopping: chopping the practitioner's neck with a wooden board.

• "Hammering": repeatedly striking the practitioner's back with the legs of a stool.

• Electric Shock: electric batons are used to shock the practitioner's body, including the genital area. If the area is burned from the shock, then hot water is poured over the body and the shocks are resumed when the water cools down.

• Whipping: a rubber baton is used the whip the practitioner's head; a strip of rubber is used for whipping the entire body.

• Piercing: piercing the body with needles.

• Slapping: brutally slapping the face.

• Punching and Kicking: heavy shoes are worn when kicking practitioners.

• Showering: drenching practitioners with cold water.

• Freezing: placing practitioners in front of open windows to subject them to the icy winter air.

• Hanging: practitioners are handcuffed and hung from a bunk bed for several days. They are often prohibited from closing their eyes during this time.

• Torture with Rats: rats are put into practitioner's pants, and the pants tied closed so that the rats will bit them.

• Twisting: toothbrush handles are placed between the fingers, and the practitioner's hand is clamped tightly; the toothbrushes are roughly twisted until the flesh on the fingers is torn. Often the bone is exposed by this torture.

• Squatting: practitioners are forced to squat inside a square-foot tile for long periods of time.

• Brushing: the back of the neck is rubbed with a wooden block until swollen, then a toothbrush is used to rub the area until it is raw and bloody.

• Pinching: the perpetrators wear rubber gloves and pinch the practitioner's testicles.

• Elbowing: hitting the chest with the elbows.

• Smearing the eyelids with hot pepper powder: this is often done to keep practitioners from falling asleep.

• Force-feeding: practitioners who are protesting the persecution by staging hunger strikes are force-fed with mustard oil through their nostrils. Highly salted food and concentrated saltwater solutions are also administered.

• "Drumming": the entire body is repeatedly struck with a heavy object wrapped in wool yarn.

In the labor camp, practitioners were also attacked psychologically: "Practitioner so and so was so determined, but later he wrote the Three Statements. How long can you go on? You will give in tomorrow." Under the extremely brutal torture, some practitioners could not bear it and wrote the "Three Statements." Some practitioners were tortured nearly to death and were transferred to the Wanjia Labor Camp hospital, where they died.

II. The Inhumane Treatment at the Wanjia Labor Camp Hospital

Falun Dafa practitioners were also tortured in the hospital of the Wanjia Labor Camp. The doctors often beat the practitioners who were on a hunger strike. They put a lot of salt in the food and force-fed practitioners. They often ordered the practitioners who refused to write the "Three Statements" to squat, and deprived them of their sleep. They would pierce their body with a needle when the practitioners dozed off. They ordered practitioners to take a cold bath in the winter. Several people nearly lost their lives when taking the cold bath. Regular inmates were also beaten frequently.

In the hospital, two family visits were allowed each month. The food and clothes brought by the family members were taken by the doctors on duty at will. Practitioners were not allowed to take a bath or change clothes. Thus, lice thrived and scabies spread. The doctors used a special spoon to scrape the blisters of the scabies until they bled and then left them uncovered. In the rooms for tuberculosis patients, Rooms 309 and 314, and the Closely Monitored Room, 307, patients were not allowed to lie down during the day and had to sit up the whole time. Their clothes stuck to their bleeding wounds and caused unbearable pain when they were taken off.

The Wanjia Labor Camp only provided half a bun, a bowl of thin vegetable soup, and a few slices of pickles for breakfast and supper, and one bun and one bowl of thin vegetable soup for lunch. The rest of the food was thrown away just to starve the patients. The patients were not allowed to pick up any food from the garbage can. The doctors on duty could collect money from the family members during the visit but he had to turn over some of the money to their superiors. The inmates in charge of the practitioners had to hand in at least 5,000 yuan service fee to the leader Chen. The inmate in charge could sell boiled water (100 yuan per person each month), and liquor (packed in plastic bags, sold for 50 yuan per bag). He determined which doctors would be on duty for each room, and decided on the room and bed for the patients; he also enjoyed a fully equipped kitchen; one person was assigned to wash his clothes and cook his food. A service fee of 300 to 500 yuan was required to use a single bed. Otherwise, the patients had to sit in the room. The bunk beds had two levels, upper and lower, about 4 feet by 6 feet in size, and sometimes the lower level would sleep five to six people. Their legs had to extend outside the bed. The patients who forgot to bring their own quilt, accidentally urinated on the bed, or did not follow orders would be tied to the headboards of the beds. They were not even allowed to go to the bathroom unless they had permission.

Some patients were so badly beaten that their bodies were full of wounds. When Dean Song, the head of the hospital, came to inspect the patients, he told the doctors on duty to be more careful and not to leave obvious marks on the body in case the family members requested an autopsy when the patient died. Because the conditions in the hospital were so poor, on average, five people passed away each day. A metal coffin could contain as many as three bodies.

III. Other Forms of Persecution

The Changlinzi Linzi Labor Camp employed inmates to watch Falun Dafa practitioners in each room, and forced the practitioners to do hard labors from 6 a.m. until midnight. Patients with tuberculosis and heart disease were not exempt.

Practitioners were persecuted by being starved. They were given only a thin porridge for breakfast (sometimes the porridge turned sour) or some vegetable and corn bread or bun for lunch and supper. The bread was made with stale cornmeal, and it looked dark and sticky. The food was so unappetizing that one could become nauseated upon smelling it.

The labor camp was supposed to issue an allowance for medical treatment. No allowance was ever distributed but everyone had sign a statement saying that he had received the allowance. They collected 300 yuan for the blanket that they never provided. If one did not pay, he would not be allowed to see his family members during the family visit. One had to pay for their own medical treatment and a transportation fee. To apply for medical parole, one had to pay the application fee, over a thousand yuan, to the legal division just to check the severity of the illness. On top of that they also had to pay the processing fee, the service fee, and the assistance fee.

During the family visits, practitioners were searched very thoroughly. Even wrappers of instant noodles brought by the family had to be removed, and the entire body was searched for Teacher's articles and cash. The guards used a master key to frequently search the lock boxes in the storage room; many personal items, including some daily necessities, often disappeared.

Extended sentences occurred in the First, Second, and Fifth Brigades. Even when medical parole was approved, the camp would still refuse to release the detainees, until several months later when they became more severely ill. They would, however, notify the family members when someone passed out, for fear that they might have to shoulder the blame if the detainee died.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2005/1/9/93099.html

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