Callous Persecution at the Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp in Tianjin

By a Dafa practitioner from Tianjin

(Clearwisdom.net) Tianjin's Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp has detained many male practitioners from different regions since the persecution began. They have included government officials, factory workers, and farmers. Persecution is one way the guards can get promotions and make money. As a result they continue to brutally torture practitioners without any hesitation.

Prior to 2003, the following individuals were responsible for many acts of persecution: Ren and Yang, political heads in Team #5; Provost Chang; Dong and Du, team heads (in their 30s); and other police guards who used criminals as hatchet men. These officials, using sentence reductions as enticement, encouraged criminals to beat practitioners. The worse a criminal was, the more of an "important" position he would be assigned. With police encouragement, criminals openly yelled, "We could beat one of you to death! If you die, we will dig a pit to bury you." To achieve a so-called "reformation quota" they used all kind of methods, such depriving practitioners of sleep for a long time. In some teams, for two weeks practitioner only had two to three hours sleep per day. Sometimes there was no sleep at all. Practitioners had to work during the day and put up with punishment by having to stand at night.

The criminals and guards frequently tortured practitioners in the evenings. For one torture they forced a practitioner into the lotus position, crammed him underneath a bed a foot high above the ground, with his head sticking out and both arms hanging and not touching the floor. If the victim could not do this, they would beat him with the bottoms of their shoes. There was a restriction on drinking water. When the practitioner had finished washing his eating utensils and was caught filling a bottle with hot drinking water, he would be beaten again if the guards discovered it. Restroom use was also restricted. Practitioners who could not tolerate this and ran into the bathroom would be punished either by being beaten with wooden sticks or having cold water poured over them.

Canceling shower privileges during the heat of summer made practitioners develop scabies. Guards forced everyone to be exposed under the sun without clothes or drinking water and allowed no bathroom use for a whole day. Several days later some practitioners had festering wounds on their legs, large areas of scabies on their bodies, and open, oozing sores on their hands. In spite of these poor hygienic and health conditions, practitioners had to work with their hands to make soybean products and "sanitary" chopsticks for hotels and restaurants.

Guards used criminals to monitor practitioners' activities with hand-held sticks during the practitioners' working hours. If they saw a slow one, he would be pulled out and beaten. Because of the long-term lack of sleep practitioners easily fell asleep at work, so they were frequently hit. Some practitioners had to work on their knees because they had abscesses on their buttocks, which made it too painful to sit. After work, the punishment continued. Back in their cells, the practitioners had to sit on stools facing the wall and could not move. Any movement would lead to a severe beating. Most of practitioners had festering wounds on their buttocks and suffered from needle-sharp pain when sitting. The pus and blood stuck to their clothing and to their skin, tearing off when they stood up, creating fresh wounds, scabbing over, then becoming infected again, and the whole process began anew.

The posture of many practitioners had deteriorated from long-time torture. Their upper bodies were humpbacked and the lower parts of their bodies hurt. They walked as if they were lame. Nevertheless, they had to participate in army-style training and run for long-distances. Team head Du called this treatment a "cure." Several criminals would hold one practitioner down on the ground and brush off the scabs on his sores. They then poured cold water over him in the wintertime. They would repeat this process two days after the sores had fresh scabs. As the result, these fresh wounds would bleed and the practitioner would scream in pain. It was called a "treatment," but no medication was provided. They even treated practitioners in their 60s and 70s the same ruthless way. During the winter, practitioners were made to take a cold shower every day, in addition to enduring open wounds and being doused with cold water for so-called "treatment." No matter how sick a person was with fever, he had to work.

Each Falun Gong practitioner was partnered with a "squeeze control" member selected from among criminals and was monitored closely. Practitioners were forbidden to talk among themselves. If someone disobeyed, he would be pulled into a bathroom and brutally beaten with a wooden stick soaked in water.

Because many practitioners had open wounds, they were forbidden to touch anything in the cells. Touching the edge of a bed would result in a beating. Practitioners could not sleep on the bed. Instead, they had to sleep under the bed on a wooden board underneath. For a period of time even the wooden board was not allowed. They had to find an empty instant noodle cardboard box and sleep on it. They had to fold the carton up when they rose and hide it somewhere for the next time. There were many rules for punishment, such as don't make any sound when taking or replacing something. Sometimes practitioners were beaten for no reason.

Practitioners got up before 5:00 a.m. to start working until 11:00 or 12:00 at night. To meet deadlines for goods for export, such as artificial flowers, they had to work overtime at night. Fearing inspection by a higher authority, the camp officials frequently arranged for the practitioners to do the work in a bathroom where it was quite dirty, without any proper working conditions. In the evening, all practitioners were forced to line up, kneel on one knee, and greet the team head guards. Once I refused to bend my knee. I was then called in to the office. Team head Du beat me with a rubber stick and then had two criminals punch and kick me.

Monthly family visitations were restricted, because the camp insisted that the injuries the practitioners had sustained be healed first. Conversations during visiting times were conducted under surveillance by the team head. No practitioner would dare to relate anything going on in the camp to outsiders. Team head Du would check a practitioner's belongings when the visitors had left. Any discovery of a hidden, written note would lead to shocking with electric batons.

To meet the "reform" quota, the camp purchased a batch of 150,000 volt electric batons to abuse the practitioners. The camp enforcers covered evidence of torture by turning the radio to the highest volume to muffle the practitioners' agonizing screams when they were being electrically shocked. Some practitioners were unable to endure the torture, and they hit their heads on the wall or cut their wrists. (Note: China's persecution of Falun Gong is atrocious, but it is wrong for a cultivator to deliberately injure his or her own body as a way of protest. A Falun Gong practitioner must not do so, for it directly violates Falun Gong's cultivation principles. Only truly righteous thoughts and actions will prevail over and disintegrate the persecution). After 2003, the camp created a special team to escalate the brainwashing. Provost Chang worked overtime and tortured practitioners to give up their faith, using electric shocks. He turned the radio volume loud enough to cover the practitioners' tortured screams.

Practitioner Zhu Guang once came back with a swollen face, his eyes barely visible, and was barely recognizable after the beating. It happened while everyone else went out to work. Team head Dong had the "squeeze control" criminal beat him using the bottoms of his shoes and said, "This is a bad person beating another bad person." The criminal was transferred to another team.

The camp used atrocious and perverted methods to persecute practitioners. Teacher Tang Jian, a graduate of Nankai University, was tortured to death (his story was posted in the Minghui/Clearwisdom website). Zhou Xiangyang was tortured with the same method used on Tang Jian.

Zhou Zhencai, Zhou Xiangyang's father who is in his 60s, is now deprived of freedom at the camp and experiences abuse and maltreatment under this persecution.

What I have related above is all true. These were incidents of abuse and mistreatment under the persecution that I remembered after I was released. This is only small portion of what I personally witnessed and experienced. Many practitioners are still detained at Tianjin's Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp and suffer from inhuman maltreatment. I hope that the international community will pay attention.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/1/30/119760.html

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