The Brutal Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in Jiangsu Province (Part 1)
(Clearwisdom.net) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began a nationwide
persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. The 610 Office at
various levels within Jiangsu Province carried out the persecution policies of
Jiang's group and the CCP against all Falun Gong in the province. According to
an incomplete estimate, nearly 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners in Jiangsu
Province have so far been illegally sentenced to forced labor,
approximately 100 practitioners have been sentenced to prison, about 100
practitioners have been sent to mental hospitals and 25 practitioners have died
as a result of torture. Most people, however, are not aware of these facts under
the CCP's information blockade. What we reveal below is only the tip of the
iceberg.
Fangqiang Labor Camp in Dafeng City and Judong Labor Camp in Zhenjiang
City
Male and female Falun Gong practitioners who were illegally sentenced to
forced labor in Jiangsu Province are held at Fangqiang Labor Camp in Dafeng City
and Judong Labor Camp in Zhenjiang City, respectively. In these camps, they are
subjected to inhuman torture and abuse. Beginning from late May 2001, the 610 Office and Jiangsu Province Labor
Reeducation Bureau not only issued "reform" quotas for the two labor
camps, they also linked the Falun Gong practitioners' renouncing the practice
with the guards' bonuses, achievement awards and promotions. According to this
policy, each guard can receive several thousand yuan for making one
practitioner give up his or her belief, and he would also get a promotion and
other advantages. As a result, the practitioners were savagely tortured at these
two labor camps during the past several years. Below are several of the most
commonly used methods to force practitioners to renounce their belief. 1. Beatings and Torture Article 1 of the "12 Prohibitions in the Process of Administering the
Law and Policies" published by Jiangsu Province Labor Reeducation Bureau,
clearly states: "Police officers and guards are forbidden from using
physical or verbal abuse, or corporal punishment [on detainees]." This
policy, however, is ignored at Fangqiang Labor Camp and Judong Labor Camp. Under
Jiang Zemin's instigation and tacit approval, torturing Falun Gong practitioners
became the guards' common practice. Guards Zhou Ruihua, Hong Ying, Huo Yan and others in Group 4 of Judong Labor
Camp often torture Falun Gong practitioners on the drill ground. They slap the
practitioners' faces, pull their hair, and kick them. Jiang Dongmei, a guard
from Group 3, forced practitioners to stand and squat day and night without
sleeping, sitting or talking. She forces two practitioners to stand back-to-back
on a tile at night without going to the restroom or wearing warm clothing in the
cold weather. Sometimes this torture lasts 11 days straight. Practitioner Qin
Yanqiu was forced to squat continuously for 18 days until she became
incontinent, her face turned pale, and she was on the brink of death. Only then
did Jiang Dongmei cease the torture temporarily. Practitioner Ms. Chen Yujie from Nanjing City was 54 years old. Guards Zhao
Yulan and Zhou Ying locked her in a solitary confinement cell and didn't allow
her to sleep, in an attempt to force her to write a "guarantee
statement." Her legs and feet swelled up and she could not wear shoes, and
her health deteriorated drastically. She often vomited right after a meal. Zhao
Yulan and Zhou Ying force-fed Ms. Chen drugs, which caused her ears to discharge
pus and she eventually lost her hearing. Her weight dropped from 72.5 kg [160
lbs] to 44.5 kg [98 lbs]. She became paralyzed and she could not take care of
herself. The labor camp authorities released Chen Yujie for medical treatment,
and falsely claimed that it was because she had a mental illness. Practitioner Mr. Chen Longchang, held in Division 4 of Fangqiang Labor Camp,
opened a sack of grain and poured out a little so he would be able to carry the
heavy sack. Guard Wei beat Chen Longchang until his eyes were swollen and
bloodshot, and he could not see. Chen Longchang's body was covered with wounds
and blood. Afterwards, the guards forbade him from contacting other
practitioners and they ordered the inmates to lie and claim that Chen Longchang
threw himself against a wall and hurt himself. They tried to get Chen Longchang
to sign this fabricated statement, but he refused. Practitioners Wang Changhua,
Lu Xiucai, Zhen Qimin, Zhang Xianming and others wrote a letter to the secretary
of the provincial CCP Committee, head of the Provincial Labor Reeducation
Bureau, and the prosecutor regarding this savage beating, but Political Head Li
Xiaoxiang of Division 4 illegally seized the letter. 2. Intensive Slave Labor Torturing practitioners by forcing them to do filthy and heavy labor is a
method that Fangqiang Labor Camp and Judong Labor Camp most often use against
Falun Gong practitioners. Chinese law states that labor camp detainees should not work for more than
six hours a day, and they should not do heavy labor. At Fangqiang Labor Camp,
however, Falun Gong practitioners sometimes are forced to work for more than 12
hours a day in the field and for 14 or 16 hours a day at the sewing workshop of
Division 1 and Division 4. When cleaning the latrine pits, other detainees are
allowed to use a pole to carry barrels of feces, while Falun Gong practitioners
are forced to carry the barrel in their arms. The feces often spill all over
their faces and clothes. The guards do not even spare older Falun Gong
practitioners. A 68-year-old practitioner was forced to remove his shoes and
socks, and clean the sewage ditch while standing in freezing water. Practitioner Kong Lingsheng from Gaochun County broke his spine before he
practiced Falun Gong. Guard Sun Liming tried to force him to give up his belief,
but he refused. Sun Liming then used slave labor to torture him. Kong Lingsheng
could not carry a barrel of feces because of his back, so Sun Liming made him
dig up feces with his hands and put it in a barrel. After one week, Sun Liming's
hands were covered in open, bleeding wounds. Sun Liming saw that Kong Lingsheng
was still determined to practice Falun Gong, so he forced him to carry barrels
of silt on the riverbed, which is the heaviest field work. 3. Guards Instigated Inmates to Beat Falun Gong Practitioners Guard Jiang Dongmei from Group 3 of Judong Labor Camp instigated inmates Xie
Lifang and others to drag Falun Gong practitioners one by one into solitary
confinement cells between May 3 and May 6, 2001. They stripped the practitioners
naked and held them down. One inmate sat on the practitioner's upper body and
one inmate sat on the practitioner's lower body, and they pinched the
practitioner's nipples and stabbed their nipples with needles. They pounded the
practitioners' abdomens with a stool and kicked their private parts. They kneed
the practitioners' private parts and plucked their pubic hair out. They stuffed
paper into female practitioners' vaginas. Inmate Xie Lifang and some other
inmates pinched the practitioners' abdomens and acupuncture points on the inside
of the practitioners' thighs. Practitioner Ms. Du Xiuju, a 42-year-old single woman who taught at
Lianyugang City Technical School, suffered from vaginal bleeding for over a
month after this torture. Xie Lifang and other inmates severely tortured
practitioner Ms. Huang Hongping from Nanjing City. They kicked and stomped her
head and face, they banged her head against the wall and sexually abused her
with the abovementioned tortures, until she urinated and defecated in her pants.
The inmates screamed at her, "It's like killing a dog if we beat you to
death! The labor camp won't hold us responsible!" Huang Hongping's abdomen,
the inside of her thighs and her lower body turned black and blue. She had to
stay in bed for more than a month, during which time she could not walk. Later
when she started walking, she had to be supported by two people. When the guards
tried to make practitioner Ms. Yu Shuxia write a guarantee statement, six
inmates beat her one after another for three days. Her eye sockets turned black,
her face and whole body were swollen, and she had bruises all over her body.
Instigated by the guards, the inmates pinched the tendons at the inside of her
thighs and plucked out her pubic hair. Ms. Yu called for help many times, but no
one came to intervene; she nearly lost her life. In order to hide this atrocity
from other people, the labor camp authorities locked Yu Shuxia in a storage room
for over twenty days until the swelling had subsided. Wei Honghui, a guard in Division 4, directed inmates to brutally beat
practitioner Mr. Wang Changhua for over 2 hours on the evening of March 23,
2001. They even broke a heavy wooden bench while beating him. Practitioner Mr.
Guo Naitong was beaten many times by inmates under the guards' orders. One time,
he was beaten by three inmates for more than three hours until he was left with
bruises all over his body and was unable to walk. Practitioner Zhu Yong was
injured by inmates under the guards' instruction. He went to the office of the
Dafeng Procuratorate residing at Fangqiang Labor Camp to state the situation,
but the prosecutor completely ignored him. The inmates act wantonly in torturing Falun Gong practitioners because of the
support and encouragement from the guards, who are in turn instigated to commit
crimes by Jiang Zemin and his villainous gang. As said by a guard in Division 2
of Fangqiang Labor Camp, "We have orders from above. We would be held
criminally responsible for the death of other labor camp detainees, but not for
the torture deaths of Falun Gong practitioners." 4. Electric Baton Torture According to the law, each labor camp division is allowed to have only two
electric batons, which are only to be used in the case of violent rebellion, and
when other methods of restraint have failed. This policy becomes an empty talk
at Fangqiang Labor Camp. Practitioner Mr. Li Weiping submitted an appeal letter to the guards on May
1, 2001, on behalf of all practitioners held in Division 4, and asked them to
turn it over to the related government agency as required by the law. Later that
night, the guards locked up Li Weiping in solitary confinement cell and tortured
him with electric batons until 3 o'clock in the morning. Many practitioners held
in this division decided to protest this brutal act and confronted the guards
the next morning. The guards savagely beat the practitioners in front of nearly
400 detainees. Ironically, Division 4 was awarded the title, "Modernized
and Civilized Labor Camp Division." Practitioner Mr. Zheng Qiming, a 58-year-old university professor, was the
first one dragged into the office and shocked with electric batons. Seeing this,
practitioner Mr. Zhang Xianming stood up and said, "Put down your electric
batons!" Political head Wu and four other guards then pinned him to the
ground and shocked him with six electric batons. Practitioner Mr. Cai Shijun
then spoke up to stop the abuse, and he was also dragged out and shocked. The
practitioners' necks and foreheads were covered with burn wounds from the
high-voltage electric shocks. According to an incomplete estimate, at the end of October 2001, at least 30
Falun Gong practitioners were tortured with electric batons in Division 2 of
Fangqiang Labor Camp. One practitioner was shocked simultaneously with six
electric batons until his head was covered with blood. Mr. Zhang Qihu, a
practitioner who received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Xuzhou Normal University,
was shocked three times for very long periods of time. He was tortured for a
whole morning on October 4, 2001. Yu Haiyong, Party secretary of Division 2 at
Fangqiang Labor Camp, stepped on Zhang Qihu. He held electric baton(s) and said
in a menacing voice, "Although I usually put on a smiling face, I also have
a killer's side! I can make you wish you were never born if you don't
"reform!"" Falun Gong practitioners' heart-wrenching screams when
shocked with electric batons can often be heard throughout Division 2. Sun Liming, a guard in Division 3 of Fangqiang Labor Camp, handcuffed
practitioner Tang Jianxin's wrists behind his back and hung him up by the
handcuffs. He inserted an electric baton into Mr. Tang's mouth and shocked him
until all of his teeth came loose. Tang Jianxin could not talk for a whole week.
Practitioner Kong Lingsheng was hung up, and Li Yongji, political head of
Division 3, and guard Sun Liming stuck an electric baton underneath his clothes
and shocked him repeatedly, which caused him to lose consciousness and become
incontinent. Sun Liming continued to shock him despite his condition. When Kong
Lingsheng came to after they poured cold water on him and pinched his philtrum,
Sun Liming savagely beat him. One guard secretly told Kong Lingsheng when no one
was around, "Li Yongji, political head of Division 3, held a meeting for
all guards before this electric shock torture and he encouraged us to use
electric batons whenever we want. He said that all labor camp officials would
take the responsibility should anything happen, and if the torture results in
several 'reformed' practitioners, all of us would share the 'credit.'" In early 2001, Miao Qi, political head at the women's division of Judong
Labor Camp, personally shocked practitioners with electric batons, and Zhao,
political head of Group 3 of the labor camp, instructed others to shock
practitioners with electric batons. Practitioner Ling from Nanjing City lost
consciousness after being shocked for a long period of time. Practitioner Wang
from Nantong was dragged into an empty room by Zhao and was shocked for about 3
hours, causing his entire body to turn black and blue. Practitioner Lu from
Changzhou City was shocked continuously until he could not stand on his left
foot, a big blister filled with blood formed on his forehead, and he lost
consciousness in a pool of his own blood. The guards shocked the palms of
practitioner Wan Yuanzhen from Nanjing City with electric batons, and he could
not wash his clothes for several months. Group head Li forced a practitioner to
stand still in a straight-up position for four days and five nights without
sleep. He ordered the inmates to beat him whenever he didn't like the
practitioner's posture. He didn't allow this practitioner to wash himself, and
he poured water on him and shocked him with electric batons. This practitioner's
head swelled up and his body turned black and blue. Practitioner Song Weijuan
was handcuffed with her arms behind her back and forced to the ground by about
eight people including Zhao Yulan and Zhen Qihui on March 16, 2001. They shocked
her to force her into making an "oral confession," and they shocked
her mouth when she refused to speak. The guards later stuffed her mouth with
dirty rags to prevent her from screaming in pain. The guards in Group 4 of the women's division of Judong Labor Camp would play
loud music over a loudspeaker when they were torturing Falun Gong practitioners,
in an attempt to cover up their crime. Sometimes the practitioners' screams
could be heard even with the music on. 5. Term Extensions for Falun Gong Practitioners Who Refused to Give In According to related policies, only detainees who caused severe injuries to
others in a fight or who have severely violated laws and regulations would
receive term extensions. The Fangqiang Forced Labor Camp, however, uses the
threat of term extension as a common tactic to try to force practitioners to
give in and renounce Falun Dafa. The Provincial Labor Reeducation Bureau issued
a secret document in May 2001 for the two labor camps, which states that Falun
Gong practitioners who refuse to write guarantee statements would have their
terms extended by up to one year. According to this document, Fangqiang Labor
Camp extended Falun Gong practitioners' terms when they expired in June.
Practitioner Ms. Wang Changhua, held at Fangqiang Labor Camp, had her term
extended by five months, and practitioners Chen Jian, Di Jinhua, Chen Hanchang,
Chen Guoliang, Hua Jianguo and Li Qin, whose terms expired, had their terms
extended by three or four months. 6. "Cartwheel" Brainwashing Several guards who specialize in brainwashing take turns trying to brainwash
the practitioners. During the intense brainwashing sessions, they only allow the
practitioners to rest for one or two hours a day. They bombard the practitioners
with questions when they are tired and unfocused. This torture lasts from days
to months in an attempt to destroy the practitioners' will. At Fangqiang Labor Camp, several guards would take turns talking to a Falun
Gong practitioner who refused to give up his belief until midnight or even
later, then they would force the practitioners to stand and they ordered the
inmates to monitor the practitioners. They force the practitioners to stand
until 2:00 a.m. or all night long, while holding so-called "study
sessions" that slander Falun Gong, and they force the practitioners to
write their "understandings" after each talk session. Many
practitioners are not allowed to sleep for 20 days or 30 consecutive days. The Judong Labor Camp escalated their brainwashing after 2002 and uses about
five people to brainwash each practitioner. The practitioners were forced to get
up at 5:00 a.m. and stayed up until 3:00 a.m. the next day. They were not
allowed to sleep while enduring insults from the guards and inmates. Each
brainwashing session lasts from 40 to 50 days or as long as 80 to 90 days. 7. Persecution in the Name of "Humane Efforts" The officials deceive the practitioners' families and ask them to coerce the
practitioners to give up their belief. They would threaten and intimidate the
families, who would kneel before the practitioners, screaming, crying and
tugging at the practitioners, begging them to give up cultivation practice.
Practitioner An Zhenbing's mother was tricked into going to the labor camp and
she was intimidated by the guards until she had a heart attack. She was sent to
a hospital for emergency rescue and was later taken home in an ambulance. An
Zhenbing confronted the guards, saying, "You will take full responsibility
if anything happens to my mother." 8. Verbal Abuse The guards force practitioners who renounce Dafa against their consciences to
write four statements and five copies of an article that attacks Dafa. The four
statements are the guarantee statement, the break away statement,
repentance statement, and the self-criticism statement. They force
these practitioners to read these statements publicly on a platform and they
take pictures of the practitioners. Officials from the Provincial Labor
Reeducation Bureau would come to inspect the "reform" outcome. During
the inspection, the officials force the practitioners to publicly curse Mr. Li
Hongzhi, the founder of Falun Gong, and walk on, write on and or spit on Mr.
Li's portraits. Practitioner Mr. Yang Kui, who once gave up Dafa due to torture,
refused to do it, and he was brutally shocked with electric batons. Liu Xiue, a 59-year-old practitioner, refused to wear a prisoner's uniform.
The guards stripped her naked and forced her to stand in the courtyard. The
guards also stuffed into her crotch slips of paper with slanderous words against
Dafa. Local 610 Office agents pick up Dafa practitioners when their sentences
expire, and practitioners who had not yielded are directly taken to mental
hospitals or other facilities to undergo more torture and brainwashing. Local
police officers threatened practitioner Chen Guoliang when they picked him up at
the labor camp, saying, "We'll send you to a mental hospital if you don't
"reform." If we can't fix you, the mental patients will." (To be continued)
Chinese version available at
http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/8/25/136385.html
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