(Clearwisdom.net) Beijing Women's Prison is a dreadful place where the authorities closely follow the orders of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to viciously persecute Falun Gong practitioners. They deceive local and international media by claiming "humane and civilized prison management," while in fact, they carry out the task of "transforming" Falun Gong practitioners; they severely trample human rights and torture practitioners both physically and mentally. They also brainwash practitioners with delicately fabricated lies and use methods of both deceptive brainwashing and inhuman physical punishment.

During 2001-2004, the Beijing Women's Prison shamelessly tortured Falun Gong practitioners in order to achieve the goal of "transforming" them. Their concrete methods were: sleep deprivation, forced standing, disallowing use of the toilet, deprivation of personal hygiene, forced squatting in all kinds of positions, forced standing in the "flying" position for long periods of time, tying up practitioners' bodies with special bandages, forced crossed leg sitting, legs stretched apart, slapping the face, gang beatings, 24-hour continuous brainwashing, etc. These methods were used repeatedly and alternately.

Persecuted practitioners include: Ms. Lei Xiaoting, Ms. Wu Dan, Ms. Xiang Guilan, Ms. Pang Jinying, Ms. Liu Shuxia, Ms. Chen Shuxia, Ms. Pei Yuntong, Ms. Dong Yanhong, Ms. Zheng Yanping, Ms. Huang Xiaohong, Ms. Wu Lanlan, Ms. Gong Ruiping, Ms. Xu Nan, Ms. Yuan Lin, Ms. Liu Xiuqin, Ms. Zhao Zhishen, Ms. Mao Xiuli, Ms. Zhao Xiuhuan, Ms. Zhang Guolan, Ms. Zhao Guimin, Ms. Zhou Zi, Ms. Li Li, Ms. Yue Changzhi, Ms. Li Guanhua, and others. Among them, Ms. Gong Guiping was tortured repeatedly with sexual abuse, and had her legs stretched apart. Her legs were injured severely and at one time she had a mental breakdown. Ms. Yuan Lin's ears were beaten so badly she went deaf. Ms. Yue Changzhi's lower back was beaten and injured. Ms. Dong Cui was beaten to death.

Prison officials and policewomen that participated in the persecution are: Prison Chief Zhang Shushun, Zhou Ying, Zhang Guofang from the Division of Education, Gao Yunqi from the Division of Politics, warden Tian Fengqing, policewomen Chen Jing, Xi Xuequan, Chen Yun, Zhang Hua, Zhang Xiaoyu, Dong Xiaoqing and others.

After the evil deeds at the women's prison were exposed, the women's prison chief attributed the evil deeds to several individual policewomen. She transferred Tian Fengqing, Xi Xuehui and Chen Jing to other posts in an attempt to evade her responsibility of fully investigating the criminal conduct against Falun Gong practitioners. So far none of the perpetrators have had to face criminal charges.

After the Beijing Women's Prison moved to a new building in 2004, under pressure from the international community to protect human rights, the prison started trying to create the appearance of a new atmosphere of humanized management and to flaunt their family-like "transformation." In fact, they continued to persecute practitioners in even more inhuman ways while deceiving the international community with more covert methods.

The following is a brief description of what happened to practitioners that were detained in the four wards of the Beijing Women's Prison.

The 10th ward (detaining over 40 practitioners)

After the former warden Tian Fengqing was transferred to another post, Zheng Yumei took over the warden's position. She continues to torture practitioners in more obscure and evil ways. She continues to use persons such as Li Xiaomei, Jin Weihong, and Huang Xiaohong to devise all kinds of evil methods to torture practitioners. They tortured Li Li, Yue Changzhi, Zhang Guolan, and Zhou Zi by depriving them of sleep and beating them. Li Li passed out several times due to a lack of sleep. Other prison policewomen include Fu Yi, Xiao Rui, Hou Hua and Xu Chenyang.

The 8th ward (detaining over 50 practitioners)

The warden is Huang Qinghua. When the prison was still in the old building, Huang Qinghua established several models who were "transformed" by the so-called family-like "transformation."

They include, Yao Jie, Teng Chunyan and Li Shuying. She also made propaganda videos and theatrical programs to defame Falun Gong and make the prison police look good. These videos and programs were broadcasted widely to the outside world. They concealed the brutal torture inside the prison and praised the evil communist party and its inhuman methods of "transforming" practitioners.

The "transformation" in the 8th ward is the most deceiving. Huang Qinghua uses psychological methods and confuses practitioners with lies. She blocks information from outside the prison, forces practitioners to watch a TV show that defames Falun Gong, forces people to watch the communist party's TV news which broadcasts lies and praises the "excellent national situation" and utilizes the evil party's way of thinking, fuses together the concepts of country, government and political party, slanders practitioners and calls practitioners "unpatriotic," "against the human race," "betraying fellow Chinese people," and intentionally twisting the meaning of patriotism. For those practitioners who refuse to be "transformed" and give up their practice of Falun Gong, Huang would appear to be warm-hearted and caring, while at the same time she would implicate other inmates by restricting their right to watch TV and to enjoy free time outside their cells, and disallowing inmates to wash and sleep normally. All these are to put more pressure on practitioners. The 8th ward frequently holds meetings to bring about feelings of "sisterhood." These meetings are to force practitioners to speak against each other and instigate hatred towards steadfast practitioners, thereby making trouble and conflicts, and isolating and demonizing steadfast practitioners.

Huang Qinghua instigated those who gave up practicing Falun Gong, such as Yao Jie, Shi Xiufen, Shen Junlan etc, to falsify theories that abuse certain religious terminologies and history in an attempt to twist the essence and meaning of righteous religions. She also studied this knowledge herself and made an effort to deceive Falun Gong practitioners into giving up their practice. She read the articles written by Teacher to practitioners and tried to direct practitioners to thinking the opposite of the teachings in these articles, saying that "Your teacher asks you to "transform," so if you don't you are not keeping up with the Fa rectification process. And only if you transform can you catch up and achieve consummation." For the practitioners who refused to "transform," the 8th ward would indicate that they were insane, ghosts that damaged the Fa and were evil old forces in order to confuse these practitioners' ability to tell right from wrong. In summary, the 8th ward focused more on mental persecution than physical torture. Huang Qinghua was recognized by the evil communist party for carrying out their policy of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. She was awarded the titles of "national model worker" and "advanced worker." However, after the brainwashed practitioners got out of the sealed environment and became clear-headed again, they would realize the hypocritical nature of the mental persecution. Huang Qinghua's show of concern for practitioners in their daily lives and their feelings was just a tactic, and her purpose was to make practitioners give up their righteous beliefs. This kind of persecution is surreptitious and even more damaging than physical torture. Practitioners that were detained and mentally tortured in the 8th ward include: Ms. Zhai Fengying, Ms. Liu Yuying, Ms. Xiang Guilan, Ms. Teng Chunyan, Ms. Wang Chunying, Ms. Yao Yue, Ms. Chu Tong, Ms. Tan Ling, Ms. Li

Guiping, Ms. Gong Ruiping, Ms. Xu Na, Ms. Zhao Hua, Ms. Li Xuebin, Ms. He Guilan, Ms. Li Shuying, Ms. Zhao Xiaojie, Ms. Yu Peiling, Ms. Guo Yan and many others.

The 4th ward (detaining over 40 practitioners)

The 4th ward is a team that was established in 2004 specifically for persecuting Falun Gong. Its warden is Liu Yingchun. She once forced practitioner Ms. Yuan Lin to undergo illegal, intense military training and instigated inmates to torture practitioner Ms. Sun Junying. She also forced intense military training on practitioner Ms. Liang Zhansheng in 2005. Liu Yingchun utilized the most deceiving tactic in the "family-like transformation" policy and also the so-called humanized management. The ward raises fish, flowers, rabbits and miniature turtles. The non-practitioner inmates are allowed to have free time every day to get ample sunshine and do Tai-chi exercises. However, Liu Yingchun ordered inhuman iron-handed mental control of Falun Gong practitioners. In the prison shower room, psychiatric counseling room, storage room, and library, practitioners were separated in groups and surrounded by Liu's subordinates, which created a mental prison inside the prison. These small groups have their own living schedules, including toilet use, and washing and showering times. (Because they want to isolate steadfast practitioners, they have to carry out these everyday activities at special times so that no other people will have any contact with them.)

Since these isolated group activities and schedules disturbed other inmates and brought inconvenience to the ward, Liu Yingchun made use of it to instigate hatred among inmates against practitioners, demonize practitioners, and make them incur conflicts and personal insults. Liu Yingchun allowed the inmates to physically abuse practitioners and disallow them to sleep with the excuse that they would not confess and would not write thought reports. The whole ward may appear to be auspicious, while in fact the atmosphere was very constraining. Cursing could often be heard from the hallway, shower rooms, laundry rooms etc. The 4th ward is filled with insulting, taunting and cursing. The warden stays behind the surveillance cameras and never came out to intervene, acting as if nothing illegal was happening.

Liu Yingchun goes against her conscience and distorts the facts, finding excuses to persecute practitioners. Despite the fact that she knows well how the 4th ward tortures practitioners, she lied to newly detained practitioners, claiming that the Minghui/Clearwisdom website spreads rumors about the prison and that the ward never persecuted practitioners. Although she is aware that it is the evil party's policy to persecute practitioners and create broken families, she defames practitioners saying they are the ones that sabotage harmonious families. Many practitioners' illnesses are healed after they practice Falun Gong. After they were forced to give up their practice and slander Falun Gong, their illnesses came back. It became quite a scene as they lined up waiting to get their medications. The 4th ward almost became a hospital ward. It was the evil Chinese communist party that violated the law, yet the 4th ward held activities called "promoting law enforcement" which were merely stage performances to defame and slander Falun Gong. Policewomen in the 4th ward in charge of "transforming" Falun Gong practitioners also include: Hao Xiaolian, and Li Wei.

Practitioners persecuted in the 4th ward include: Ms. Liu Bing, Ms. Lu Shumin, Ms. Ren Guimin, Ms. He Tongjuan, Ms. Qin Huan, Ms. Du Juan etc. Transformed people include Kou Guihuan, Xu Ruohui and Du Fajun.

The 1st ward

The 1st ward was created in 2005 and detains practitioners with short terms or terms that are about to expire. The warden is Li Xiaona, who is good at deceiving practitioners with distorted understandings of the Fa. At the same time, she makes use of the so-called family-like treatment. The deputy warden Zhang Hua participated many times in the persecution of practitioners in the former women's prison. Another deputy warden, Niu Na, also participated in the persecution of practitioner Li Li.

The Beijing Women's Prison's promotion slogans of "civilized management" and "protecting prisoners' rights" are huge lies designed to cover up the crimes and the true situation in the prison. The prison authorities block information going in and out of the prison by persecuting those that try to clarify the truth.

In the former women's prison facility, the torture of Falun Gong practitioners usually happened in areas not monitored by surveillance cameras, such as the police lounge, warden's lounge, psychiatric counseling room, dark areas of the garage, working areas, the police shower room, etc. Even for practitioners detained in solitary cells, the authorities would drag out the victim and beat her only in an area without a camera, like the captain's lounge. The beatings was also done with the victim's mouth muffled or some loud music turned on to drown out the victims' screams during the beating.

After the new women's prison facility was finished and used, the torture of practitioners became more obscure and deceiving. Ms. Yue Changzhi, Ms. Zhao Guimin, Ms. Zhang Guolan, and Ms. Li Li were the practitioners who were beaten in the telephone room and the counseling room. When the counseling room had a bed sheet covering its entrance, everyone would know what was happening inside. In the winter of 2004, Zheng Yumei once took Ms. Li Li far away from the ward's first floor and kept her from sleeping. The place was once a working area and its entrance was covered with a bed sheet day and night. Zheng Yumei battered and tortured Ms. Li Li to the verge of a mental breakdown. Eventually Ms. Li Li's words in her state of mental disorientation were recorded to mark achievement of "transforming" practitioners and burned on a CD. The process of the torture was kept secret.

The biggest lie told by the women's prison authorities was how practitioner Ms. Dong Cui died. Under the protection of the prison chief, Zhou Ying, Tian Fengqing and Xi Xuehui together with accomplices from the prison hospital, education department, and politics department and procuratorate, forged evidence, tampered with "transformation" records, cooked up false testimony, fabricated false evidence and falsified the coronary report. Eventually the falsified report 'confirmed' that she died of natural causes. The prison politics department director Gao Yunqi used all kinds of methods to keep Ms. Dong Cui's family from suing the prison authorities and to keep information from leaking out. In 2005, the women's prison still enjoyed an award for "no accidents in 9 years of management."

To achieve the goal of a high "transformation" rate, the guards of the women's prison's iron fist conquer team, and Zhang Guofang from the education department reported falsified "transformation" results and fabricated "transformation" cases in order to get rewards from higher authorities.

The Beijing Women's Prison also oppressed and tortured practitioners who exposed and denounced their evil deeds to keep information from leaking out and uncovering their crimes. In 2001, practitioner Ms. Xu Na wrote to the Chief of the Prison Supervising Bureau, Zhu Jianhua, but her letter was illegally intercepted by prison authorities. Then the prison authorities paid several inmates including Xu Shaoqi to beat Xu Na for revenge. Xu Na also publicly exposed the truth behind the death of Ms. Dong Cui. Therefore Ms. Xu Na was charged with "slandering the police," "defamation," and "fostering evil spirit from one's own heart," and was locked up in solitary confinement with the approval of prison chief Zhou Ying. In 2004, Xu Na was transferred to a forced labor team.

In 2003, Yuan Lin and Gong Ruiping spoke out against the beatings in the 10th ward during a meeting. Under the orders of prison chief Zhou Ying, they were forced to suffer intensified training on the charge of "disrupting the meeting." In 2001, practitioner Ms. Dong Yanhong was tortured for telling of her experience of persecution to a fellow practitioner from Shanghai over the phone.

The women's prison authorities also promote their falsified civilized appearance in the media with all kinds of lies. In 2002, the central TV station's hostess Xu Tao visited the women's prison in the status of legal supervisor. The warden Tian Fengqing publicly swore that she would carry out law enforcement in civilized ways and she also arranged inmates to speak on her behalf. Ironically she had persecuted and tortured a dozen practitioners. On the same day of the TV interview, Ms. Xu Na was abused next door to the meeting room. A few months after the TV interview, Ms. Dong Cui was tortured to death. The women's prison distributed investigation cards to inmates who were forced to fill in the cards claiming they never saw any incidents of inmates being cursed or beaten. Then they gave these cards to inmates' families. In 2002, former practitioner Teng Chunyan was brainwashed and she told the media how well the Chinese prisons are organized and how the prisoners' living conditions was like that of a hotel. At the same time, steadfast practitioners were being abused, physically punished, maimed, and brainwashed until they went insane. This is what is actually happening in this women's prison during what CCP's leaders claim is China's "best human rights" period.

Since 2004, the prison has invited people from different countries and different walks of life to visit the prison, hold discussions, and share experiences to boast of the so-called humanized management and civilized law enforcement. They also promote their image of protecting inmates' human rights. Pre-arranged interviews were done in the wards that had better meals and longer free times that were specially arranged for that day only. The inmates who were arranged to attend the meeting and discussion were those who complied with the prison authorities, including those inmates who had beaten Falun Gong practitioners, while true practitioners were all locked up and could not get in contact with visitors.

The Beijing Women's Prison lures police and inmates with rewards for participating in the persecution of practitioners. Policewoman Chen Jing tortured Gong Ruiping and Yuan Lin during the period of the SARS outbreak and she joined the communist party in the same time period. Huang Qinghua and Tian Fengqing were rewarded with prizes many times for persecuting practitioners.

Policewoman Li Xiaona was promoted from a sub-team head to captain for successfully achieving the "transformation" goal. All of the sub-team heads who actively participated in the persecution were more easily promoted to higher ranks than staff members on other posts.

Each year the women's prison policewomen who were actively persecuting practitioners were the main staff members selected for promotions and rewards. In October of 2006, policewomen in the women's prison's 4 wards, including Huang Qinghua, Zheng Yumei, Liu Yingchun, Li Xiaona, Xiao Rui, Cao Yanmei, An Na, and Hao Xiaolian, were all awarded the class 3 merit citation and a prison sponsored tour of Guangxi Province's scenic areas by plane. The people participating in the persecution of practitioners were utilized by the evil CCP and they were merely devices to achieve the evil goals of the party.

The Beijing Women's Prison coerces inmates to pro-actively persecute practitioners by shortening the inmates' prison terms, and awarding points, extra family visits and other benefits. The director of the prison political department, Gao Yunqi, once told an inmate, "Don't expect your term to be shortened if you cannot 'transform' so and so." After a few years, this inmate would feel terrible about the inhuman torture of Falun Gong practitioners in the prison. Her mental suffering was not less than those who were persecuted. Inmate Jin Hongwei was used to persecute practitioners and was one of the direct perpetrators involved in the death of Ms. Dong Cui. But she was harbored by the prison authorities and was awarded many prizes by the prison supervision bureau, including the title of "model inmate" and being allowed to go home during the Chinese New Year period. The women's prison also used those who were brainwashed to surround, abuse and beat practitioners. These "collaborators" include Li Xiaobing, Li Xiaomei, Zhu Baolian, Wu Yueping, Zheng Yanping, Huang Xiaohong, Wu Dan, and others.

The Beijing Women's Prison tries to destroy people's honesty, benevolence and innocence. The police, collaborators, and inmates all live under pressure of political fear, and have learned to be selfish and indifferent to others' suffering. They protect themselves and fearfully bow to the evil CCP's "collective benefits." They are not brave enough to speak the truth and to uphold justice. They gradually become numb to and even agree to the evil deeds in the prison. This is the result of the state terrorism by the CCP, and their mental torture and distortion of human nature.

The Beijing Women's Prison executes the evil policy of the CCP and violates the basic human rights of illegally sentenced Falun Gong practitioners. Their conduct is in violation of international law, China's constitution and the prison laws made by the CCP itself.

December 28, 2006

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2006/12/29/145718.html