The Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in Division 12, Beijing Qianjin Prison
By a practitioner in Beijing
(Clearwisdom.net) About 130 male Falun Gong practitioners are currently
held at Qianjin Prison after being sentenced. They make up most of the male
practitioners illegally sentenced from the Beijing area. Division 1, Division 8,
Division 9 and Division 12 are divisions especially designated to detain Falun
Gong practitioners. The administration tactics in these divisions differ. A
local court in Beijing sentenced me to prison, and the officials held me in
Division 12 of Qianjin Prison. I experienced and witnessed the brutal
persecution of practitioners firsthand. I want to share my experiences as a way
to expose the crimes committed against practitioners at this so-called
"Bureau-Level Civilized Prison" in Beijing a. Strict isolation
Practitioners who have recently been brought to the prison and have expressed
their determination to return to Dafa practice, or who are deemed
"uncooperative" according to the guards' control methods, are
immediately isolated. Each division has one special, solitary confinement cell.
The room measures only five square meters (54 square feet). A practitioner
locked in this room is forced to eat, drink, sleep and [sometimes] relieve
himself in this space. Four inmates take turns monitoring the practitioner and
make sure he does not have contact with anyone. The practitioner is compelled to
shout, "report" each time he enters or leaves a door. The
practitioners do not have freedom of speech or action; they don't have any
holidays or breaks, and they are forbidden to take showers or wash their
clothes. When the persecution is acutely severe, the practitioners are forbidden to
leave the room to use the restroom. The number of inmates assigned to monitor
each practitioner doubles to eight. Practitioners' every move is restricted.
Furthermore, the inmates assault them verbally and physically. When all solitary confinement cells are occupied, practitioners are sent to
places with worse conditions, such as a storage room or washroom. Some of these
windowless rooms are only two square meters (21.5 square feet) in size. These
spaces are extremely hot in the summer and freezing cold in the winter. b. Sitting on small stools Every practitioner held at this prison was tortured with "small
stools." The practitioner is forced to sit on a small plastic stool about
11 cm (4.3 inches) high and must sit up, look straight ahead, bend his legs and
hold them close together, so his calves form a 90 degree angle with the floor.
He also has to put his hands on his knees and cannot close his eyes or look
around. He cannot speak or stand up without permission. He is required to hold
this position between 5 a.m. and midnight, meaning the practitioner sits still
for at least 19 hours each day. The buttocks' flesh and bone press on the hard
stool surface, forming blisters within a few days that cause terrible pain when
the practitioners sit. Sitting down again breaks the blisters, making them exude
fluid. This fluid sticks to their underwear and makes it an ordeal to remove. Some practitioners firmly refused to follow the officials' commands. They
were held in solitary confinement for four months. They were made to sit on
small stools until their buttocks had ulcerated and their underwear was blood
soaked. The officials tortured these practitioners for at least 20 hours a day. c. Verbal and physical abuse, including handcuffs and shackles The guards exhaust their torture methods on practitioners who persist in
their belief. They are afraid of taking responsibility, so they order inmates to
verbally and physically attack the practitioners. Sometimes beatings take place
when the guards are present. The practitioners are knocked unconscious. When
other practitioners confront the inmates they scream, "So what if I hit
you? Go ahead and sue me!" They have the officials' backing. When practitioners try to stop the inmates from assault, the guards handcuff
and shackle the practitioners. To shirk responsibility, the guards coerce every
practitioner to write a statement saying he was never subjected to any physical
or verbal abuse before their release. a. Sleep deprivation This is one of the most often-used torture methods. Practitioners are
permitted to sleep only two hours a day, and sometimes they are forced to stay
up for several days without any sleep. According to prison policy, the time
between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. the next day is a legally protected rest time for
detainees, yet practitioners are forced to sit until 3:00 a.m. and get up at
5:00 a.m. Over time, the practitioners often become dizzy and disoriented. The
guards seize this opportunity to brainwash them. b. Brainwashing Practitioners are compelled to study articles and watch videos that slander
Teacher and Dafa. They are made to read through thick compilations of vicious
fabrications and repeatedly watch slanderous VCDs for 12 hours a day. The
practitioners have to accept the content and are never permitted to question the
content of these materials. They also have to write essays to explain their
"understandings" in line with the Communist Party's ideology. If the
practitioner refuses to follow these orders, he is locked in solitary
confinement or abused in other ways for two weeks or a month, until the guards
are satisfied with the outcome of brainwashing. This process is repeated once more before the practitioner is released. The
officials call it "prison exit education." The guards also require practitioners who are brainwashed to write articles
to slander and attack Dafa. Usually, the practitioners are further required to
"correct" or completely re-write the article more than three times,
until the guards are satisfied. The guards then make the practitioner read the
article at a Division Conference, which causes the practitioner great
humiliation and anguish. c. Creating an atmosphere of terror; implication policy The officials suppress and retaliate against any practitioner who safeguards
Dafa and whom they deem as disobeying their commands. The officials lock these
practitioners in solitary confinement; force them to write self-criticism, and
subject them to public self-humiliation by having them list so-called mistakes
during division-wide meetings. If the guards think the self-denigrating
statement is not "deep" enough, they hold many meetings and force the
practitioner to repeatedly criticize himself until the guards are pleased with
the results. If the guards think more than two practitioners in one class have
"issues" [hold onto their belief], the entire class is placed under
strict control--everyone's lunch break and free time is canceled and the whole
class has to sit inside all day long; they cannot talk or walk without
permission. Class 6 of Division 12 was placed under strict control many times,
once for three months. Guard Chen Jun often held "condemn and attack meetings" and
searched the dormitory to create an atmosphere of terror. He resorted to
"strict control and attack" to suppres practitioners' protests to
uphold their rights. d. Using practitioners' families to create conflict In an attempt to destroy the practitioners' will, the guards sometimes invite
the practitioners' families to the prison for "special" meetings. They
ask the family members of the practitioners, who are brainwashed with government
propaganda, to pressure the practitioners to give up cultivation. The guards
also spread rumors and create conflict and misunderstandings among the
practitioners' family members to increase the pressure on practitioners. The guards' devious urgings led to practitioner Xu Huaquan's wife divorcing
him. Guard Chen Jun tried to deceive and incite hatred in practitioners Huang
Jian and Ma Ang's wives and other family members. These officials are the
primary culprits responsible for the deteriorating relationships and breakups in
practitioners' families. a. Omnipresent restriction o practitioners Practitioners are followed and monitored in everything they do, including
restroom use, while the criminal inmates assigned to keep them under
surveillance can roam freely. The practitioners do not get credit [toward their release date] if they
refuse to do slave labor, while the watchdog inmates receive full credit,
regardless of whether or not they work. They are allotted credits even during
holidays. Inmates can talk face-to-face with their families; they can eat and sleep
together in accordance with prison policy while practitioners can only talk to
their families via a phone while separated by a glass partition. The
practitioners are forbidden to eat or sleep together. Inmates can take their personal belongings home at the time of release, such
as books, notebooks and letters, while practitioners are forbidden from taking
any item containing any writing, not even books they bought from the prison
store. Only those assigned to watch practitioners can take the position of class
head or division head; practitioners are at the bottom of the prison hierarchy. b. Deceptive sentence reduction Inmates can earn sentence reductions as long as they earn enough points, even
if they are placed under "strict control." Practitioners, on the other
hand, must achieve "loose control" before they can qualify for
sentence reduction. By the time they achieve loose control status there is not
much left of their sentence. The discriminatory point system results in
practitioners perpetually earning less points than inmates. Those who receive
sentence reductions are almost exclusively inmates assigned to persecute
practitioners. Practitioners who persist in their belief or practitioners who
return to Dafa practice would be considered "incompletely brainwashed"
and would never get a sentence reduction. To my knowledge, only one practitioner received a sentence reduction since
Division 12 started holding practitioners. Not a single practitioner ever
obtained a leave of absence from the prison. Sentence reductions and leave of
absence policies are meaningless for Falun Dafa practitioners. c. Information blockade The guards strictly limit practitioners' contact with the outside world. They
permit only three immediate blood relatives to meet with the practitioner and
forbid meetings between a practitioner and a family member who also practices
Dafa. They prohibit the families from bringing anything, and guards pace back
and forth during the visit; therefore, anything said during the visit can be
overheard. All of the practitioners' incoming and outgoing letters are inspected. The
guards withhold any letter they deem suspicious. The guards also withhold
practitioners' letters to the Procuratorate and Prison
Administration Bureau in which the practitioners state persecution incidents and
chronicle abuses. The officials try their best to prevent outside information
from entering the prison, and the truth about the persecution from getting out. d. Forced tai-chi practice Since 2003, Qianjin Prison officials have required all detainees including
Dafa practitioners to learn tai chi. They demand that everyone be able to do tai
chi. The prison holds periodic tai chi contests. The Communist Party has the
malicious intention of destroying practitioners by interfering with the Dafa
cultivation principle, only a "single cultivation way." I also must point this out: the prison subjected all practitioners to two
blood tests and physical exams in July 2005 and August 2006. At that time I
couldn't understand why they were carrying out these non-routine exams, but now
I know it was a part of a set-up to get ready for potential live organ
harvesting. 4. Dafa practitioners oppose the persecution and suppress the evil with
righteous thoughts "Coercion cannot change people's hearts," as Teacher has said. The
vast majority of incarcerated practitioners never truly changed their belief in
Dafa, and the guards knew it quite well. This is why they forbade practitioners
from seeing each other and ordered inmates to closely monitor the practitioners'
words and actions. Practitioners broke through all barriers with righteous
thoughts and by helping each other. In February 2006, several pieces of paper with Teacher's recent articles were
passed around among the practitioners. The papers made their way from one group
to another. Most practitioners read the articles, which greatly encouraged their
determination and confidence in resisting the persecution and safeguarding Dafa.
Soon, some practitioners publicly stepped forward and said, "Falun Dafa is
the righteous Fa!" and said they would continue Dafa practice. As the articles continued their circulation, one practitioner after another
stepped forward and said they would continue to practice Dafa. Most of the 40
practitioners held in the prison at that time affirmed their belief in Dafa.
Some practitioners wrote solemn announcements and gave them to the guards. Even
a few collaborators who had assisted the guards in
"reforming" practitioners said they would return to Dafa practice. It
was something unprecedented--righteous words safeguarding Dafa. Resistance to
the persecution surged in all groups, and the inmates couldn't do anything about
it. The officials were shocked and terrified at Dafa practitioners' righteous
thoughts and protests. In order to contain the protests, the guards pretended to
ask for a meeting with practitioners' representatives while they secretly
discussed how to turn the tide and suppress the division struggle. Seven practitioners, including Huang Jian, who had been sentenced to 12 years
in prison; Wang Yi, sentenced to 14 years; and Wang Yu, sentenced to seven
years, represented all the practitioners held in the prison. They told the
guards, "There is nothing wrong with Dafa practice." They requested an
immediate end to the persecution of practitioner Wu Yichang and several others
held in solitary confinement and called for guaranteeing practitioners' human
rights in accordance with the law. The guards stated they were only following
official documents from higher up, but were unable to present the documents when
the practitioners requested them. Division head Meng Fanguo was furious. He
pounded on the table and accused the practitioners of disrupting order and
creating a riot. He also threatened the practitioners. That was the end of the
dialog. A large division of fully armed police officers arrived at Division 12 at
8:00 a.m. on March 9, 2006. Two officers blocked the door to each group and
viciously glared at the practitioners. They also soon barged inside the cells
and carried the seven representative practitioners out. They announced that
these practitioners would be isolated and interrogated for disrupting prison
order. An atmosphere of terror shrouded the place. Chen Jun, a division political head, held a meeting where he threatened he
would make an example of the seven practitioners and vociferously boasted of
eradicating Falun Gong within the division. Subsequently, a six-month
"strict control" order was issued for the entire division. The seven
practitioners were held and persecuted at Division 8. Thirteen inmates closely
followed each practitioner. The practitioners' protest for those held at Division 12 greatly suppressed
the evil. This incident sent a clear message to the wicked Party: Practitioners'
righteous belief in Dafa will never waver! All of the Party's lies and acts of
persecution will eventually end in disgrace and complete failure. Practitioner Wu Yichang was held in solitary confinement for more than four
months. Official Chen Jun ordered inmates to beat him until he lost
consciousness. He also suffered from sleep deprivation and restriction of
personal freedom for a long time and had become skeleton-like. Mr. Wu was later
transferred to Division 9, to be further persecuted. Practitioner Xu Huaquan has a master's degree from Beijing University. He was
held in solitary confinement and persecuted for several months. He was later on
transferred to Division 8, to be further persecuted. Practitioner Tang Jichang has a disabled right hand and could not work. He
was held in solitary confinement for several months. Practitioner Liang Minghua was first held in solitary confinement where the
inmates beat him. Chen Jun later handcuffed and shackled him because he tried to
stop the inmates from beating him. He was locked in solitary confinement for
three months and was forced to read a self-condemning statement during three
Division meetings, which wounded him psychologically. Practitioner Ma Ang was held in solitary confinement for several months. He
went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Official Chen Jun lied to
his wife and made her pressure Ma Ang, which almost resulted in divorce. Practitioner Zhang Yanbin used to serve in the military. He said, "The
Communist Party is so rotten!" The inmates reported him. He was sent to
solitary confinement. Zhang Yanbin, Xu Huaquan, and several other practitioners
refused to write Dafa-slandering articles. Official Chen Jun accused them of
disrupting prison order and forced them to do a self-critique during several
division meetings. Practitioner Liu Fujiang was first held at Division 1. He was savagely
tortured for firmly practicing Dafa and resisting the persecution. He was sent
to the Drill Division, known for its notoriously bad human rights record. Liu
Fujiang was forced to repeat the same bodily movement 108 times a day as
corporal punishment. He was completely deprived of freedom and dignity. 6. Names of some officials at Division 12, the Qianjin Prison Chen Jun is a political head, a vicious person, extremely venomous toward
Dafa. He used various cruel methods to torture practitioners. He verbally
attacked Dafa during division meetings and unscrupulously insulted practitioners
on numerous occasions. He ordered inmates to beat the practitioners and
personally planned and carried out many persecution incidents. Guard Meng Fanguo, head of Division 12, personally participated in the
persecution; he is very arrogant. Guard Zhang Honghai, deputy head of Division 12, actively persecutes
practitioners in different ways. He is a hypocrite. Guard Chen Hongbin, the former deputy head of Division 12, was later
appointed deputy head of Division 8. He is cruel and spares no effort in
persecuting practitioners. He personally carried out many incidents of
persecution. Guard Cheng Jianhui iw deputy head of Qianjin Prison, in charge of
persecuting Falun Gong. He is the prison's ringleader and therefore responsible
for the persecution that goes on in the prison. He ordered the carrying out of
many persecution incidents.
Chinese version available at
http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/3/15/150840.html
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