By a Falun Dafa practitioner in Beijing

(Clearwisdom.net) In early 2006, officers from the Beijing Haidian District 610 Office raided my home. They confiscated my Falun Dafa books and truth clarifying materials, and arrested me. I was sentenced to two years of forced labor. I was first detained at a detention center for about six months, which served as a way to extend my prison term. I was handcuffed and taken to the Beijing Forced Labor Dispatch Center. It was a place full of evil. Prisoners were humiliated each time they shouted "report and thanks" when they received their food rations. I am an older women, in my sixties, and I was forced to sit on a small chair from dawn to dusk every day. I was forced to sit straight, and not move, with my hands on my knees. I was not allowed to talk, or use the restroom without permission. After one month of being tortured, I was taken to the Beijing Xin'an Women's Forced Labor Camp. On the way to the camp, I was handcuffed and was not allowed to raise my head or look out the window.

Most of the prisoners in the Beijing Xin'an Women's Forced Labor Camp were older practitioners in their fifties. Non-practitioner inmates included drug users, prostitutes, thieves and swindlers. They assisted the guards in watching the practitioners. Criminal inmates had more freedom than the practitioners. They freely moved about from cell to cell, used the restroom at any time and conversed with the guards. The practitioners were treated with cruelty. They were forbidden from talking to each other, and were not allowed to walk around freely. The practitioners had to report to the guards before using the bathroom. If a practitioner disagreed with the guards or their treatments, the guards punished them and reduced their merit points, as well as denied any reductions in their prison terms.

Beijing Xin'an Women's Forced Labor Camp prisoners were forced to perform slave labor. Most of the imprisoned practitioners were older women in their sixties or seventies and yet all of them were forced to work. Practitioners had to finish a quota, otherwise there would be a deduction in their merit points. The legal retirement age of 55 was not honored in Beijing Xin'an Women's Forced Labor Camp. Prisoners worked regardless of their age. Those 55 and over had a lower work quota to complete, but still worked a full 8 hour day.

It was common to work overtime in workshops, such as packaging tea, sugar, or mung beans. The prisoners often worked more than 10 hours per day regardless of their age. Frequently during the hot summer months, there were no showers permitted after the day's labor. The prisoners were paid one or two dozen yuan for their labor while the forced labor camp administration was making tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of yuan. The prisoners worked as slave workers while the guards monitored the prisoners' work. The practitioners were not allowed to talk or rest. The guards followed them when they used the bathroom. The young people were exhausted after working in the workshop, not to mention the older people who suffered from illnesses such as high blood pressure. The guards persecuted the practitioners using various methods, in attempts to achieve the goal of coercing the practitioners into giving up their beliefs.

February 4, 2008

Posting date: 2/23/2008
Original article date: 2/23/2008
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Translated on 2/21/2008
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/2/6/171816.html

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