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Relentless Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in Weinan Prison, Shanxi Province

December 22, 2010 |   By a Clearwisdom correspondent from Shanxi Province, China

(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioners illegally detained at the Weinan Prison in Shanxi Province are placed among inmates convicted of crimes. Although the criminal inmates are not restrained, practitioners are kept handcuffed.

Upon arrival at the prison, practitioners are put into the No. 11 Division and severely persecuted. Below are some example of the persecution suffered by Falun Gong practitioners.

When Mr. Zhou Biao, a practitioner from Xi'an Province, said, “Falun Gong is good,” the guards told the other inmates to beat him. One of them repeatedly struck Mr. Zhou's feet with a wooden stool. Later, Mr. Zhou was sent to solitary confinement.

Another practitioner, Mr. Wang Feng, who is in his 70s, was taken into the duty room and severely beaten by the guards for saying, “Falun Gong is not an evil practice.” He was then handcuffed and sent to the ward specifically designated for persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.

There are three inmates assigned to closely monitor Falun Gong practitioners at all times. These criminal inmates are offered privileges for doing this. Su Mingying, who has been sentenced to life in prison for multiple rapes and inducing bodily harm to his sister-in-law, is one of them. He is very cruel and uses all kinds of tactics to brutally persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

Yuan Jian, the supervisor of the No. 11 Division, gives the inmate monitors signals to initiate the torture of Falun Gong practitioners. Yuan often beats and yells at Falun Gong practitioners for no reason.

The Chinese Communist Party provides prison guards with incentives for their participation in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. The bonuses they get depend on how many Falun Gong practitioners are made to give up their belief. In order to get the bonus, the guards persuade criminal inmates to persecute practitioners in exchange for reward points. If the inmate forces one practitioner to give up his or her belief, the inmate gets ten points. As a result, these inmates are encouraged to torture Falun Gong practitioners without any sense of humanity or conscience.

The methods used to torture Falun Gong practitioners are very brutal. They cuff practitioner's hands behind the back tightly, with one arm over the shoulder and the other pulled up from below. They also use two inmates to hold a practitioner's legs, while a third one stomps the practitioner's body. They pound their knees into the practitioner's back, where the kidneys are. They cover the practitioner's mouth to stop him from breathing and push him into water.

They also push the practitioner's face into the ground, and then an inmate sits on the practitioner's back, grabs his neck and bends it upward, and two other inmates grab the practitioner's arms and forcefully bend them back. Some practitioners have died after suffering this kind of torture. Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Wang Feng, an older gentleman from Hancheng City, was subjected to this torture and suffered excruciating pain.

Several inmates pin down Falun Gong practitioners against the ground, sit on their backs, and slam their heads against the ground. Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Gao Mantang suffered this torture. He is currently held in Weihai Prison.

They also cuff practitioners' hands to objects low on the ground for long periods of time. Practitioner Mr. Ma Jie was tied to the lower level of a bunk bed, facing inward with his head dragged downward, legs bent and tied to the metal column at the knees, and feet tied to the bed frame. This position was extremely painful.

Other commonly used torture tactics include twisting a practitioner's arms, putting mosquito repellent oil into a practitioner's nose and eyes, forcing practitioners to stand or sit on a stool in a fixed position for long periods of time, limiting access to the bathroom, and many other torments. The prison officials often say, “As long as Falun Gong practitioners are not killed, inmates can use any kind of torture at any time to get them to renounce their faith in Falun Gong.”

Most of the Falun Gong practitioners are detained in the No. 1, No. 5, No. 6 and No. 11 divisions.

The torture of Falun Gong practitioners is most severe in the No. 1 and No. 11 divisions. The following key people are responsible for the persecution in those divisions: No. 1 Division supervisor Wang Changsheng and deputy supervisor Lei Feng; No. 11 Division supervisor Yuan Jian and deputy supervisor Ye Mingdong, and ward cadre Zhang Zhongqiu.