(Minghui.org) My name is Zhang Shuxia, and I am 70 years old.
On July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist regime launched its persecution of Falun Gong. Repeatedly detained and sentenced, I have been held in the Heishan Detention Center, Shenyang Detention Center, and Liaoning Women's Prison.
I was arrested on March 15, 2005, and sentenced to five years of imprisonment. They sent me to Liaoning Women's Prison.
1. Brainwashing
There were over 3,500 inmates in Liaoning Women's Prison. There was an average of one practitioner for every 10 inmates. They assigned two inmates to every practitioner for 24-hour surveillance. Seven to eight people made me wear the prison uniform: they stripped me and took away my underwear, so I had to wear the uniform.
The first thing they did was try to brainwash me. They forced me to watch videos about the staged Tiananmen Square self-immolation and programs that slandered Falun Gong. They locked me in the guards' locker room from 6:30 a.m. until 9:00 p.m. After the inmates finished work every day, they then locked me in one of the inmate storage rooms. They did not let me to go to bed until midnight. Because I shouted, "Falun Dafa is good" whenever I saw crowds, they gagged me and slapped me in the face. When I did the exercises at night, they handcuffed me to the bed rails and wouldn't let me sleep.
Their attempt to "reform" me lasted 77 days but was unsuccessful. The guards transferred me to the Second Team. They re-deployed two prisoners. One was Wang Chunjiao, and the other was Miao Shuxia. They were ruthless. Beginning on the 78th day, they ordered me to recite the prison regulations. If I refused, they beat me.
2. Needles in My Toes
One night at about 10:00 p.m., Wang Chunjiao and Miao Shuxia said, "Tonight, it's up to us whether you live or die. We can kill you as if stepping on an ant. If you do not obey us, you will not have any easy days."
Wang Chunjiao told Tian Sumei to bring her two ropes and took me to a warehouse. Wang Chunjiao tied me up from my shoulders all the way to my ankles with my feet tied to the bottom of a shelf and my neck to the top of the shelf.
Then they took out sewing needles and stuck them under my toenails and fingernails. It hurt terribly. They stuck the needles in and shook them and did it repeatedly for two full hours. Later, they did it whenever I did not obey them.
It was right after the Chinese New Year. Miao Shuxia said, "Let's put pins in her head because nobody will be able to see it." They started doing it on my head, and I could feel blood dripping down to my neck and clothes. My hair was all wet. They used toilet paper to press down on on my head for a while, and the bleeding stopped. I touched my head and felt a hard lump. (I heard that practitioner Liu Li from Zhuanghe, Dalian, died as a result of Wang Chunjiao stabbing her fingernails.) They kept stabbing my fingernails for one month. Then they strangled me with a scarf around my neck and pulled me around on the floor. Within a short while, I lost consciousness.
3. Tortured with Red Chili Pepper Water
These two brought half-a-bucket of boiled water with small red chili peppers and added some salt to it. At around 10:00 p.m., all the inmates had gone to bed. They forced the pepper water into my mouth. When I was a child, I heard from elderly people that when the Japanese invaded the Northeast, they forced pepper water into the Northeasterners, who then bled to death. I shut my mouth tightly. They then punched, kicked, and knocked me down. One of them stepped on the left side of my face with the right side of my face on the ground, which forced my mouth open. The other then forced the pepper water into my mouth. I struggled. They continued and still could not force too much of it into my mouth.
Wang Chunjiao thought up a wicked way to wash my hips using the pepper water and then forced me to drink 20 tablespoons of the pepper water they used to wash my hips. They also pushed the skins of the chili peppers into my vagina. They then poured a bucket of cold water on me from my neck down. They made me to wear slippers and stand for a long time without moving on a floor tile 30x30 cm. They opened the north window and the door on the south side to let the north wind blow on me. After they got tired, they went to bed and made an inmate with the last name of Li watch me until 5:00 a.m. when the other inmates got up.
They wet my winter clothes every day right before or after the other inmates finished work, and they forced me to stand in the warehouse for a whole night. They left the door and window open so that I would freeze. On the fifth day at around 10:00 p.m., right before all the inmates went to bed, I ran out of the warehouse and screamed for help. They pulled me back and locked the door. They beat me and broke my ribs.
The guards came to work and took me to the hospital for x-rays and confirmed that I had a large area of cartilage injury. The prison cell leader brought a back brace to wrap around my waist and ribs so I could lie down. Two weeks later, they took away the brace and forced me to stand in the cell during the day and only sleep at night. After half a month, Wang Chunjiao suddenly grabbed my hair and hit my head against the wall. I passed out. I know that it was a minor concussion.
4. Ruthless Abuse
They pinched, twisted, and pulled my breasts and nipples; pinched my inner thighs; and kicked my hips. The skin on my nipples sloughed off, and they oozed and stuck to my shirt. I shouted for help. The two wicked inmates then duck-taped my mouth and tied my hands behind my back with tape. They closed the curtains and pinched my inner thighs, which caused my skin to turn black and purple. My anus and vagina were kicked and bruised, and I had difficulty relieving myself. When I did, my ribs hurt. They slapped me in the face so often that my face was a mess.
5. 41 Days of Standing
Once I had to stand for 41 days in a row. They did not allow me to go to bed. While standing, I was not allowed to lean on anything or move around or wash or do laundry. Mealtime was only 10 minutes. But sometimes just after I picked up my bowl and had not yet eaten a bite, they said time was up and kicked away my food. They did not allow me to use the toilet for three to five days at a time. The longest time was 13 days.
6. Degradation and Mental Torture
Those two wicked inmates did all they could to insult my dignity: using a marker to write on my face, hanging a sign with a cartoon crime drawn on it around my neck, etc. They forced me to stand barefooted with my shoes hanging around my neck. Miao Shuxia stamped on the toes of my right foot, and my big toenail fell off six months later.
They degraded me while torturing me. They beat me down to the floor. When I could barely stand up, they kicked me down to the floor again. When I stood up, they kicked me again. Wang Chunjiao spit into my cup and my soup. They kept torturing me for 188 days.
On August 29, 2006, a new deputy ward head, Guo Xiaorui, came and assigned two new inmates to monitor me. One was Zhang Aihong (from Shenyang) and the other was Cui Jing (from Fushun). Later they moved two single beds into the clothesline room. Again I was locked in solitary confinement. They forced me to give my signature by holding my hand and signing for me. I did not cooperate. Zhang Aihong got so angry that she grabbed a ballpoint pen and jabbed seven holes into my inner thigh. I bled profusely.
They forced me to squat for three days and nights between December 6 and December 22. They did not allow me to use toilet for 13 days. They used steel clips to clip on my nipples. They took me to the toilet and used a broom to dip in their urine and brushed it on my hair, face, and underwear. Then they forced me to stand in the cell. When my clothes dried, they repeated the same for a total of four times, from morning until dinnertime.
One day late in March 2007 I went to brush my teeth and wash my face. Zhang Aihong slapped my face. She pinched my mouth and scratched my face and gave me two cuts on the right side of my face. Blood flowed. The cuts did not heal even after two weeks.
At the end of April 2007, my family came to visit me. All my children burst into tears when they saw I had been so brutally tortured.
