(Minghui.org) The Jilin Women's Prison is located in Lanjia Town, Changchun, Jilin Province, between Changchun and Helong Town. It is the only women's prison in Jilin Province. From the outside the main building looks quite pleasant and newly renovated. The prison boasts that their rooms are even more comfortable than the dormitory rooms of university students. However, behind its fresh new exterior a hidden environment of terror and abuse continues to exist.
The 8th division is specifically allocated to hold Falun Gong practitioners. More than 100 practitioners are held there and severely persecuted, including Ms. Gao Guibo, Ms. Bai Yun, Ms. Liu Yanjun and her sister Ms. Liu Yanchun. To force them to renounce their faith in Falun Gong, the prison guards and wardens have devised numerous malicious methods to torture them.
The practitioners who refuse to renounce Falun Gong are held in the “Strict Discipline Group” and are not allowed to see their families. They are forced to sit on small stools while watching videos that slander Falun Gong, every day from 5 a.m. to 11 p.m. They are also forced to compose repentance statements against their will. Attempting to break their faith, the prison guards order them to spit on Falun Gong books.
A veteran criminal inmate is assigned to closely monitor each practitioner. These are long-term inmates who have been imprisoned for more than 10 years and they are referred to as “cangues.” A cangue is a heavy wooden yoke borne on the shoulders and enclosing the neck and arms, formerly used in China for punishing petty criminals. If a practitioner does not ask permission in advance, even the slightest movement would trigger assaults and abuses from the cangue.
Because Ms. Liu Yanjun refused to give up practicing Falun Gong, a cangue called Cui was assigned to monitor her. She was forced to attend brainwashing sessions every day and was allowed only three hours of sleep each night. Her health deteriorated as a result and she suffered from high blood pressure and had a stroke. Her legs swelled and she was too weak to walk.
Yet when Ms. Liu's family appealed to the prison to release her for medical treatment, they were refused. The prison had no intention of releasing her and reassured her family that she was in good health. They told the family they had arranged medical personnel to measure her blood pressure every day.
Ms. Liu was coerced into speaking well of the care she received. She told her family that they did not need to come and see her so often. She was given more than ten kinds of medicine each day. After taking the pills, the inmates would violently open her mouth to see if she had swallowed the medicine.
Ms. Gao Guibo has been allowed to see her family only once since being incarcerated. Her family traveled a long distance in eagerness to see her, but when they arrived at the prison they were turned away. They were told she was under strict surveillance. They went to the officer in charge and said according to prison
regulations they were allowed to see her once a month. They expressed their worries about Ms. Gao's condition.
The officer refused their request and said that they would be allowed to call Ms. Gao. Ms. Gao informed them that all the money she had received from them was confiscated by prison guards to buy pens and notebooks that were used to record what she had learned from the brainwashing sessions.
The physical and mental abuse during the brainwashing sessions rendered Ms. Gao in a weakened mental state. She was coerced into telling her family not to come see her any more.
Contact information of parties involved in the persecution:
Jilin Provincial Women's Prison
Wu Zeyun, warden: +86-431-85375001
Wang Lijun, political commissar +86-431-85375002
Wei lihui, chief of the re-education section: +86-431-85375005
