The Facts of the Persecution of Falun Gong -- February 8, 2006

Issued by Clearwisdom Net

Mr. Yang Xiaojie passed away at 11:15 a.m. on January 28, 2006.

Because of his belief in Falun Gong, Mr. Yang had been detained in the Northern Suburb Prison of Shijiazhuang City. Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members tortured him with numerous methods to make him give up his belief. Even after he was tortured to the brink of death, and he had become emaciated, prison staff did not inform his family members. They were not allowed to visit him for more than a year. People who knew Mr. Yang's story are deeply anguished about this miscarriage of justice. At the same time, they are shocked by the CCP members' brutality and enraged about the murder.

Because Mr. Yang persisted in practicing Falun Gong, persecutors in Shijiazhuang City arrested him on September 28, 2001 and detained him in the Northern Suburb Prison of Shijiazhuang City. His family members saw him last in November 2004. On January 26, 2006, after seeking help everywhere for over 2 weeks, his family members finally were able to bring him home, but only because Mr. Yang was dying.

By that time, Yang was malnourished and only skin and bones. He had difficulty breathing or speaking, and could not finish a sentence. He slept most of the time, as he was extremely weak. He only semi-conscious, and his family members could not wake him up. He had difficulties opening his eyes. He weight around 160 pounds before he was jailed, but by the time he was released, he was down to around 80 pounds. Even his parents could not recognize him. The Northern Suburb Prison of Shijiazhuang City delayed his release for over 10 days, although he had reached the critical stage. It was too late by the time he entered a hospital. The first thing a doctor said, "How could you wait so long before bringing him here?

Mr. Yang's parents are both in their 70s. They had been separated from their son for over 5 years. Yet, shortly after being reunited, it was time to bid farewell. His father kept saying, "It would be great if I could die in his place." Not being able to accept the fact, his mother cried at his body for over 7 hours.

Mr. Yang's wife, Ms. Liu Runling, was sentenced to an 11-year prison term at the same time Mr. Yang was sentenced. Ms. Liu has been detained in Hebei Province Female Prison and husband and wife had not seen each other for 5 years. When Mr. Yang's life was endangered, his family members applied many times to the female prison, hoping that Ms. Liu would be allowed to visit Mr. Yang. Persecutors in the female prison delayed the process until after the death of Mr. Yang. On the day before Chinese New Year, they dispatched 8 policemen, who took Ms. Liu to the funeral service for a short time only. Under pressure from family members, they allowed Ms. Liu to visit her mother-in-law. However, Ms. Liu was not allowed to go upstairs, so the old woman had to be carried down to see Ms. Liu in the police car. Shortly after, police took Ms. Liu with them, leaving behind her 16-year-old daughter and her old parents-in-law. Despite the fact that the next day was Chinese New Year, she was not allowed to stay at home for even a single day.

Under the genocidal policy of the CCP, the persecutors in the Northern Suburb Prison of Shijiazhuang City dared to hide Mr. Yang's condition and delay his treatment. We suggest the The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) to investigate this murder.

The tragedy of Mr. Yang Xiaojie's family is yet another evidence of the CCP's policy of killing practitioners.

We hope those people who are still participating in the persecution will wake up immediately, especially the guards and police in the Northern Suburb Prison and Hebei Province Female Prison. Please do not use your job requirements as an excuse any more. This is not an issue of rules and regulations, but one of conscience and human nature. You may not have the power to release practitioners, but you can tell your superiors the facts, so that the crime of murder will be stopped. Please do not let the tragedy of Mr. Yang Xiaojie be repeated!

Since Jiamusi City Forced Labor Camp in Heilongjiang Province started to illegally detain Falun Gong practitioners in November 1999, the camp guards, including He Qiang (male), Wang Xin (female), Yu Wenbin (male), Hong Wei (male), Liu Hongguang (male) and Guo Gang (male) put their full efforts into persecution every time the Jiang Zemin/Luo Gan regime sent them orders.

The methods they have been using to persecute Falun Gong practitioners include the following brutal tortures: "Carrying a Sword on the Back" (1), hanging up from the upper bed (2), pouring freezing water over people (3), "Dead Person's Bed" (4), electric baton shock (5), hammering nails into practitioners, sleep deprivation, sitting on a "Small Tiger Bench" (6), inciting criminals to brutally beat practitioners and over-strenuous forced labor.

There have been more than ten Falun Gong practitioners tortured to death at the Jiamusi City Forced Labor Camp. They are: Ms. Tang Hong, Ms. Fang Cuifang, Ms. Yin Ling, Ms. Wu Lingxia, Ms. Zhao Fulan, Ms. Men Xiaohua, Ms. Wang Shujun, Ms. Wang Dongxia, Mr. Zhang Changming, Mr. Wu Chunlong, Mr. Zhou Yiongliang, and Mr. Bi Jiaxin.

Many Falun Gong practitioners were tortured until they were disabled. They are: Ms. Wang Yuhong, Ms. Li Shuqin, Mr. Li Guoyun, Ms. Chen Pingzhen, Mr. Wang Xiaolei, Mr. Kang Aimin, Ms. Tong Li, Ms. Niu Yuhuan and others.

At present, the Jiamusi City Forced Labor Camp continues to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. The previous openly brutal torture by the camp guards now has shifted into using criminals to persecute practitioners and forcing practitioners to do over-strenuous forced labor. More than fifty Falun Gong practitioners illegally detained in the Jiamusi City Forced Labor Camp are being forced to sit on the small tiger bench every morning and every night. Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Guan Shuli was kicked by group leader Wang Xin (female) so severely that her feet are swollen and it is hard for her to walk. Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Qi Xiulan has been tortured severely and now has serious illness symptoms. Even so, guard Hong Wei (male) still forces her to participate in strenuous labor. Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Liu Chunjing from Huanan County has been experiencing lower back pain for several months. The guards Wang Xin (female) and Hong Wei (male) refused to acknowledge the doctor's diagnosis and have prevented Ms. Liu from having a physical examination. Although Falun Gong practitioners are forced to do overly strenuous labor every day, the soup they are given is not nutritious and doesn't even have one drop of oil in it.

Notes:

(1) "Carrying a Sword on the Back"

The practitioner's hands are tied behind his or her back with one hand over the shoulder and the other hand pulled up from the lower back. The guard then applies a great deal of force to pull the two hands toward one another and then handcuffs the hands together. See illustrations on /emh/articles/2005/1/17/56649p.html

(2) "Hanging up from the upper bed"

The practitioner's hands are handcuffed behind the back and then the practitioner is hung from the upper frame of a bunk bed by the handcuffs, with his or her feet not touching the ground.

(3) "Pouring Freezing Cold Water over People"

In the freezing cold winter, the police instigate criminals to keep pouring cold water on practitioners, causing them to be frozen, suffer numbness and frostbite. Sometimes part or all of their body becomes paralyzed. Some people even suffer loss of speech and memory from this torture. See illustration on /emh/articles/2004/6/11/49032.html (10th in article of 12 tortures)

(4) "Dead Person's Bed"

The four limbs of the practitioner are stretched out and tied to the four corners of an icy-cold metal bed. The practitioner cannot move at all. Neither is he allowed to get up to eat, drink, or go to the bathroom. This treatment would last from several hours up to more than a dozen days. This type of cruel torture causes severe damage to the practitioner both mentally and physically. See illustration on /emh/articles/2004/12/15/55600.html

(5) Electric Baton Shock

Electric batons of high voltage--30, 000 volts--are used to shock practitioners' sensitive and private places, like the mouth, the root of the ear, the central part of the sole of the foot, center of the palm of the hand, private parts including the penis and nipples. Sometimes, multiple batons are used together to torture practitioners. See pencil illustration on /emh/articles/2001/11/24/16156.html, 6th in article of 12 tortures

(6) "(Sitting on) Small Tiger Bench"

Victims are forced to sit on a cable reel as stool, which is about one foot high. The victims are forced to keep the lower backs straight, calves forming a straight angle with the floor, both feet closely together. If the posture does not meet the perpetrators' requirements, the victim is brutally beaten.

After suffering from long term mental and physical persecution in the Dalian City Forced Labor Camp, I finally finished my full sentence and was ready to go home. The day before my release, a "reform assistant" (a criminal inmate assigned to monitor other inmates, including Falun Gong practitioners) told me in all seriousness "After you are free, you must expose the evil in this place. If you don't do it, I will be really upset." His words surprised me. Under pressure, he had done a lot of bad things to persecute practitioners. But his words revealed a compassionate side to his nature. This article intends to expose from a victim's perspective how the guards in Dalian City Forced Labor Camp encouraged the evil elements in criminal inmates, how these inmates were used to persecute practitioners and other peoples, and how the deceptive and violent communist nature operates.

Guards in Dalian Labor Camp often beat the reform assistants. Although the guards may talk about humane management, in reality they use violence regardless. In Team Eight, the guards openly hit the reform assistants, wherever and whenever they chose. They most commonly slap them in the face. When guard An Ping slapped inmate Li Juntao, guard Liu also assaulted Li Juntao and injured her eyes. Relationships among the guards are also very hostile. They often fight with each other for some trivial reasons and never want to compromise. The four team leaders and the 15 guards have all personally attacked people. When the guards hit the reform assistants, their goal is to train these inmates to obey their orders to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. To achieve this they terrorize the assistants. The reform assistants call the guards "the mob" or "animals." Many reform assistants bribed the guards to join Team Eight for a "nicer" place. But after they were assigned to the team, they all regretted their placement and complained loudly.

Quite a few reform assistants told me, "We do not want to hit you, but we can't refuse if the guard orders us to do it. If we don't hit you, they will hit us, and they will extend our terms." The guards encouraged reform assistants to commit crimes. A reform assistant who was also a repeat labor camp inmate said, "Violence in the labor camp eliminates all compassion in human beings." Guards hit people, reform assistants fight each other, and guards order the reform assistants to assault practitioners. Reform Assistant Li Yue said, "In society if you assault someone, you end up in a forced labor camp. But in the forced labor camp if you hit someone, it's not considered a crime. You are even protected by the authorities." This officially sponsored violence has produced some very nasty reform assistants such as Fang Zewen, Xu Hui, Wei Xixin, Yu Jingkang, and Li Yue. Taught by the head guards, these assistants persecuted practitioners with sleep deprivation, physical torture, and insults.

The majority of the guards take bribes. A reform assistant told me, "In Team Eight, excluding branch heads, all the guards and their leaders deserve to be arrested because they all accept cash." This assistant himself is also a victim. Another assistant said that during the six months he was in Team Eight, he bought "nearly 100 10-packs of cigarettes." Most of the cigarettes were given to the guards. Some reform assistants said, "If they don't receive any bribes, they will start looking for trouble." He continued, "A 10-pack of cigarettes buys you one month of peace. After that, if you don't give them more gifts, they treat you like a total stranger." If the guards caught someone sleeping while on guard, they expected two soft drinks or two packs of cigarettes. Sometimes people give the guards one 10-pack of cigarettes to avoid the punishment. A reform assistant said, "I have spent 16,000 yuan in the past year and a half." Most of the money was for bribing the team leaders. Some reform assistants had no money, so they stole. Theft is common in the labor camp. People are constantly on the alert for their money and belongings.

Xu Hui, a group leader of reform assistants, and a few other assistants have their own cell phones, which are not allowed in the camp. Using the cell phones, Xu Hui and Wei Xixin gambled on sports every day. They said they had lost tens of thousands of yuan. Some guards also gamble. Xu Hui and Wei Xixin were very violent toward practitioners and helped the guards to persecute Falun Gong.

On February 16, 2005, the camp installed computers in the three branches of Team Eight. Now the heads of the branches play computer games day and night. They also watch movies with explicit sexual content while on guard duty. The guards even order the reform assistants to write up the educational records and work diaries and release the reports on their behalf. The reform assistants have to do the laundry, wash dishes, and make beds for the guards. The head of the inmates also has to prepare toilet paper and light cigarettes for the team leaders. When team leaders want to eat or use something special, the inmate leaders will go around in different groups and force inmates to contribute.

Deception is a very serious matter there. Team Eight prepared two sets of blankets, one set for show and the other for daily use. The actual set is locked in a steel cabinet year round and is not allowed to be air-dried out in the sun. It really stinks. The guards teach the reform assistants how to deceive the authorities. A reform assistant told me that in early 2005 a higher authority planned to visit Team Five to see if the new camp inmates were beaten. A guard leader grabbed an electric baton and threatened the reform assistants to not tell the truth. In order to cover up the persecution of Falun Gong, the labor camp even told the reform assistants not to tell their families and friends what they do as reform assistants. At the beginning of 2005, the higher authority came to review the situation in the labor camp. The Team Eight head recruited several reform assistants and handed them a "Guidelines in the Labor Camp." They were told to study the "Education-through-labor Rule Implementation Process" section. The guards told them explicitly to praise the labor camp and cover up the crimes.

After reading the "Guidelines," the reform assistants realized why the guards had told them to study it. According to the "Guidelines," the People's Police must observe the "Five Bans." One Ban says that police must not use physical violence, punishment or insults toward labor camp inmates. The guidelines also say that labor should not exceed six hours a day, that sleeping time should be at least eight hours, that camp inmates get breaks during holidays, that solitary confinement cannot exceed seven days, that tortures such as hanging by handcuffs and hanging by rope behind the back are banned, that electric batons are banned, and that labor camp inmates should enjoy all constitutional rights such as freedom of belief, health care and private mail. In short, all the things the law says to not do, the guards in Team Eight have done. The work hours there are usually twice and sometimes three times as long as allowed. The Falun Gong practitioners are allowed only five hours of sleep, and sometimes they are deprived of sleep for nine days. Some of them were locked up in solitary confinement for three weeks, some for several months, and in the most extreme cases for several years. These long-term solitary inmates were handcuffed and shackled. They were tortured even during sleep. They were hung by their handcuffs and by a rope behind their back. They are forced to wear boxing helmets all the time. There are no Sunday rest days here, and the longest holiday time is three days. Illegal activities occur all the time in every place.

The reform assistants hate the labor camp's two-faced approach. They are disgusted with their gross violations of the law, their persecution of Falun Gong and the guards' corrupt behavior. Strangely, despite the bad things happening every day, Dalian Forced Labor Camp has been selected as a national "Model Institute for Transforming Criminals," and Team Eight is selected as the "Civilized Team" every year. The reform assistants do not dare to speak up. They live a pathetic double life as victims and abusers. They dare not defend their own lawful rights, and they passively endure the guard's violations while they trample on their own human nature and conscience. These situations reveal the CCP's deceptive and violent evil nature. The forced labor camp's treatment of Falun Gong practitioners can best be described as "hurt without mercy and persecute without limit." 

At about 6:00 p.m. on January 6, 2006, police from the Qingta Police Station colluded with spies from the National Security Group to deceive practitioner Ms. Liu Hong's family members into leaving home and then ransacked her house. They found Falun Gong materials and booklets of the Nine Commentaries in her room. At about 8:00 p.m., when Ms. Liu came home from work, policemen were waiting at her home to take her away.

After Ms. Liu was taken to the Qingta Police Station, she refused to acknowledge the persecution, and ripped apart the police's written record. At night, Ms. Liu Hong had to go to the bathroom, but the security guards and police refused to let her go. She made the request six times, but the police still refused. Finally, she could no longer hold it, so a security guard let her use another room's sewer drain. Afterwards, Ms. Liu Hong experienced discomfort, vomiting, twitching limbs, muscle spasms, inability to close her mouth evenly, incontinence of the bladder and bowels, inability to speak, and loss of consciousness.

Upon seeing this, the police quickly sent Ms. Liu Hong to the nearby No. 3 Hospital for the Armed Police, in the company of her family members. After receiving an injection in the hospital, Ms. Liu Hong started to regain consciousness, but she still could not move her four limbs. The police from the Qingta Police Station sent Ms. Liu Hong to the Fengtai District Detention Center, despite the fact that she was extremely weak. The Detention Center did not dare to accept her upon seeing her poor physical condition and attempted to send her to the Police Department Hospital. Ms. Liu Hong refused. The Detention Center then kept her there and continued to torture her.

Police Stations are usually the first evil den in which Falun Gong practitioners are persecuted. When Falun Gong practitioners are taken to the police stations, the first things they are deprived of are the basic physiological needs. They are not allowed to drink, eat or go to the bathroom. Some practitioners are not even allowed to sleep. Many practitioners have been severely injured in the police stations.

On January 10, 2006, out of concern for her safety, Ms. Liu Hong's parents went to the Fengtai District Police Department to request the release of their daughter. Prejudication Officers Zhao Zhenhong (male) and Wang Kai (male) claimed that Ms. Liu Hong was in good health and rejected the family members' request to visit her. They refused to release Ms. Liu Hong and also deceived her father into signing a written record of unknown contents.

Mr. Tan Jinsheng, 70, was a practitioner from the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. He used to work in a high level position in the Animal Quarantine Institute of Yunnan Province. Because he practiced Falun Gong, Mr. Tan was illegally monitored by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) agents, and his house was ransacked. Mr. Tan's mind and body were severely hurt by the persecution. He passed away in September 2005.

Ms. Lin Yueying, 80, was a practitioner from the Forestry Department of Huanan County in Heilongjiang Province. In the spring of 1999, when she saw that her daughter recovered from many types of illnesses after practicing Falun Gong, Ms. Lin also started to practice. However, soon the evil CCP started to persecute Falun Gong. The unlawful people from the Forestry Department went to her house to interfere with her practice repeatedly. Because Ms. Lin was worried about her daughter being arrested, she could not sleep or eat well, and started to suffer from severe illnesses. However, a police officer from the Forestry Department, Zou Feng (male), still constantly went to harass her, and thus aggravated her illnesses. Ms. Lin passed away on August 15, 2000.

Ms. Zhao Yanuo, 60, was a Falun Gong practitioner from Tianjin City. Prior to her practicing Falun Gong, she suffered from cancer. The cancer had already metastasized into the lymph nodes and blood vessels. Ms. Zhao used to be a patient under intensive care in the Tianjin City General Hospital. In 1998, she learned Falun Gong and started to practice diligently. All of the cancer symptoms disappeared. After July 20, 1999, Falun Gong came under persecution. Zhao Yanuo used many different ways to clarify the truth to people and continued to practice in public. Because of this, she was persecuted until her body once again suffered severe illness symptoms. Ms. Zhao passed away on July 14, 2005.