I'm a nurse and am 45 years old. I used to have tuberculosis and had several operations. The side effect of the medicines I took severely impaired my heart, liver, stomach and eyes. I also suffered from anemia. I was always very weak. I got sick every time there was an epidemic. I tried all kinds of treatments, but my health didn't improve much. The incisions from the operations often bothered me and made me suffer.
In August of 1996, I was fortunate to begin to practice Falun Gong. My diseases all disappeared. My life was filled with happiness. I was elected "Outstanding Nurse" for several years in my hospital.
On July 20, 1999, the Jiang regime started the persecution of Falun Gong. There were constantly police cars around, even late at night. At work, neighborhood administration offices, or at police substations, they forced practitioners to hand over their Falun Gong books and to renounce Falun Gong. The president and director of my hospital had conversations with me and demanded that I write the so-called Guarantee Statement. I said, "I benefited greatly, both physically and mentally, from practicing Falun Gong. One should have a conscience. If someone helps you by giving you a drop of water, you should pay him back with a rushing stream." They had conversations with me one after another and said that as long as I wrote the Guarantee Statement, even if I still practiced at home, I would be just fine. But no matter what they said to me, I refused to renounce Falun Gong, even if just on paper. At last, the director said: "If you continue to be this stubborn, we will have to hand you over to the higher level. By then, if they find books at your home, you would have to face severe consequences." Because there were practitioners who had their homes searched, I was afraid of being searched as well. Thus, I was forced to hand over two books.
On February 2, 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong and was sent back and "illegally detained" in a detention center. There were over 160 practitioners in that detention center. In my cell, there were over ten inmates and over 20 practitioners. It was very crowded. We had to sleep sideways at night. If you had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night, there wouldn't be any room for you to sleep when you come back. I went on a hunger strike to demand my unconditional release. But they didn't pay attention to me and forcefully injected some unknown medicine into me and fellow practitioners. The guards brutally beat and persecuted practitioners. Some suffered the torture of "riding the airplane" for over 4 hours. I was tortured until I lost feeling in both my legs. I had to be dragged around. During hunger strikes, most practitioners were force-fed. The prison doctors and guards inserted big rubber tubes into practitioners' mouths. When the tube was withdrawn from the body, bloody liquid and food came out with it. They didn't change the tube, instead they threw it onto the floor, stepped on it and then inserted the same tube into another practitioner's mouth. For practitioners who refused to be force-fed, some were tortured by having their teeth pulled out, and some had a mouthful of blood. My throat was injured during force-feeding. I wasn't able to talk for over 10 days. My throat and ears bothered me so much that I couldn't sleep at night. I even had to lie down with others' help. Due to continuing our hunger strike, the guards tied me and another two other practitioners together using a 50+ pound shackle. It was New Year in 2000. My mother couldn't stand the trauma of my being detained and was hospitalized. My family demanded the police station to release me. At last, after being detained for 55 days, I was released. But the police took it as an opportunity to extort 3,600 yuan from my family.
On June 13, 2000, the 610 Office personnel at work came to have a talk with me. They sent me to Hongxinglong Detention Center in Shuangyashan City due to my refusing to write the so-called Guarantee Statement. In the detention center, they saw me practicing the exercises. So they poured water over me, my bed and blankets. It was raining those days, so it was damp everywhere. There was a guard who was moved by practitioners' behavior and actions. After he learned the truth about Falun Gong and the persecution, he stopped participating in the persecution. But he was dismissed by the detention center. Another guard tried to prevent us from practicing. He put handcuffs on both my hands and he shackled me and a fellow practitioner together. We clarified the truth to him and also told him about the principle of good being rewarded with good and evil meeting with retribution. He stayed in the hallway for over 10 minutes and then came back and freed us from the handcuffs and shackles. With the help of my family and friends, I was released after being illegally detained for 10 days. Two years later, I learned that the detention center had extorted 3,200 yuan from my friends.
On December 19, 2002, I was illegally arrested by police who were hiding in a fellow practitioner's home. They took over 2,000 yuan in cash and my cell phone. After they took me to the police station, I asked why they had arrested me and told them that they were violating the law. I refused to answer their questions. The police locked me to the back of a chair. They put Master's pictures on the chair and on the floor and forced me to sit on it. They moved my feet to step on it. I firmly demanded that they stop their wicked actions and told them of the principle of karmic retribution. At around midnight, I was sent to the detention center. Then they moved me to Dongfeng Police Station, where many practitioners were being persecuted. The police locked me to a metal chair and tied my hands and feet to the chair. They took turns every two hours to interrogate me and didn't allow me to rest. They asked me who made the truth-clarification materials, who printed them, where the materials production sites were, etc. I refused to answer them. A guard with the last name of Teng started cursing at me loudly and beat me brutally. After two days of interrogation, they didn't get anything they had expected. They sent me back to the detention center. Having gone through severe mental and physical torture, I went into a coma. When I woke up, I had been injected with some unknown medicine. I pulled out the needles and passed out again. Later, I was woken up by shouts. I was surrounded by police. I asked that I be released unconditionally. But the detention center declined my request. My parents were both over 70 years old. They couldn't stand the mental anguish again and again. They were ill. My weak mother went to the police station to demand my release. She passed out there. Police didn't dare to use the 110 police car [110 is the emergency dispatch number, similar to 911 in the US] because they were afraid of the impact it would have. So they drove an unmarked police car and dropped my mother off in the hallway of a hospital and left immediately. Due to my family's constant requests, I was released after two months. This time, they extorted 10,000 yuan from my family.
On October 23, 2003, when I went to visit fellow practitioners, I was arrested by Chen Yongde, the head of the National Security Section of the City Police Department. A fellow practitioner couldn't stand the torture and told them my name. The guards knew that I had contact with Wang Jiping (they was searching for Wang Jiping everywhere at that time). They shackled me to a metal chair. They tightly locked my hands and feet to the chair and interrogated me about the whereabouts of Wang Jiping. I refused to tell them anything. The guards then poured water on my head and my body. After beating me brutally, they turned the chair over and hung me upside down. My whole body weight resided on my tightly tied feet, hands and neck. It hurt badly. One of the guards claimed that he was an expert in dealing with death row prisoners. He was able to even make them talk. The guards didn't stop torturing me until my face was badly swollen. I could hardly open my eyes and kept throwing up.
The guards found my current address from my child's school records. They planned to stay there to arrest other practitioners. I was afraid of more practitioners being caught (by then, there were already over 10 practitioners arrested). I was deceived by the police's lies. At that time, there were two army officials from Shenyang Military Region in my presence. They and two other police officers promised me that as soon as they found Wang Jiping, they would let him go home from the military and would release everybody who was arrested due to this. I thought that they were all high ranking military officials, and so they would be credible. So I led them to find Wang Jiping. But on the second day, they took Wang Jiping to Shenyang City. I was shocked by the news. This completely exposed the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) evil nature.
In the past several years, every time there was a national holiday, or so-called "sensitive date," police from the police stations would harass practitioners by making phone calls or coming to their homes and arresting them for no reason. This makes practitioners' families so worried that some practitioners have even started using secret signals to alert their families when they go home. And every time they go out, they are always nervous. Neither practitioners, their families, nor the whole country, can live peacefully until the CCP dissolves.
An Immense Human Purgatory
Qianjin Prison of Beijing, also called the Seventh Reform Labor Farm, is located in Ninghe County of Tianjin City. It is about 49 km along the Jinhan Highway and was formed by merging the original Qianjin Prison, Qianwei Prison and Yongyuan Prison on November 20, 2001. It's under the jurisdiction of the Qianhei Branch Bureau of the Beijing City Prison Management. The Qianhei Branch Bureau is in charge of five prisons and more than 300 prison guards. The five prisons are Jinzhong Prison, Chaobai Prison, Qianjin Prison, Liulin Prison, and Qingyaun Prison. Qianjin Prison is the largest and covers 70 acres including 20,594 square meters of building space. It is designed to accommodate 2,000 prisoners.
Qianjin Prison has imprisoned large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners since the year 2000. Practitioners sentenced in Beijing to five or more years of prison were mainly sent here. The following practitioners were sentenced to Qianjin Prison in 1999: Li Chang, Ji Liewu and Wang Zhiwen from Falun Gong Research Association; Yu Chao, Meng Jun and Wang Weiyu from Qianhua University; Liang Minghua, Wu Jun, Gao Jianming, Qin Wei, Xu Huaquan, Wu Chao, Wu Yinchang, Deng Huaiying, Li Yeliang, Zhang Yanbin, Wang Zhiwen and Yu Chao are imprisoned in the Ninth Prison Section. Zhang Yanbin is imprisioned in the Fourteenth Prison Section. There are Christians and other prisoners of conscience imprisoned here.
The main entrance of Qianjin Prison, where a large number of Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned
Qianjin Prison is run differently than other prisons and forced labor camps. Prisoners' family members cannot bring daily necessities or visit. They can only deposit money into prisoners' accounts. Former inmates report that Qianjin Prison is managed ruthlessly and serves the worst food compared to the other prisons. Qianjin Prison uses the most severe physical, mental and financial persecution against steadfast Falun Gong practitioners.
Qianjin Prison issued an announcement in the 147th issue of Fenghuang Weekly. It states that each prisoner is allowed buy 40 to 200 yuan of daily necessities in the prison supermarket. The amount the prisoner can spend depends on the prisoner's behavior. They uses the prisoner's behavior to deprive them of daily necessities as a means of effective control. Such means are widely used in the Chinese prisons and forced labor camps. The prison uses unscrupulous means in treating Falun Gong practitioners. When Falun Gong practitioners resist their vicious persecution, the prison considers the behavior as disobeying reform and thus wantonly reduces their spending privileges.
Each group has a visiting day once a month on alternate days. Visiting areas are divided into three sections and range from relaxed to very restrictive.
Section A: Family members are allowed to have face-to-face conversations and dine in the so called "affection restaurant."
Section B: Family members are allowed to have conversation face-to-face.
Section C: This is the most restricted section. Prisoners are not allowed any face-to-face conversations. A glass panel separates the visitors from the prisoners and conversations are held through telephone lines. The conversations are monitored and recorded. Three cameras on the ceiling monitor the visiting rooms. Prison guards walk back and forth behind family members. Phone conversations are disconnected if they touch on a topic considered sensitive. Frequently, families are forced to leave before the visiting hour ends. Section C contains most of the Falun Gong practitioners. Practitioners considered "reformed" are considered to be no problem and are allowed to receive visitors in section A.
According to the prison regulations, only the newly arrived prisoners (prisoners for less than two years) are sternly managed. Falun Gong practitioners are treated as the most dangerous of criminals and are always under stern management regardless of their length of stay.
Qianjin Prison staff keep a close watch on Falun Gong practitioners' activities. They open and read mail, tap phone calls and listen to visitor conversions. Prison authorities are often in a panic when they find out scandalous news that was uncovered by Falun Gong practitioners or when reliable news on the Fa-rectification is delivered by friends or relatives. Many letters thus disappeared forever. Prison guards fear messages from overseas. Prison telephones are all equipped with caller ID and calls from overseas are not answered. All overseas letters are intercepted by the prison. These letters are later used as evidence to condemn Falun Gong practitioners or their families. Light penalties include denying visits and phone calls, or reducing monthly spending allowances for daily necessities. Heavy penalties are being locked up in isolation, being beaten or other severe forms of punishment.
Steadfast Falun Gong practitioners receive the heavy penalties. Some practitioners have not had a visitor for more than six months.
Physical examinations and drawing blood samples warrant international attention
Not too long ago, Qianjin Prison staff started doing physical examinations on Falun Gong practitioners and other prisoners. Please note that all of them had blood samples taken. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is suspected of harvesting of organs from living Falun Gong practitioners. We must be alert. People need to pay close attention to this matter and call for an investigation.
Falun Gong practitioners enduring long-term tortureAt this moment more than one hundred Falun Gong practitioners are still imprisoned at Qianjin Prison. Most of them are being held in the first, eighth, ninth and twelfth prison sections.
Falun Gong practitioners are usually locked up in a small cell (three meters by one and half meters in size) when they first arrive. They are under constant surveillance by the criminal prisoners working with the guards. Prison guards try to "reform" them by carrying on long conversations with them for extended lengths of time. They deprive them of sleep, beat them and humiliate them through the use of abusive language. They force Falun Gong practitioners to sit on a bench that is only a dozen centimeters high and not let them move, except to eat or go to the restroom.
The prison deals with steadfast Falun Gong practitioners by beating, cursing, sleep deprivation severing family connections and torture that makes them appear to be abnormal. Prison guards use several electric batons simultaneously to shock them, kick and beat them into unconsciousness or deformity. Practitioners who went on hunger strike in protest were forced to wear restraint outfits. Falun Gong practitioners Zhu Hening, Yang Jie, Li Jinpeng, Li Baoshu, and Lin Shusen were all tortured with the electric batons. Lin Shusen told others that he was shocked many times in sensitive places with the electric batons. As a result, he suffered from a mental breakdown for several months.
At the beginning of 2006, Falun Gong practitioners Liang Minghua, Wu
Jun,
Gao
Jianming, Qin Wei, Xu Huaquan, Wu Chao, Meng Jun, Wang Weiyu, Wu
Yinchang and
Deng Huiying began to practice again in resistance to the persecution.
Prison
guards panicked. Prisoners considered to be the most steadfast in Falun
Gong
were
moved to the 8th Group to be closely watched in March 2006. In the
meantime, they strictly guarded against any messages coming into the
prison and
the prison guards isolated newly arrived Falun Gong practitioners from
others. The
other practitioners are therefore unable to learn about the current
Falun Gong
situation due to the severe isolation.
Several practitioners, including Zhang Jian and Wang Weiyu, were sent to the 8th Group for ruthless persecution. Several prison monitors are assigned to watch over each practitioner. They abuse and insult the practitioners constantly to make them suffer mentally and physically. Forty-eight common criminals from the 12th Group are watching over these seven practitioners.
Since prison guards fear retribution, they instigate actions by criminal prisoners to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. The enthusiastic participation of criminal prisoners in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners is rewarded with reduction of their prison terms and not having to work. In order to be released early, these criminal prisoners sell their consciences and willingly persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Falun Gong practitioners are beaten and abused whenever the monitors are slightly dissatisfied. Prison guards order these monitors to keep a high degree of surveillance on the Falun Gong practitioners. If there is any communication between practitioners, even a glimpse of each other, there will be frenzied retaliation. A practitioner that had to face the wall for a long period of time said he found that more painful then being beaten.
This prison is presented as a "civilized prison" and the oppressive officials as "national model workers."
Qianjin Prison tries to present the image of a pleasant civilized prison. Visitors from different parts of the country are invited to visit and inspect the prison. Things become very busy before these visits. Prisoners are ordered to make false statements to the visitors, food service and quality improve, prisoners are moved around and they isolate the steadfast Falun Gong practitioners so they are not seen. They create a false front of "transforming" prisoners by civilized means to deceive visitors and inspectors.
In 2001 and 2005, Qianjin Prison was declared a "satisfactory political and law unit." In 2005, the Ministry of Justice called it a "just law enforcement unit, an advanced group for promoting impartial law enforcement" and praised it as a modern civilized prison. The CCP gave it an honorary award for its "handling" of Falun Gong practitioners. The 9th Group is one of the main sections to imprison and persecute Falun Gong practitioners. Cao Lihua, the political director of the 9th Group and the CCP party secretary, was awarded the National May Day Labor Medal for his reformation of 76 Falun Gong practitioners and his 100% reform rate. The head of the prison became the country's model worker. The way to reform Falun Gong practitioners adopted by Cao Lihua was the application of extreme mental and physical persecution that causes the prisoner's total collapse of spirit, mind and body. Falun Gong practitioner Lin Shusen is the case in point of being tormented into a mental disorder.
In order to confuse the public, Qianjin Prison opened the first supermarket and an "affection restaurant" in the North China region to create a so-called humane atmosphere and seize the opportunity to gain high profits. It has also established an electronic reading room. Qianjin Prison does not allow families of Falun Gong practitioners to bring daily necessities to them; they can only buy a fixed amount of goods determined by quota. The amount of purchase is linked with the "behaviors" of Falun Gong practitioners. The prices for this merchandise are much more expensive than those outside the prison. None of the merchandise has a price tag, the families find that out at the checkout counters. Each visiting day family members had to decide what to buy at the checkout with anxious expressions. They refused to buy the goods that were too expensive, so the prison changed its regulations. Family members can no longer buy goods directly. They can only make deposits into their family member's account that the prison guards are able to control so they can hide their maltreatment of practitioners. The so-called "affection restaurant" is a cover or whitewash. Even when families are allowed to have visits in section A, they still need to pay brazen blackmail to Qianjin Prison staff. The prices at the restaurant are excessively expensive. Once, a criminal's father ordered two orders of spareribs and several other items; but the father just sat there watching his child wolfing down all the food.
Note: The following is a shortened version of a longer and more detailed article that appeared on the Minghui.org website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net).
Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Bai Shunqi, in his 40s, lives in Dongyangtai Village, Dong'anzhuang Towship, Shenzhou City, Hebei Province. Since being arrested at his home in April 2006, he has been detained and tortured in Shenzhou City Detention Center to the point where he can no longer take care of himself. The detention center is responsible for his condition, but the administration forced his family to pay for his check-up at the hospital.
At around 9:00 a.m. on August 22, 2006, Center Political Director Wang Erxi (male) and another guard (name unknown) escorted Mr. Bai Shunqi to Shenzhou City People's Hospital, accompanied by his wife and sister. Mr. Bai Shunqi was very weak, wearing handcuffs and ankle-shackles, and could not walk upon exiting the vehicle. Mr. Bai's wife Wang Fengzhun asked if they could borrow a wheelchair, and was brutally refused by the unknown guard. With one blow of his fist, she fell to the ground, and was unable to get up for a long time. Her head immediately showed a big bump. Several dozen people surrounded them. Under heavy condemnation by these individuals with a sense of justice, the guard quickly fled the scene. Wang Erxi called upon guards to pick up Mr. Bai Shunqi and take him back to the Detention Center without seeing a doctor.
Note: The following is a shortened version of a longer and more detailed article that appeared on the Minghui.org website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net).
On the morning of August 16, 2006, policemen Cui Fuli, Song Qi'an, and Chen Youqiang from Renhe District Department (in Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province) and thirteen policemen from Tongde Station drove to Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Yang De'an's home and tried to arrest him. They fired bricks at his door, forced Mr. Yang De'an to open the door, and then stormed in his house like gangsters, taking all of his Falun Gong materials.
Mr. Yang was taken to Renhe District Police Department and was hung up with his hands behind his back in handcuffs from 2:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.. Mr. Yang De'an said, "I am trying to be a good person by practicing Falun Gong. I have never committed any crimes." Policeman Cui Fuli replied, "We specifically torture good people." Mr. Yang De'an did not cooperate with the authorities, and they had to release him the same day.