A recently released practitioner reveals the living conditions and persecution methods used at the 2nd Women's Prison in Yunnan Province. Regular criminal inmates are encouraged to abuse Falun Gong practitioners.

Certain wards of Tilanqiao Prison are set up specifically for torture. The prison even manufactures and sells a specially made, painful to sit upon stool that prisoners are made to sit upon for long periods.

Falun Gong Practitioners Force-Fed Drugs, Exposed to Swarms of Mosquitoes at the 2nd Women's Prison in Yunnan Province

A Falun Dafa practitioner who was recently released from the 2nd Women's Prison in Yunnan Province revealed that the prison guards forced every imprisoned Falun Gong practitioner to give up her belief by being "transformed". All of the practitioners were forced to have their blood pressure taken. Subsequently, they were told that they had high blood pressure and needed to take drugs and receive injections. Nerve-damaging drugs were administered for long periods of time.

One day a guard told a practitioner to take her "medicine." The practitioner replied that she was not sick and did not need to take it. The guard then ordered the inmates to force her to take it. When the inmates told the guard that the practitioner refused, the guard said, "You must find a way to force her to take it." The inmates pushed the practitioner down and immobilized her head, hands, and feet. One inmate held her chest down with her knees, pried open her mouth and force-fed the medicine. The practitioner almost lost consciousness.

One practitioner heard another practitioner in the next cell say, "I am not sick and I will not take the medicine. Falun Dafa is good." Sounds of chaos erupted in the cell accompanied by a lot of banging. After a while, an inmate who participated in the commotion came by saying to herself, "A person who was beaten to death in the prison was treated worse than a fly."

One day a practitioner was practicing the sitting exercise. An inmate reported her to the guard. The guard put the practitioner in handcuffs and shocked her chin and her shoulder with an electric baton. She was confined in a small cell (1) for over one month.

The 2nd Women's Prison is located near a forested mountainous region that is host to swarms of mosquitoes. Most inmates are allowed to use mosquito nets while they sleep. However, Falun Gong practitioners are not allowed to use the mosquito nets. One night, a practitioner could not endure the mosquitoes and pulled over a corner of an inmate's mosquito net to cover her face. She was confined in a small cell for over one month. An elderly practitioner was so badly bitten she had bite wounds all over her face. Ms. Shen Yueping, a practitioner from Yuxi City, suffers with a swollen body from the torture she received. There were many other practitioners that were tortured until their bodies were swollen.

When the inmates in the 2nd Women's Prison are not happy, they lash out in anger towards practitioners. The practitioners are often physically beaten and verbally abused for no apparent reason by those inmates. One day an inmate pulled out a handful of hair from a practitioner. Inmates that saw the incident laughed hysterically.

Note:
(1) Small cell - The detainee is confined alone in a very small cell. The guards handcuff the practitioner behind her back in a fixed position, so that she can neither move nor lie down. The small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. A bucket in the cell serves as the toilet. Only half of a regular meal is served each day. During the night rats run around. The stench in the small cell is so bad that it is difficult to breathe.

Tortures at Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai (Illustrations)

Recently the international media has focused on Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Xiong Wenqi from Putuo District, Shanghai City, who was so seriously beaten in the First Ward of Tilanqiao Prison that he became crippled. Even now. the guards at the First Ward show no remorse and continue to torture practitioners.

When Mr. Xiong was in the First Ward, he was beaten by 8 to 10 inmates every day, and daily was forced to sit on a "tiger stool" (depicted below) for 15 hours. During his imprisonment, he went on a hunger strike and was force-fed a liquid containing chili powder and menthol. Some of this hot liquid got into his eyes.

Narrow stool made with copper wires. Practitioners were forced to sit on it for over 15 hours at a time.

This stool actually is produced by the prison for export. It is a mini-transformer wrapped with copper wires with a diameter of 20 cm and an uneven surface. After sitting for several minutes, one's buttocks start to hurt, but guards force practitioners to sit on it every day for over 15 hours. Practitioners' hands are tied behind their backs and they are not allow to move. As soon as the person moves, the plastic shell breaks, and the person has to pay or be beaten or endure even more serious consequences.

Tilanqiao Prison Administration assigns newly accepted practitioners to the First Ward, which holds violent criminals and is set up specifically to administer torture. For instance, the practitioners who do not capitulate in the Falun Gong special management team in the Fifth Ward are taken to the First Ward. Practitioner Mr. Cai Jun from the Pudong Newly Developed District was beaten and "reformed" in the First Ward. The practitioners imprisoned here include Canadian practitioner Mr. Lin Shenli's younger brother, Mr. Lin Mingli. Mr. Guo Jinfu was shocked with five electric batons simultaneously at a labor camp. As a result he has lost of control of his bowels. Mr. Zhu Hua was illegally sentenced to three years of imprisonment and then sentenced to an additional six years. These men continue to be tortured to varying degrees. Mr. Lin Mingli met with his wife in the summer after he was first imprisoned in the First Ward and asked her to bring his winter clothes. After several months, his wife still has no information about him. She only knows that because Mr. Lin Mingli "did not perform well" in the prison, she cannot visit him.

Picture: Practitioners were confined in cells in the First Ward indefinitely

It appears that Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai is supervised by public prosecutors, but if the public prosecutor saw criminal inmates beating up a practitioner in a ward that was marked "He is Falun Gong," the prosecutor would walk away as if nothing was happening. Instances of practitioners being beaten and injured frequently occurr in Tilanqiao Prison. More seriously, practitioners resorted to staging hunger strikes. When a practitioner was beaten, if he reported it to the authorities, Public Prosecutor Sun Liming would tell the practitioner not to bother him again, saying that the Chinese Communist Party issued explicit documents requiring the suppression of Falun Gong and he could do nothing about it.

Practitioner Mr. Du Ting, 41, was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment in 2001. Because he went on a hunger strike and was critically ill, he was taken to Shanghai General Prison Hospital, located at Zhoupu District. Early 2007, Mr. Du was imprisoned in the First Ward and was tortured by the guards and inmates so severely that he developed fluid in his lungs and almost died. He later contracted tuberculosis due to his weak state. Despite Mr. Du's condition, prison guard, Zhang Yi incited the inmates to abuse him. As well as the physical abuse, Mr. Du Ting suffered extreme mental abuse.