(Clearwisdom.net) Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp in Fengxiang County, Shaanxi Province, is a concentration camp for detaining Falun Dafa practitioners. All male practitioners sentenced in Shaanxi Province are sent here for illegal detention and persecution. Female practitioners are detained in the Shaanxi Province Women's Forced Labor Camp.
In November 2005, practitioner Mr. Chen Jiansheng from Xi'an City was tortured to death in Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp. After his death, the labor camp still incited the drug addict inmates to disguise the truth and lie, saying that Mr. Chen had been released on medical bail to cover up for the guards who had committed the crime. Even the inmates who were confined with Chen Jiansheng didn't know the truth about his death.
In the years between 2001 and 2003 when the persecution was at its worst, Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp implemented the 'three-minute "transformation'" for newly admitted practitioners. They confined the practitioners in a dark small cell with no windows and had drug addict inmates or guards beat them brutally with wooden sticks. After the battery, they asked, "What's the color of the wall?" If the answer was "White," they continued the battery until the practitioners couldn't endure any more. If they followed the guard's will, they answered, "The wall is black." Then they were asked, "What's Falun Gong? Is it an evil religion?" Many practitioners were tortured brutally. The ones who refused to be "transformed" often got beaten until they were disabled. Practitioner Mr. Zhang Jianmin from Hua County was beaten until he only had three teeth left. For several years he was only able to consume liquids and had a hard time eating. Mr. Zhang is now being detained and persecuted for the second time in Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp.
At that time, the education team was focusing on detaining practitioners. Under the command of political leader Lu, guards Hou Baicheng, Wang Xinwei, Ma Zhuming, and others brutally persecuted practitioners. The most commonly used torture was "studying." Everybody had to sit up straight at a 90-degree angle on a small bench, no talking or moving allowed, from 7:00 a.m. until midnight. For a whole day, practitioners were not allowed to move. It was more tiring than working all day. Some often fainted. This kind of persecution often lasted one month, two months, or more.
The drug addicts took away practitioners' food, basic necessities, and money. The addicts used the money to buy cigarettes. If practitioners didn't give them enough money, they would get beaten. The guards assigned each drug addict to monitor one practitioner, even when the practitioner went to the bathroom. When they were in a bad mood or couldn't get any benefits from practitioners, many drug addicts tortured practitioners. When practitioners wanted to go to the bathroom, the monitors wouldn't let them go. Some even ended up urinating in their pants. Even if they were allowed to go to the bathroom, the monitors would count to five and rush them back to their cells right away. The guards always incited the inmates to do this.
Once in 2003, practitioners decided not to passively accept the illegal persecution by the inmates. They declared that they would not admit any of the so-called 'transformation" and would continue to practice Dafa firmly. The guards locked up all practitioners in a dark room on the third floor. They turned off the lights and beat the practitioners with batons brutally. The torture lasted for an hour. The main party responsible for that incident was political leader Lu of the education team.
At the beginning of 2004, a practitioner (name unknown) from Xianyang refused to be "transformed" and was being persecuted brutally. One day, Chen Bin from Xi'an Jiaotong University came to Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp to give a speech to slander Dafa. Everybody was gathered in the auditorium, but this practitioner who refused to be "transformed" was left in his cell. The guards incited several drug addicts to tie him to the bed and stuff his mouth with a towel and beat him brutally for over two hours until they saw he was at the brink of death. When others came back from the speech, they found this practitioner covered with bruises and blood and he couldn't even move. Everybody knew what was going on, but nobody dared to ask because in the Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp, nobody was allowed to ask about Falun Gong.
In May 2004, due to the exposure of the persecution facts to the outside world, the infamous education team was dismissed, but the persecution continued.
During the second half of 2003, Mr. Ma Fujian, a practitioner from the northern part of Shaanxi Province, was detained at Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp. Because he refused to be "transformed," the camp was planning to lock him up in a solitary cell. After being confined to a solitary cell, one is completely separated from others. Whatever happens in the cell is totally unknown by anyone on the outside, and they can do whatever they want to persecute practitioners. Mr. Ma knew what they were planning to do, so he refused to cooperate and refused to get into the cell. The guards then locked him up in the Third Team of the No. 1 Division. All other practitioners in the Third Team were transferred to other places. Mr. Ma started going on a hunger strike. The guards then force-fed him using rough surgical tubing and intentionally made his nose, mouth, and stomach bleed. It was so cruel that the drug addicts couldn't even stand to see it. This brutal force-feeding lasted for three months. Three months later, Ma Fujian's esophagus and vocal cords were severely damaged due to the brutal and continuous force-feeding. He almost lost his ability to talk and hasn't been able to talk properly since. Because Mr. Ma refused to cooperate, in the two years he was at Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp, he was never allowed to go outside the cell and he was always locked in the cell, sitting on the little bench.
After April 2005, Mr. Ma Fujian started reducing his intake of food to avoid the brutal persecution of going completely on a hunger strike. This soft hunger strike went on for four months. He went from eating six buns a day to only drinking a bowl of porridge. In August of 2005, at a height of five feet seven and a half inches, he only weighed 55 pounds. He was just skin and bones and looked terrible. In June he went on a complete hunger strike. The doctors only gave him one bottle of intravenous fluid and were afraid of giving him more. His condition got worse and he was dying. The guards were afraid of him dying in the labor camp, so they assigned people to take turns monitoring him 24 hours a day. By then, Ma Fujian had lost the ability to sleep, and his eyes were open 24 hours a day. Because the guards were afraid he would die in the camp, in June 2005, they released him on medical bail. According to the diagnosis of the doctors in the labor camp, all of Mr. Ma's major internal organs were failing. When his family saw him, he was having a hard time talking. Ma Fujian and his family asked for an explanation, but all the guards from No. 1 Division went into hiding. Unable to obtain any explanation after a whole morning, his angry family had to take him home. His current condition is unknown.
Beginning in 2004, all newly detained practitioners were first locked up in a very small cell of less than 10 square meters. There were no windows in the cell so there was no way for people who were locked in this cell to know what was going on outside. There was no monitoring system in the cell, so nobody would know or care about what was going on in there, even when people were being beaten to death (e.g. Chen Jiansheng). Usually three drug addicts were responsible for monitoring one practitioner. It was not allowed for any of the four of them to have any contact with other people. The door was locked from the outside 24 hours a day. Nobody knew what was happening inside. In fact, this is a dark den within a dark den. The four of them did everything in the little cell. There was only one toilet inside .The smell was very bad. All newly detained practitioners were sent to this kind of cell. The main persecution was to only allow practitioners to sleep for no more than three hours. The rest of the time they had to sit on a small bench and read books that slandered Dafa while being monitored 24 hours a day by inmates. If they didn't get "transformed" and didn't cooperate, the guards would incite the monitors to beat them. The most severe persecution happened in No. 2 Division. Two inmates would hold up one practitioner while another inmate beat the practitioner brutally. They took turns when the other one was tired.
The inmates beat the practitioners who didn't give in once an hour. Practitioner Mr. Chen Jiansheng from Xi'an was beaten to death like this when he went on a hunger strike and clarified the truth and told others about the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. In November 2004, Mr. Zheng Shijian, an employee from Fengjiashan Reservoir of Baoji City, was beaten on his mouth with shoes 50 times because he ate one more bun in the cell. He was unable to eat for several days. The practitioners in the small cells often had bruises all over their bodies. After midnight, there were always screams and cries from the cells.
Some "transformed" people sometimes were sent to the small cells as well. Mr. Qiang Mensheng from the Weibin District of Baoji City was locked up in the small cell because he refused to write anything to slander Master and Dafa. He was only allowed to sleep for three hours a day. Before his term was up, he was sent to the cell because he refused to answer questions on paper to slander Master and Dafa. The guards assigned inmate Xue Weibin to persecute him. Xue abused and beat the over 60-year-old Mr. Qiang every day and didn't allow him to sleep. Because Mr. Qiang refused to give in, his term was extended for another month.
The belongings of practitioners in the small cells were often taken away. Their money was used by other inmates and guards to buy cigarettes, tea, and daily necessities. The inmates who participated in persecuting practitioners in the cells were often praised and their terms were reduced. When other practitioners sent a small pouch of milk powder to Mr. Chen Mingan who was on a hunger strike, the drug addict from Doumen Town, Changan County, Xue Weibin, took it to exchange for cigarettes without thinking about the practitioner's life. His term was reduced by a month because he "contributed" to transforming practitioners. These inmates benefited from beating up practitioners who were the age of their own fathers. There is an unwritten provision at Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp: One is not allowed to beat others--except for practitioners. One is praised for beating practitioners. One is allowed to encourage drug addiction, stealing, and deceit, but one is not allowed to teach others to be good.
One inmate liked to make friends with practitioners. He liked to listen to Falun Gong's principles of teaching people to be good. As a result, he was treated the same as practitioners and was locked up in a small cell to be brainwashed and "transformed." The camp was trying to transform good people into bad ones. Everybody who was able to "transform" or beat practitioners got assigned to be group leaders and was given rewards by having their terms reduced. A drug addict, He Weiwei, who is still in Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp, was assigned by the guards to be a group leader and was promised a three-months reduction in his sentence because he beat practitioner Mr. Zhang Guolin. Every six months in the labor camp, "models" were selected. Some people said Dafa practitioners were always models without being selected because they never cursed people or beat others and they liked to help others and do good things. However, the people who got selected were actually people who were persecuting the good people and were the drug addicts and thieves who persecuted practitioners. For example, the drug addict Ge Pengfei from Lingshansi Village, Yuxia Town, Hu County, was very strong and he could hurt somebody with one punch. He was assisting guard Zhu Dangxu to persecute practitioners. He became a group leader because he participated in beating practitioners in the No. 2 Division. Later he was transferred to the No. 1 Division and he was selected as a "model" because he beat practitioner Mr. Zhang Guolin at the instigation of Zhu Dangxu.
Guards Zhu Dangxu, Wang Wei, Yang Yalong, and Liu Zhiqi were all actively participating in persecuting practitioners. Practitioner Mr. Chang Hongji had to stay in bed and was not able to move due to high-blood pressure and a heart attack. Guard Zhu Dangxu told somebody to pull Mr. Chang into his office and beat him up. Mr. Chang couldn't get up to report his number due to illness. Zhu Dangxu beat him and forced him to stand up to report his number. Wang Wei and Zhu Dangxu also participated several times in beating practitioner Mr. Zhang Guolin.
In June 2005, Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp got the task of processing glass beads. The beads, as small as mung beans, needed to be processed on sand wheels to have 32 sides. If there one side did not match the others, the bead would be considered defective. Guard Liu Zhizhi arranged for practitioners to work from 6:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. In between, there were only three 30-minute breaks for meals. To justify the 16-hour illegal intensive labor, Liu Zhiqi said that the 1500 product assignment was based on an eight-hour-day. But in reality, nobody could finish the work within eight hours. If many people were able to finish it within eight hours, he would increase the number of assignments. Practitioner Mr. Zheng Shijian was older and slower. Plus other inmates often intentionally stole his finished products or said his products were defective on purpose. He had to stay up until midnight or even 1:00 a.m. to finish his work. The next day, he had to get up at 6:00 a.m. again to continue to work. Unless the electricity was out, they had to work without any breaks. Practitioner Mr. Sun Jianjun had bad eyesight. He couldn't even see the hole to pull the thread through, but he was still forced to work until 10:00 p.m. every day. Liu Zhiqi commanded, "Old or young, as long as you are alive, you have to work on this." Some elderly practitioners had poor eyesight. Liu used "transformed" Zhou Jiankui as an example and said that Zhou was very nearsighted but he could still do it, so others should be able to do it, too. In fact, Zhou Jiankui's eyes were red and swollen every day and he was relying on eye drops. Liu Zhizhi also often contracted for heavy-duty construction work and forced practitioners to work outside in the winter. Every day practitioners had to get up at 7:00 a.m. to work and were not allowed to eat until 5:00 p.m.
At the end of November 2005, Chen Bin from Xi'an Jiaotong University established a brainwashing center in Fengxiang County, Baoji City. The guards from the Transformation Office in Zaozihe Forced Labor Camp invited Chen Bin to give speeches on "transformation" and started a month of "war against steadfast practitioners." They persecuted all practitioners in the labor camp even more brutally. I will provide more detailed reports about this.
