The Crimes of Du Baochuan, Former Prison Doctor of Baoding Forced Labor Camp in Hebei Province

(Minghui.org) We think of doctors as men and women who do their best to care for the sick and cure patients. For prison doctor Du Baochuan, that was not the case.

Du was the prison doctor at Baoding Forced Labor Camp in Hebei Province. When Falun Gong practitioners were sent to the labor camp, Du tortured them in attempts to force them to renounce their faith.

Falun Gong practitioners are adherents of a spiritual teaching and meditation practice that has been persecuted in China since 1999. Practitioners are often arbitrarily imprisoned and undergo severe torture at the hands of guards, wardens, prison inmates, brainwashing instructors—and in Du’s case, doctors.

One example of his brutality was how he force-fed the practitioners. He was known to tie practitioners to chairs and push their head backwards, so that their neck was bent against the back of the chair. At this point, the esophagus was nearly blocked. He then would pinch the practitioner’s nose, pry open their mouth with pliers, and pour liquid food into their mouth.

In this position, the liquid would fill the practitioner’s mouth and block the trachea instead of going down the esophagus. Unable to breathe, the practitioner would struggle.

Du would wait until the practitioner stopped struggling and massage their chest, right before the practitioner’s heart might stop beating. He then let go of the practitioner so that the food would go down and the practitioner would be able to breathe. This was repeated multiple times during each feeding session to subject the practitioner to pain and suffocation; he used his medical knowledge to purposefully bring the practitioner to the brink of death and back again.

Du also injected the practitioners with unknown drugs, inserted needles under their fingernails and toenails, force-fed them fecal matter, poured alcohol into the noses, and shocked them with electric batons. All of the practitioners in the labor camp suffered various degrees of abuse from Du. He was directly responsible for the practitioners who were injured, disabled, died, or became mentally incoherent during his tenure at the labor camp.

The following are 13 of these cases.

1. Mr. Liu Yongwang (刘永旺)

Mr. Liu Yongwang from Quyang County and his wife are both Falun Gong practitioners. The couple were transferred to the Baoding Forced Labor Camp on December 11, 2001. Mr. Liu, a graduate from Tianjin University and a chief engineer, went on a hunger strike to protest the arbitrary detention. Seven guards and medical personnel held him down on a chair on January 1, 2002, trying to force-feed him. Du pried Mr. Liu’s mouth open and held it open with pliers to the point that his mouth bled.

Du pinched Mr. Liu’s nose and poured salted milk down his throat. The liquid went into his lungs, and he struggled for his life. The torture resulted in chest pain. After the force-feeding session, Du put Mr. Liu with an inmate who had contagious tuberculosis in solitary confinement to infect him with the disease. After a while, Mr. Liu began to cough up blood constantly.

Mr. Liu lost feeling in his left leg in 2002 after a high fever, which damaged his nerves.

Besides force-feeding and infecting Mr. Liu with tuberculosis, the labor camp authorities whipped his face with a belt, bashed his face with a wooden plate, (breaking his tooth), and tied him to a death bed. He once went into shock and nearly died after one of these intense torture sessions.

Torture reenactment: Death bed

2. Ms. Qiu Liying (丘立英)

Ms. Qiu Liying, 56, lived in Shijiazhuang City. When she was brought to the labor camp in May 2001, a guard instructed an inmate to bash her head with a shoe and pour leftover milk all over her. That evening, Ms. Qiu began to convulse involuntarily due to head trauma.

A guard called Du to help; he jabbed a needle into an acupuncture point under Ms. Qiu’s nose while threatening her. He missed the acupuncture point and blood began to squirt out from her nose. This acupuncture point in Chinese medicine is supposed to be an emergency treatment for heatstroke, shock, syncope, and respiratory arrest.

As she began to dodge the needle, Du poked her with the needle in random places to punish her. Du had two inmates hold her arms and beat her with a metal pipe until she went into cardiac arrest and passed out. After she regained consciousness, the inmates continued to beat her and assault her until her heart stopped and she passed out again.

3. Mr. Feng Guoguang (冯国光)

Mr. Feng Guoguang was 44 when he died. He was the deputy chief of Xiling Town in Baoding City. The police arrested him in October 1999 and arbitrarily put him in the labor camp for three years.

He was tortured on a death bed in 2001. He went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution, so the guards worked with Du to force-feed him in January 2002. As a result, an excessive amount of liquid accumulated in his lungs. He was force-fed again the next day and vomited blood that night.

The guards rushed him to the 252 Hospital and he remained in critical condition after ten days of treatment. Not wanting to shoulder the responsibility for his death, the guards told his family to take him home. He died less than a month after his release on February 14, 2002.

The authorities at the labor camp told a Minghui correspondent that Mr. Feng died before he could finish his term. When the correspondent inquired about the cause of death, he was told, “There are thousands of detainees here, we wouldn’t know.”

In May 2002, Du told the practitioners in the labor camp, “You may know me if you’ve been here long enough. I am the villain exposed on Minghui.org, but it doesn’t scare me. If you refuse to eat, I will force-feed you. I have plenty of time and will insert a tube into your stomach as many times as I want.”

4. Ms. Guo Guiju (郭贵菊)

Ms. Guo Guiju from Xiong County was taken to the labor camp by officers from the Domestic Security Office. Du first stabbed her under the nose, on the soles of her feet, her toes, and her fingers. He then injected her with unknown drugs and told her family to pay for the cost of the drug two weeks later. After she went on a hunger strike, Du force-fed her and handcuffed her to a bed frame for 24 hours.

5. Ms. Wei Xiuling (魏秀玲)

Ms. Wei Xiuling is a practitioner from Baihong Village in Peishan Town, Yi County. Officers of the county Domestic Security Office took her to the labor camp in 2003. As a result of the torture she suffered, Ms. Wei’s eyesight became blurred, her back began to ache, and her legs swelled up. She felt dizzy and would sweat profusely all day.

When she was taken to the labor camp clinic, Du asked if she was sick while a guard videotaped her. Knowing that Du had planned to defame Falun Gong using the video of her being sick, she warned Du, “I am not sick, and even if I am, it’s because you tortured me!”

The guards took her to a room that was dedicated to torturing Falun Gong practitioners. They forced her to stand still for a long time and deprived her of sleep. Unable to stand the physical stress, she suffered a mental breakdown.

Another time, she fell ill with blood in her stool. She couldn’t find a comfortable position and was restless. Instead of taking her to a hospital, a guard believed that she was pretending and left her unattended for days.

6. Mr. Liu Hui (刘辉)

In October 2004, Du force-fed Mr. Liu Hui from Baoding City under the pretense of treating him. The tube inserted into Mr. Liu’s nostril ruptured his nasal lining and he couldn’t stop bleeding.

In November, Du stabbed a thick needle under Mr. Liu’s nose and the needle went into his mouth. Du also stabbed the needle into his fingernails, toenails, and the soles of his feet.

Torture reenactment: Stabbing fingernails with needles

7. Ms. Dong Chunling (董春玲)

Ms. Dong Chunling, 65, lived in Baoding and retired from the Baoding Sugar, Cigarette, and Wine Group. When Ms. Dong was taken to the labor camp the second time in December 2004, she went on a hunger strike. The guards put her in solitary confinement.

Because her stomach was damaged in previous torture sessions, the guards didn’t force-feed her. Instead they forced her to undergo intravenous injection everyday. One time, Du put unknown drugs in the IV liquid, and immediately Ms. Dong felt excruciating pain and began to tremble. Du then jabbed a needle under her nose several times.

8. Mr. Zhao Yanping (赵彦平)

Mr. Zhao Yanping from Laishui County was taken to the labor camp in March 2003. He was suffering from a severe stomach ulcer at the time. Wanting to get him approved for medical bail, his family had to bribe a guard, Li Dayong, with gifts and 5,000 yuan in cash.

The bribery was exposed and Li was forced to return the 5,000 yuan. Li directed his anger at Mr. Zhao, who barely ate anything for a month because of his condition, and sent him to the labor camp clinic.

Du hit Mr. Zhao’s face with a baton and then jabbed his face and arms with a needle. The needle was hooked at the tip and removed some of the Mr. Zhao’s flesh when it came out. To further torment him, Du flushed his nose and mouth with alcohol. After the torture session, his blood pressure became dangerously low and, afraid to shoulder the responsibility if he died in the labor camp, the authorities released him.

9. Ms. Hou Manyun (侯曼云)

Ms. Hou Manyun, in her 50s, is from Laiyuan County. The local domestic security bureau put her in the labor camp in 2001. She went on a hunger strike in spring 2002 to protest the persecution. To force-feed her, Du tied her to a chair and encouraged several inmates to pour liquid food into her mouth. The inmate filled her nostrils with liquid. Du only had the inmate stop after Ms. Hou passed out and stopped breathing.

10. Ms. Huang Fenghua (黄凤华)

Ms. Huang Fenghua from Baoding City was force-fed in public outside of the camp’s visiting room on September 10, 2004. The guards dragged her on the ground back to her cell.

The guards decided to force-feed her after she went on a hunger strike for four days on November 15. Du shocked her with an electric baton while force feeding her. He kept the feeding tube in her stomach after the feeding was done, so that the guards could continue to force feed her that night in her cell.

11. Ms. Dang Huiying (党会英)

Ms. Dang Huiying, 45, was an employee at the provincial construction company. Her legs are crippled as a result of the torture that she endured in the labor camp.

In 2004, she was put in the labor camp for 3 years. She was deprived of sleep, forced to squat for a long time, and often not allowed to use a toilet the whole day. She went on a hunger strike to protest the abuse.

A guard named Zhang Guoqiang force-fed her with heavily salted corn porridge and spilled it all over her. Du brought a dog to lick Ms. Dang’s face and its claws scratched her face. Later, he gave her a shot of an unknown drug, which caused her to lose eyesight and become numb, weak, and thirsty.

12. Ms. Zhang Xiaoli (张小丽)

Ms. Zhang Xiaoli, 43, was a teacher and lived in Nanwangzhuang Village in Baoding City. She was transferred to the labor camp on November 5, 2004. During the three years she was in the camp, she was frequently tortured while being force-fed.

One time, Du force-fed her through a tube that ran from her nostrils into her stomach. The violence caused her to vomit what she was fed. Du spread the vomit on her face and slapped her in the face.

Du then force-fed her with fecal liquid, stomped on her head, and pinched her with a pair of pliers. After that, she was handcuffed and hung up for two weeks and injected with unknown drugs.

She suffered a mental breakdown as a result of the torture. She couldn’t fall asleep and often talked to herself. She became emaciated and developed a tumor in her abdomen.

13. Ms. Fan Zhijuan (范志娟)

Ms. Fan Zhijuan from Wangdu County went on a hunger strike in June 2004 in the labor camp. She became weak, but still had to go out and work. After she came back, Du ordered the guards to tie her down on a chair. He pulled her hair back so that her neck bent backward against the back of the chair. As he pried open her mouth, the guards inserted a tube into her nostril down her stomach, without feeding her anything. They told her, “We just want you to suffer!”