Exposing the Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners in Sichuan Province Women’s Prison

(Minghui.org) Female Falun Gong practitioners in Sichuan Province are held at the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison in Chengdu City after they are sentenced for upholding their faith. As soon as they are admitted, they are subjected to brainwashing. There are also other cells in the prison with restricted access and no one knows what happens behind the closed doors.

The “study group” (brainwashing session) of each practitioner consists of four inmates: two felons (one with a higher education background), and two former practitioners who had been transformed.

Practitioners in the brainwashing session are ordered to write guarantee statements and repeat the communist regime’s propaganda to smear Falun Gong. Various torture methods are used when the practitioners refuse to comply.

First, they are made to sit upright after breakfast from 7 a.m. until bed time. If they refused to write the statements, the time would be extended by half an hour every day. For instance, if the sitting torture stops at 10 p.m. today, then it will be extended to 10:30 p.m. tomorrow, and the following day would be 11 p.m. Their bedtime will return to normal once they write the statements. They are not allowed to shower or change their clothes or underwear during that period of time either.

While sitting all day long, they can only use the restroom once in the morning and once in the afternoon. They are also not given any toilet paper to use and could only use the water in the toilet bowl to wash after defecating.

It is quite uncomfortable to sit on the stool for a long time. But if they change their sitting position, they would be sworn at. They are given only a little to eat for lunch and dinner. The inmates also played recordings that slander Falun Gong very loudly.

No guards come over to stop the inmates when they torture the practitioners. If the practitioners request to talk to the guards, the inmate in charge would say, “Don’t be silly. These are all arranged by the guards.”

To force practitioners to write the guarantee statements, the inmates did not allow them to buy any daily necessities. The inmate in charge said, “Once you write the statements, you can be released from the strict-management control, be allowed to make phone calls, ask your family for money, and buy daily necessities.”

Every Tuesday is brainwashing day in the prison. Liao Qunfang, the education chief who has more than 20 years of experience persecuting practitioners, is in charge. Many torture methods were formulated by her. She denied the persecution that had been exposed by Minghui and kept repeating the slanderous propaganda against Falun Gong, especially the staged Tiananmen Square self-immolation.

After a practitioner was released, she wrote to Liao to tell her that the self-immolation was a hoax. Liao immediately organized a brainwashing session in the prison.

There are two hidden CCTVs in the cells used to hold practitioners. Inmates who monitor the CCTVs have to pay attention to the practitioners’ every move and write reports to the guards. Practitioners are not allowed to talk to each other and have to write thought reports every month.

Torture illustration: Forced labor in the prison

Inmates have to work long hours from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break. The production quota is very high and almost impossible to complete. Those who cannot complete the quota have to work on a rest day. However, they are not allowed to say that they are working overtime. Instead, they have to say they are replenishing the goods voluntarily. They are also subjected to strict-management and made to copy prison rules every day.

The prisoners are paid about 20 yuan (about 3 USD) every month, but the food in the prison is very bad and many people could not have a filling meal, causing many to suffer from malnutrition and poor health. Despite this, they are still forced to work and restricted from drinking water or using the restroom. This resulted in many suffering urethritis. However, the prison doctor did not prescribe any medicine and only told the prisoners to drink more water.