(Minghui.org) A Falun Gong practitioner named Mei (alias) recently recounted what she experienced and witnessed at the Liaoning Province Second Women’s Prison. It is unclear whether she is still incarcerated there at the time of this report.
According to Mei, the prison authorities used term reductions to incentivize the criminal inmates to torture practitioners. Both groups of prisoners were also forced to do hard labor to make money for the prison, which had no regard for their well-being whatsoever.
The prison authorities boasted that they reformed and transformed inmates in civilized way, but many criminal inmates said that that the more the prison “reformed” them, the worse they became. The reason was that the intense, heavy workload and the harsh living conditions often made them lose their tempers and lash out at others to vent their frustration.
When they are admitted to the prison, Falun Gong practitioners are put on around-the-clock monitoring by criminal inmates. The inmates forced the practitioners to stand for over ten hours a day and ordered them to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. If the practitioners refused to comply, the inmates beat and verbally abused them, and subjected them to other forms of abuse, including sleep deprivation, no restroom use, and no time to wash themselves or their clothing. They were not allowed to purchase daily necessities, or receive phone calls from their families.
One practitioner was not allowed to wear warm clothes during the winter because she held firm to her faith. The inmates also poured water on her bedding.
Mei revealed that all Falun Gong practitioners were also later forced to do hard labor together with criminal inmates. The prison was contracted to make clothes for Li-Ning Limited (a sportswear company) and had to produce over 400 tops and 700-800 pairs of pants every day. The prison was paid over 20 yuan for each top, and 10 yuan for each pair of pants.
To meet its contractual obligations, the prison forced the jailed practitioners and non-practitioner inmates to work for more than ten hours every day. According to Mei, her floor alone had more than 180 people. They had to get up at 5 a.m. and take turns brushing their teeth and washing their faces. They then went to the workshop at 6 a.m. to have breakfast, which consisted of a small sponge cake, an egg, and one spoonful of congee (rice porridge).
The work day formally began at around 6:50 a.m. and ended around 7:30 p.m. It was close to 8 p.m. by the time everyone was allowed to return to their cells. Those whose work was unsatisfactory were punished, including being forced to stand or squat in their cells, and they were not allowed to brush their teeth or purchase daily necessities.
The guards allowed only one and a half hours for personal hygiene tasks at the end of the day (from 8 to 9:30 p.m.). With over 180 people on Mei’s floor, everyone was only given five minutes to shampoo their hair, shower, and wash their clothes. There were ten stalls in the only bathroom. The guards did not allow people to have bowel movements. Many struggled to hold themselves because during the day in the workshop, they were also barred from using the toilet to have bowel movements as there were only ten minutes of restroom break with over 50 people in each team that took turns using the restroom.
Summertime was especially cruel. The temperature in the workshop often reached over 40oC (104oF) and it felt like a sauna room. Most people had heat rashes all over their bodies. Some were also allergic to the fabric used to make clothing. Others had colds and fevers. They had to keep working or they were punished. A team lead (an inmate assigned to oversee the clothing production) constantly reprimanded people. She was given a daily quota to meet and would be punished or rewarded accordingly.
A non-practitioner inmate had a relapse of her heart condition and was rushed to the hospital. A few days later she was discharged and put back in the workshop to make clothing. Another underwent surgery and was also ordered to resume doing hard labor before she fully recovered. A third one had femoral head necrosis, but less than three months after her surgery she was forced to work again. She cried in pain. A few other inmates were wheelchair-bound but still had to make clothes. A section chief yelled into a loud speaker, “Our division does not support idle people!”
Many non-practitioner inmates longed for the procuratorate inspection days. During inspection, the guards did not dare to have inmates work overtime or on Sundays. An inmate planned to file a complaint to the inspector, but was locked up in a solitary confinement cell.
Every time an inmate went to the head guard’s office, they had to pause in front of the door and shout, “Report” in a half-kneeling position with one leg bent. If the head guard did not say, “Come in,” she could not get up or go inside.
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