The following day, I found dark bruises on my arms, under my armpits and on both sides of my chest. It was hard to find a place that wasn't injured. The back of my neck had sustained numerous blisters caused by shocking with the electric batons. My buttocks were covered with blood from injured flesh. I had a big hole in my blue shorts and in my underwear. Since I didn't have any change of clothes, I had to wear these shorts with the big hole that exposed part of my buttocks for over two months. I was finally able to borrow a needle and thread to repair it. I felt humiliated, and have kept the torn clothing as evidence.
From June 1 to July 7, 2000, I was illegally detained for thirty-seven days at the Dispatch Department. With temperatures as high as 100o F , we were not allowed to take a shower or change our clothes. Our shorts were covered with yellow sweat stains and could stand up on the ground if we took them off--they were that stiff. We were only allowed to have two minutes to brush our teeth and to go to the bathroom in the morning and in the evening.
Our room was about eight square feet and with one small window, and we had no air circulation at all. The Dispatch Department would send new people in here twice a week. The newcomers were requested to say, "I committed a crime and I acknowledge my mistake." Otherwise, they would suffer beatings or shocking with the electric baton. Even though the door was closed, we still could hear the screaming coming from the people being tortured, which put us under great mental pressure.
My nerves were so tense that I missed my normal menstruation for over eight months. I also had a terrible time with constipation, which was quite painful. There was another group of practitioners that had stayed there for five months, from early June to the end of September. It was the hottest season in Beijing. They were not allowed to take a shower or change clothes for five months.
Because they arrested so many people, the eight-square-feet room was used to hold up to 20 people. There were only eight beds in the room. The rest of the people could only sleep on the floor and under the beds. There were no places for people on the bed to plant their feet if they wanted to go to the bathroom. The summer clothes stored in the
Dispatch Department were used up, and prisoners who came after July and August had to wear warm fall clothes when the temperature was as high as 104o F. When most of the people were about to have heat strokes, the police finally allowed us to occasionally take off the warm clothes and remain naked in the room, and informed us to put them back on whenever there were any male police officers around or people came.
We sweated heavily daily but didn't have enough water to drink. Sometimes eight people were only given two small bowls of water everyday; other times there was nothing at all. Some practitioners would drink the water for washing our faces in their thirst and heat.
Everyday we were only allowed to have five minutes to eat a meal and had to squat down to do it. It was hard to finish the food in five minutes. If you could not finish it in five minutes, you weren't allowed to finish. Later on, before we were given food, we had to kneel down on one leg, raise up the bowl over our heads deferentially and say loudly, "Reporting to the team leader. Labor camp prisoner XX here to ask for food." If you didn't beg or if you begged in too low a voice, you would not be given any food. Sometimes one would suffer beatings and verbal abuse, too.
Ms. Ren Mei from Jiangsu Province had been on a hunger strike for six days in a detention center before she came to the Dispatch Department. She was forced to squat down directly under the sun and soon fainted. The police responded by using an electric baton to shock her head continually. When they found out that she was unable to move at all, they sent her to the hospital. The doctor said that her pupils had dilated to 1.5 times the normal size. She finally regained consciousness in the hospital after one day and one night.
Because she refused to give up Dafa cultivation, Miss Hou Liwei, 29, was tied to a chair. Several policemen used electric batons to shock her vagina, breasts and head. She lost consciousness for long time and also lost control of her bowels. She couldn't walk for a long time due to her injuries.
Ms. Ma Ronghong was handcuffed to a bed for more than 50 days, which caused the skin and the muscles on her back and buttocks to fester badly. She almost couldn't walk after she was released. During her ordeal, prisoners who were assigned to watch her often straddled her and beat her brutally.
On July 7, 2000, I was sent to the Beijing Tiantang Forced Labor Camp, later called Xin'an Forced Labor Camp. It was used to hold male prisoners. The female labor camp was not able to hold so many female practitioners, so the two were switched. Since the persecution of Falun Gong began, the labor camp expanded from a facility for one hundred prisoners in July 2000 to nearly one thousand in July 2001. When I was released in April 2001, the labor camp held 984 people, and most of them were practitioners. In the No.2 Team, where I was held, only about ten people out of 135 were not practitioners. From the 18 people in the No. 1 class I was assigned to, 17 were practitioners; eight of them were over fifty years old. The oldest one in the team was Ms. Chen Yuzhu, who was 68 years old. The youngest practitioner was only 18 years old. Ms. Wang Li, who was almost blind, and Ms. Wang Yan, disabled in both legs by infantile paralysis, were also detained in the labor camp.
When we were sent to the labor camp, the size of each class was limited to 12 people. Later, since they arrested more and more people, all the possible places for holding people such as the activity room, the library and even the police offices, were emptied to hold practitioners. The basic living facilities such the cafeteria and boiler room were far from meeting the need of expanded people, and the conditions were very poor. During my one year stay in the labor camp, I was only allowed to take a hot shower four times.
(To be continued)
Please see Part 1 on
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2003/10/16/41314.html
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