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My Experiences in the Forced Labor Camps of China

Aug. 15, 2003 |   Written by a Falun Gong practitioner in China

7/14/2003

(Clearwisdom.net, August 1) It is Falun Dafa that gave me a new life, yet the Chinese authorities illegally sentenced me to three years in total of forced labor on two different occasions for my adherence to my belief in "Truth, Compassion and Tolerance."

The first sentence happened in December 1999. Neither my family nor I yielded to the police's pressure or signed anything, but the authorities still illegally sentenced me to one year of forced labor.

Before the sentence, I had been detained in the local detention center and custody center three times, where the police forbade us to practice exercises or read Falun Gong books. One day the police confiscated all of our books and forced us to read their propaganda materials defaming Falun Gong. Refusing to cooperate with them, we recited Teacher's articles and practiced exercises, so the police made us squat down under the sun and beat us with batons. In the custody center, every day they gave us only two black corn buns, which had been made with coal dust mixed in. Unable to chew them, we had to swallow them with difficulty. The soup had a few leaves floating in it, along with dead flies and worms.

The forced labor camp was inhuman and savage. Being jailed in the fourth group, I had to perform heavy labor from day until night with no breaks, carrying heavy loads from the first floor to the fifth floor. Every day the authorities gave us only two or three hours to sleep, but forced us to work as quickly as possible, regardless of our age. The prisoners kept watching us and kicked us from behind whenever they felt we were offensive to their eyes. Inhuman treatment and overwork made everyone shiver with fatigue as if our bodies were out of control. Laboring sixteen or seventeen hours every day throughout the year in high frequency without rest, the jailed Falun Gong practitioners often fell into unconsciousness, but were still forced to labor after waking up.

In February 2001, I was sent to a forced labor camp again because I went to Tiananmen Square to validate Falun Dafa. After I opened a banner and called out, "Falun Dafa is good," several policemen pushed me into a police vehicle. They jailed me and over a dozen practitioners in a cell fenced up with iron bars in the Tiananmen Police Station. We recited "Lunyu" together and put a banner on the iron bars. At that moment many police came in and tore off the banner, then forced me and another practitioner who put up the banner to go out with them so they could beat us. We said, "No beating!" as several male fellow practitioners blocked the door and the females made a circle arm in arm to protect us. Failing to open the door, ten or more policemen beat our hands with batons to break us. They beat and kicked another practitioner and ordered me to go out, but I refused, so they dragged me out and over a dozen police kicked me. When I called out, "Falun Dafa is good," a policeman kicked my chest over my heart. I gasped for breath and felt weak and limp, but still had a clear mind. Unable to move, I could only hear their yells.

When they took me into a police car, I saw my coat had been torn open, but I was too weak to button it. Being scared of my injuries, the detention center refused to take me and transferred me to a police station. The police there required me to give them my name and address, but I didn't do so. They made me stand up, took off my coat and opened the door and the window to freeze me. I was shivering and twitching, and feeling too much pain in my heart to take a deep breath. A policeman suddenly poured a cup of cold water into my nose to choke me. They interrogated me overnight, and punched and shoved me because I refused to answer their questions. The next night they moved me to the detention center again, where a policewoman on duty gave me a kick and forced me to deposit the money they wanted. She took all of my 190 Yuan but only deposited 150 Yuan. The other 40 Yuan went into her own pocket.

In the cell, the police took off my clothes to search me. My new pants had some big holes because the police kept kicking me. I felt too much pain to sit down. My chest and back were so painful I couldn't lay down to sleep. As my heart kept twitching, they checked me with an electrocardiogram and told the cell boss to keep watch on me and report right way in case I was dying. They just didn't want to take the responsibility. But I was still made to do heavy labor in the cell. The detention center assigned one bed for each criminal prisoner, but made five or six Falun Gong practitioners share a bed. With little space to lie down, I preferred to be on duty, so during over a month I had little time to sleep. An old woman told me that when the last batch of Falun Gong practitioners were jailed here, the police didn't to allow them to wear pants and forced them to stand one by one facing the door to insult them. One of them went on a hunger strike to protest, so the police beat her badly, ripped off her pants, locked her to a bed facing the door and forced her legs wide open. Another fellow practitioner told me she witnessed a Falun Gong practitioner firmly adhering to her belief in Falun Dafa and Teacher. The jail guards inserted an electric baton into her vagina. The ways they torture the Falun Gong practitioners are most contemptible; they are truly beasts wearing human skin.

About thirty days later, I was sent to the Tuanhe Dispatch Division, where policemen holding electric batons with fierce looks on their faces stood on both sides in the yard. They forced us to stand still all day long to recite the rules. With a small pot of water for over a dozen people to share, each of us could take only two or three sips. The police forced us to stand, reciting rules or singing songs in a daze caused by thirst, and they didn't allow us to go to the toilet. At night they made us lie down without waiting for us to take off our coats. The Falun Gong practitioners were not allowed to move even a little bit and had to sleep with their head to the others' feet. For those who refused to write their "guarantee," the police beat them almost to death. The authorities told the prisoners, "It doesn't matter if you guys beat Falun Gong practitioners badly or break their bones, as long as you leave them alive." Even murderers are not routinely abused like this. The police also instigated the inmates to twist and step on the practitioners' fingers. A practitioner refused to yield, so the police beat her black and blue until the skin around her mouth ruptured and bled, and then handcuffed her so tightly that it caused a deep crease around her wrist.

I was imprisoned in the Xin'an Forced Labor Camp in Daxing County, Beijing. In the seventh group, policewoman Li Shoufen claimed it was she that dealt with the first batch of Falun Gong practitioners jailed there. None of newly imprisoned practitioners there were allowed to sleep. For those who refused to renounce their beliefs, she instigated perpetrators to abuse them twenty-four hours a day. Under her baton, the inmates tortured the practitioners in different ways. They kept the practitioners watching slanderous TV programs, reading papers posted on the wall and speaking in discussions or writing reports so as to make us tired out with nothing else to think about. Audio and video monitors were installed everywhere, in cells, lobbies, toilets and the yard. A practitioner refused to cooperate, so Li Shoufen and some prisoners physically abused her and posted papers on her face, which were full with slanders defaming Falun Dafa and Teacher. But eventually they didn't make it, so Li Shoufen let those inmates torture the practitioner to death and then write something to certify she died of illness. One of those who had been brainwashed refused to do so, therefore, Li started to abuse her. During these years Li Shoufen tortured countless practitioners.

In the Xin'an Forced Labor Camp, I was not allowed to sleep twenty-four hours a day for my refusal to write the "guarantee." A group of collaborators beat me because they had been promised that those who beat us fiercely might shorten their terms. Group leader Wang, and vice group leader Jia Kaiyun always incited the perpetrators who best knew how to torture others. As the Falun Gong practitioners were abused in every squad, I went to see Wang and Li Shoufen to reason with them, and also to persuade those abusers, some of whom changed their minds. Therefore, group leader Wang assigned someone to keep a lookout over me and forbade me to talk. On one occasion I asked if I could write a report to the outside to express my views. Upon hearing this, the jail guards claimed that I was spreading reactionary words and forbade me to sleep in order to make me write "self-criticism" over night. Two inmates monitored, beat and cursed me from time to time. During the daytime a guard sat by me as I was laboring in a machine shop. Following the guard's instructions, a collaborator kept picking on me.

In such an adverse environment, I suffered from scabies over my body for seven or eight months, which were such an issue that I could not until two or three o'clock in the morning. I had to keep scratching until they were broken and bleeding, which kept me in gnawing pain. In the daytime I couldn't open my eyes, while at night I was forced to watch brainwashing programs on TV that dazzled my eyes. In the shop I was made to operate machines to fabricate labor uniforms and slippers without any breaks. They even didn't allow me to take lunch in the dining room. I was too tired to stand up, as my lower back was so painful. While my vision was getting worse with fatigue, I could see little or nothing but darkness if I tried to focus on something, and once I moved around, I almost fainted. However, what made me feel most regretful is that I yielded to the cruel persecution and "enlightened" along an evil path due to the fact that I didn't study the Fa well. It is my greatest shame and sorrow. I'll do my best to make up for the loss and remove the interference to move towards maturity.