(Clearwisdom.net)
After reading the article "Death of Han Zhenju from persecution by Kaiping Labor Camp in Tangshan City", I am putting down here details of some of the inhuman conditions at the various camps that led to his death.
In March 2003, Dafa practitioner Han Zhenju of Yongqing County, Hebei Province was arrested and detained in the Kaiping Labor Camp in Tangshan City. After arriving at the camp, he protested by going on a hunger strike for over twenty days. Later in April 2003, authorized by Yu Chunlei and Wu Li, Han was transferred to Gaoyang Labor Camp. While he was at Kaiping Labor Camp, he was beaten badly by the guards there. Although the guards there knew very well that Han had a history of cardiac problems, they still used high voltage electric batons, as well as other torturing devices on him. Later, Han refused to take food for another 50 or more days to protest against the officers for taking away his Dafa books and the notes he wrote about the persecution. Again in early May, Han went on hunger strike again. Shortly after resuming food intake, he was summoned into the office one late night by Zhang Jianyong. Finally, on May 15, 2004, Han collapsed and died from the persecution he was subjected to.
According to a Minghui.net article on June 7, 2004, during Han's term of imprisonment in the camp, instead of the normal 10 hours of labor, which had been extended to 16 hours, the guards actually made him work for 18 - 19 hours each day.
Han was transferred to Wanzhuang Labor Camp, Langfang City, in Class 3 of Division 3. The Division Head is Wang Xiang, and Class 3's guard is named Yao. Two tasks were assigned to all the prisoners in the camp: picking and choosing red beans, and sewing up soccer balls to be exported overseas. A normal day started at five in the morning, hardly giving the prisoners time to wash. The total time allowed for the three meal-breaks was less than an hour. They were supposed to rest by 12 midnight, but a simple excuse from the team leader meant they would have to work overtime and often nonstop for a few nights in a row. A rhyme at the camp tells of the daily living conditions:
"The picking of red beans never ends,
The sewing of soccer balls is never complete,
The fleas are always too many to catch,
We can never finish the biscuits."
Under the camp regulations, a normal working day is between 8-10 hours. However, the captain enforced a minimum of 15 hours. Periodically after 9 p.m. the duty camp officer did a routine inspection, to make sure that the supervising team leaders were not playing cards. During the inspection, the supervisors turned off the lights, but as soon as the inspection was over, they quickly put the prisoners back to work again. Therefore, the actual working hours came to about 19 hours a day. The reason for this is the team leaders are competing with each other for the best production rate, which determines the financial incentives they will receive. The only way to beat the other team leaders is to increase the labor hours. About 40 people from the No.3 team were put in a room of about 20 square meters at the labor camp where Han was kept, and this gives an average of about 2.5 persons per bed. All the beds were double bunks and shared, except for the supervisors, who have managed to bribe single beds for themselves from higher officers. A single bed is often shared by three people. If someone gets up at night to go to the toilet, he may not get a place on the bed again when he returns.
Han Zhenju experienced the above conditions and ill treatments at Wanzhuang Labor Camp in Langfang City, Gaoyang Labor Camp in Baoding City, and Kaiping Labor Camp in Tangshan City. However, these are just a small part of what practitioners have suffered. We wish to call on people to come forward with more information about the suffering and brutal treatment of other practitioners who have been unjustly imprisoned and persecuted.
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