(Clearwisdom.net)
1. Dafa Practitioners Held in the Jiamusi Labor Camp Are Forced to Work with Carcinogenic Materials and Brutally Beaten If They Refuse
(Clearwisdom.net) In order to make some quick money for themselves, prison guards at the Jiamusi Labor Camp in Heilongjiang Province accepted illegal production projects, and forced labor camp inmates, which included Falun Gong practitioners, to do the intensive production work. They used plastic materials with toxin levels exceeding the industry standard to make cell phone cases. This caused serious harm to the health of the inmates who handled these materials. Because of the slave labor and toxic materials, Falun Gong practitioners suffered tremendously and were not able to work after a while. Practitioners who refused to do the work were severely beaten.
Forced Slave Labor Involving Carcinogenic Materials
Starting on March 8, 2003, all of the inmates from the No. 9 Brigade of the Jiamusi Labor Camp, totaling more than 80 people, were forced to make cell phone cases. The plastic was of poor quality and gave off an irritating smell that brought about a harsh choking sensation. Through lab testing, it was determined that the toxin levels in the materials used were well beyond the industry standard, and could cause cancer. Police agents wore large face masks while guarding us, and never entered the production area while we were working there. Meanwhile the prison authorities and the company that contracted the forced labor used these toxic materials to take advantage of consumers.
There was a daily production quota that needed to be filled or overtime work was mandatory until the production quota was reached. Many practitioners and inmates suffered from constant bloody noses, irregular heartbeats, and difficulty in breathing. Shi Jing had a pale face, and collapsed on the worktable from being overworked. Later, when she revived a little, she was forced to continue working.
Falun Gong Practitioners Experience Breathing Difficulties and Suffer From Inflamed Eyes Due to Exposure to Toxic Dust
In April 2002, the No. 7 Brigade received a production project making flax [a type of vegetable fiber similar to linen fiber] cushions for automotive seats. Practitioners were forced to perform slave labor from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. nonstop. This kind of flax produces a lot of dust, which is harmful to one's health, irritates the respiratory system and causes an itchy throat and difficulty in breathing. There were no safety measures in place in the production area. Practitioner Cao Xiuxia became ill from the long hours of slave labor and terrible working conditions. Because she could not work any more, prison guard Sun Limin brutally beat her.
In July 2002, authorities responsible for the No. 7 Brigade forced Falun Gong practitioners to construct paper boxes for mooncakes [a traditional Chinese dessert], using toxic, foul-smelling glue. Many practitioners were sickened, with inflamed and swollen eyes, but the prison guards didn't care.
When Practitioners Refused To Do the Slave Labor, They Were Brutally Beaten and Handcuffed
The authorities forced Falun Gong practitioners to do slave labor, and when practitioners refused they were brutally beaten. A lot of Falun Gong practitioners were seriously beaten, and exposed under the dangerously hot summer sun for many hours. Some practitioners were handcuffed for more than a month and when they were uncuffed, their hands, lower backs and legs had severe bruises, and they were unable to even walk. Yet, before they could recover, they were immediately sent to do more forced labor. Guards would often beat, kick and handcuff practitioners at will without even paying attention to the duration of the handcuffing. Some practitioners were over 60 years old, but they would still beat and handcuff them.
Prison guard Li Xiujin beat Falun Gong practitioners many times. Since January 2003, we know for certain that she beat Falun Gong practitioners at least 13 times just because they were protesting the persecution and refusing to do slave labor. Li Xiujin beat practitioners Kang Aimin, Li Ping and Zheng Yingchun so severely that they collapsed. When any practitioner could not keep up with the disciplinary exercise regimen, Li Xiujing would knock him or her to the ground. Some practitioners were knocked unconscious, but the prison guards didn't care; they just walked away after the beatings. Some practitioners' ear drums were ruptured from the severe beatings, so that they were unable to hear. One female practitioner was 50 years old and was brutally beaten until she had black and blue marks all over her upper body, and a swollen face. She was handcuffed for a long time and was in extreme pain, so that she was unable to move. Her eyes could not see properly from the heavy slaps she received on her face when the guard used his boots to strike her face.
Hiding the Truth of the Persecution
In the labor camp, practitioners were severely undernourished. They were forced to eat blackened, moldy noodles and cabbage soup the whole winter, which caused massive diarrhea among practitioners. Whenever the inspection officials came, the food served was of better quality to fool them, and the labor camp hid those practitioners who were severely beaten and disabled from the torture. The authorities also forced some inmates who were convicted criminals to pretend to be Falun Gong practitioners and say positive things about the labor camp. In order to hide the evidence of their crimes against Falun Dafa practitioners, prison guards would videotape themselves buying cakes for practitioners and treating practitioners well.
Prison Guards Take Advantage of the Persecution of Falun Gong to Make Money
Prison guards extorted money from Falun Gong practitioners in the form of large fines. Prison guard Wang Xiurong publicly told Falun Gong practitioners that if they wanted to be released, they had to pay 15,000 yuan per person [500 yuan is the average monthly salary for an urban worker in China]. Liu Weidong and Li Xiujin extorted money and other items, including food, from practitioners' family members to buy a reduction in the jail terms. The prison guards claimed publicly that they could not eat all the food they confiscated. The Brigadier said in front of witnesses, "Whoever pays money, I will 'help' him get out." Practitioners were told they had to pay the going rate of 1,000 yuan to buy a reduction of one month from their jail term. When some practitioners had poor health and were not be able to do the slave labor, He Qiang would order his subordinates to beat them brutally. If practitioners attempted to reason with the guards and explain that their human rights were being violated, their words were met with a threat that their beatings had been too easy on them. The guards even charged money for the labor camp uniforms. Any practitioner who refused to wear a prison uniform on the grounds that they were not criminals incurred a severe beating from the prison guards. On the other hand, any practitioner that agreed to wear a uniform was forced to pay money to wear it.
Labor Camp Contacts:
Manager's Office: 86-454-8891958
Political Committee Member, Fu Maosen: 86-454-8891890
Assistant Manager, Guan Dejun: 86-454-8891948
Assistant Manager, Yao Debin: 86-454-8891931
Assistant Manager, Sun Dehong: 86-454-8891932
Assistant Manager, Xu Lifeng: 86-454-8891933
Clinic: 86-454-8891943 (forced feeding is implemented by staff from this clinic)
Women's Brigadier's Office: 86-454-8891638
No. 2 Brigade: 86-454-8891924
No. 3 Brigade: 86-454-8891926
Procuratorate's Representative Office: 86-454-8891953
He Qiang: 86-13945455333 (C)
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/1/30/66136.html
2. Jianxin Labor Camp Authorities in Tianjin City Enslave Detainees to Produce Contaminated Food
January 2, 2004
(Clearwisdom.net) Jianxin Labor Camp of Tianjin City was expanded especially for tormenting Dafa practitioners. Since the inception of the Sixth Division for female detainees, several hundred Dafa practitioners have been detained there. Most were older than fifty years of age, the oldest being seventy three years old.
Some older people, despite hypertension and poor eyesight, were still forced to do delicate, vision-stressing, intensive work at night under poor lighting conditions. They fell from their beds, time and again. Some people who have serious illnesses and cannot take care of themselves are detained there. Under those severe conditions, some Dafa practitioners developed pus-oozing scabies. Nonetheless the labor camp forces them to process food, even though they should not come in contact with food. The camp even ordered criminal prisoners with scabies and prostitutes with venereal diseases to pick melon seeds, pack chocolate and other candies, and to fold cake boxes. The food processing work is performed by people sitting on their beds.
Good sanitation is especially critical for food processing, and these unsanitary practices jeopardize the public's health. Detainees with contagious diseases are also forced to assemble items that contain edible items for children, putting children's health at serious risk.
The labor camp forces Dafa practitioners to work for as long as 17-18 hours each day and the practitioners are not allowed to sleep. If they cannot finish their assigned work load the Dafa practitioners are not allowed to sleep; some of them even have to work through the night without sleep for several days. At most they are only allowed to sleep for one or two hours a day.
Many of the Dafa practitioners, especially the older ones, began Falun Gong cultivation to heal their illnesses and improve their health. Because of the vicious environment in the camp, the practitioners are forbidden from reading Dafa books and from practicing Falun Gong. Not only that, in addition to prolonged work hours and exhausting work, they endure intolerable mental and physical pressure. That is the reason why some of them have relapses of their illnesses, which were cured before they were abducted. One older woman with the surname Li had high blood pressure of over 200 and had serious heart problems, but was still forced to finish her daily assigned workload. One night at 12 o'clock she collapsed in the bathroom. They tried for over one hour to resuscitate her in the bathroom but could not bring her around. The camp had to send her to the hospital for emergency medical intervention. She was diagnosed with a massive cerebral hemorrhage. After her skull was opened, the doctors found three out of the four cerebral ventricles had massive hemorrhages. Afterwards, the police tried to avoid responsibility by inciting criminal prisoners and those people who had turned against Dafa under pressure of the persecution to create false evidence to deceive her family and keep the facts from them.
Head of the division: Liu Yuxia
Head of the Second team: Mu Xizhi
Head of the Third team: Ci Ying, Cao Aihua
Head of the Fourth team: Jiao Mohua
Phone: (country code 86)-22-88250034
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/1/2/63884.html
3. The Dalian Labor Camp Exploits Forced Labor to Earn More than 1,500,000 Yuan a Year
January 15, 2004
(Clearwisdom.net) As of 2001, the Dalian Forced Labor Camp, Liaoning Province started to demand more labor from its detainees in order to increase production. The camp persecuted Falun Gong practitioners by overloading them with work and exploiting their labor. Practitioners were forced to work 14-15 hours a day or even longer. They were often punished physically and had to work overtime. Practitioners slept no more than 6 hours every day, and many of them slept as few as 2-3 hours.
There were a lot of unwritten rules imposed on practitioners while performing forced labor. For example, practitioners could not talk, nor could they move their lips, close their eyes, cross their legs, or even have their legs touching each other when sitting. They were rarely allowed to use the bathroom during their labor and they had no more than 10 minutes to use the facilities, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. If they had an urgent need to use the bathroom, it had to be authorized by the room leader, the team leader, and the Captain. There was no time allowed for bowel movements, which was said to be "too time consuming." Practitioners had to wait until bedtime. As a result, many people developed constipation, hemorrhoids and were in great pain.
Falun Gong practitioners in the Dalian Forced Labor Camp had to work from 5 a.m. until 10 or 11 p.m. It was not unusual for them to work overtime until midnight or 2 a.m. the following morning, which became a daily routine. They had less than two hours a day to eat all three meals. On one occasion, the police intensified the persecution and would not allow the practitioners to go to sleep at night, even after they finished their work. The police demanded that practitioners who refused to compromise their belief and renounce Falun Dafa had to memorize the regulations of the labor camp. If the practitioners refused to do so, they would be forced to stand until the following morning, and then they still had to go to work that day.
The female practitioners worked in the lobby on the first floor. The lobby was transformed into a closed room with only one door for ventilation and airflow. During the summer, the room was hot and often crowded with people, and many practitioners fainted. Sometimes there were many incidents of fainting in any given day. Having to sit for long periods of time without moving, many people ended up having back pain and swollen feet. Even after developing these problems, they were still not allowed to rest. One Dafa practitioner, Ms. Yu Shoufen, was in the labor camp for three years and became extremely weak because of the excessive forced labor and malnutrition. She lost the feeling in both legs, and now has to walk by pushing her arms against the walls, dragging both her legs. She still is forced to work every day, even under this condition.
At the beginning, the police would give those practitioners who compromised under pressure and gave up their belief, proper rest when they did not feel well. The determined practitioners would not receive such any such "bonus." However, in order to make more money, the police have canceled this bonus and do not even give any sick practitioners time off. Every day, there was a certain quota of work needing to be done. If it could not be finished that day, everyone in the room would have to work overtime.
A simple calculation can show how much money the forced labor camp makes out of the labor of its prisoners (both practitioners and non-practitioners). Take the job of sorting beans for example: One practitioner needs to sort 5 bags of beans each day, which can sell for 25 yuan (lowest average number). There were 56 people in a team and a total of 3 teams, (25 yuan/person) x (56 people/team) x (3 teams) = 4,200 yuan. Supposing there are 30 days in a month, the net production value was 126,000 yuan a month, amounting to 1.5 million yuan a year (lowest average value). [Note: 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly salary of an urban worker in China.]
The following list is evidence of how the Dalian Forced Labor Camp persecuted Falun Gong practitioners and exploited their labor to make money.
|
Year |
Products |
Work description |
Sales area |
|
2001 |
Embroidery |
Clean and close the ends of bed covers, pillowcases, and tablecloths and put embroidery on them. |
Unknown |
|
2001 |
Dried flowers |
Use spices to apply scent to dried flowers and then color and decorate them. |
Korea |
|
2001 |
Cell phone covers |
Weave covers with cotton and silk threads, then color them with pink, light blue, light grey and green. |
Korea |
|
2001 |
Hats |
Use colorful threads and process them into "Beilei hats". |
Korea |
|
2002 |
Beans |
|
Packaging has "made in China" on it in Japanese, Korean and English. They will be exported to Korea, Japan, U.S. |
|
2002 |
Tied kelp |
Cut kelp into 12cm-wide belts and tie them into knots. (This product has large sales.) |
Taiwan |
|
2002 |
Dried vegetables (Qundai) |
Tear them into strips and sort into different qualities. |
Korea, Japan, Taiwan |
|
2002 |
Plastic flowers and fruit |
All kinds of plastic flowers, flower-shaped buttons and fruit-shaped decorations are put together with silver or copper wire and packaged in labeled bags or boxes. The price tags are in the currency of Euros. It was said that these products are used in European countries for ceremonies in graveyards. The glue used in these products is poisonous; many people have vomited and could not eat because of the glue. |
European countries |
|
2002 |
Cotton balls |
These were packed into two sizes of bags and sent back to the factory for second packaging. |
Unknown |
|
2002 |
Chopsticks |
This is done for a chopstick factory in the Dalian Ganjingzi Area owned by a Japanese businessman. The factory has been running for years and makes different quality chopsticks. The only hygienic criterion is not letting hair fall into the bags. Some non-practitioners with venereal diseases are also forced to do this job and they often use chopsticks to scratch themselves where they itch. |
Japan |
|
2002 |
Ice cream sticks |
Ordinary prisoners use machines to make them and pack them. |
Africa |
|
2002 |
Coffee stirring sticks |
Ordinary prisoners use machines to make them and pack them. |
|
|
2002 |
Wool coats |
The coats are double layered and made in a factory that specifically makes clothes to be exported. They have Korean and Japanese labels. |
Korea and Japan |
|
2002 |
Sewing buttons |
Sew buttons on pajamas and clothes for nursing mothers. |
Japan |
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/1/15/64908.html
4. Falun Gong Practitioners Endure Endless, Intensive Forced Labor at Langfang City Detention Center, Hebei Province
(Clearwisdom.net) Whoever is sent to Langfang City Detention Center learns that the forced labor there is extremely intensive and unendurable. There are always countless beans waiting to be picked and chopsticks waiting to be wrapped up. The person in charge assigns daily jobs to every detainee. Detainees who are unable to finish their assignments, are punished by either not being allowed to sleep or by being given evening duty. They are forced to work more than 10 hours every day. On hot summer days, because of working in poorly ventilated cells, many suffer heatstroke. Newcomers usually face an even harsher environment since they need time to learn those labor skills. If they cannot finish their assignments during the daytime, they are forced to continue their labor at night. The monitor in each cell does not allow them to go sleep if they have not finished their assignments. Some of them finally get their job done just before daybreak. Then the next day's assignment is waiting for them. Although detainees are forced to perform such intensive labor, they are only given two buns and a bowl of light soup per meal. Male detainees usually are unable to eat enough food every day, not to mention getting enough nutrition. After working for an entire day, everyone's stomach is rumbling with hunger.
The only time they get a break is when some authorities come to visit or inspect the detention center. At that time, the officer asks everyone stop working and takes the products away and hides them well. All detainees would start cleaning cells and yards. Then they would be asked to sit down on the ground and recite the detention center's rules and regulations. After the visitors leave, they would begin their work again. Actually the above-mentioned situations currently take place in all detention centers and labor camps in China. The intensity of the forced labor is unimaginable. All detainees have been turned into slave laborers.
Currently many Falun Gong practitioners have been sent into detention centers, labor camps and jails. As a result, they have experienced all the darkness and brutality. They have been suffering barbarous torture for refusing to be treated so inhumanely, but they have never yielded to the persecution. In China, even average citizens in many respects have no human rights, not to mention those detainees. I sincerely hope all kind-hearted people in the world will give their concern and support to Chinese Falun Gong practitioners!
January 17, 2004
Practitioner in China
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/1/18/65187.html
5. Toys for Export Made at the Hewan Forced Labor Camp, Wuhan City, Hubei Province
By a Dafa Practitioner from Wuhan
(Clearwisdom.net) Officials at the Hewan Forced Labor Camp in Wuhan City have for a long time forced detainees to make toys for export, including an eagle toy and a bear toy. The workshop starts at 6:00 a.m. and stays open until 2:00 a.m. the next morning.
The Sixth Team in the Hewan Forced Labor Camp specializes in persecuting women Falun Dafa practitioners. Police officer Huang Hong, a key member of the team, uses savage methods to torture practitioners who are steadfast in their faith. Tortures include long-term sleep deprivation, isolation in a small cell, and other torments. Other police officers, women named Hu, Hou, and He are also involved in the persecution.
Team leader Liu Hui, female, office phone, 86- 86-27-85630995
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/2/9/66970.html