Name: Cui Yu (崔玉)
Gender:Female
Age: 47
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: July 2001
Most recent place of detention: The Guangxi District First Women's Forced Labor Camp (广西区第一女子劳教所)
City: Unknown
Province: Guangxi
Persecution Suffered: Fired from work, forced labor, beatings, physical restraint, solitary confinement, force-feedings, forced injections, various tortures, postponing sentence unlawfully
(Clearwisdom.net) (correspondent from Guangxi Province) Ms. Cui Yu, 47 years old, used to work in the Bank of China, Guilin Branch. She started practicing Falun Gong in May 1995. In August 2000, the Bank of China fired her because she practiced Falun Gong. In July 2000, policemen from the Diecai Police Station in Guilin City, Guangxi, arrested Ms. Cui and detained her for 15 days. In December, officers from the Diecai Police Station arrested her again and locked her up in the Guilin City's 2nd Detention Center for a month. In July 2001, officers from the Lijunlu Police Station in Guilin arrested her and locked her in the Guilin 1st Detention Center. In August, she was sent to the Guangxi District First Women's Forced Labor Camp for three years. Her sentence was postponed for a year. She was released on July 26, 2005.
While in the forced labor camp, Ms. Cui refused to help the prison guards to make other practitioners give up Falun Gong. She refused to attend any brainwashing sessions or do forced labor. She would not cooperate with the prison rules nor wear prison clothes. The guards instigated collaborators to monitor Ms. Cui around the clock. She was watched when she ate, slept, and used the toilet. The collaborators would not let her talk to other practitioners or have any contact with them. Practitioners were verbally abused for greeting each other. The collaborators often made practitioners write reports about their thoughts, as part of their brainwashing attempts.
1. Physical Torment
A guard drew a 3-ft. circle on the ground and forced Ms. Cui to stand within the circle. She was not allowed to step on the line, sleep, or sit; otherwise they would beat or scold her. This lasted from 5:30 a.m. until midnight. After midnight, she had to sit on a small stool until 3:00 a.m. before she could go to bed. Ms. Cui was allowed to sleep only two and a half hours every day. This lasted three months. Ms. Cui became incoherent and could barely focus when she walked as a result of the long-term sleep deprivation.
Once when Ms. Cui spoke out loud to express her opinion, a guard instigated several drug addicts to torture her. They dragged her on the ground, tied her to a pole, taped her mouth, and left her standing for almost a day. Then they dragged her up the stairs from the 1st floor to the 4th floor, and tied her hands to the bed frame of the upper bunk with her toes barely touching the ground. She was left in this position for an entire day.
Another time, a guard handcuffed Ms. Cui day and night for the duration of six months. Standing in the same position for so long, Ms. Cui's legs became so swollen that she couldn't walk, bend her legs or stand. When she had her menstrual period, she wasn't allowed to buy sanitary napkins. Sometimes a prisoner would give her one and that was all she had for several days.
Ms. Cui was forced many times to stand in a corner in the stairway during the day and sleep on the floor at night. This lasted a year. The long-term abuse caused Ms. Cui to suffer greatly mentally and physically.
2. Being Beaten
Ms. Cui was not allowed to shower for a month. One day a guard told her she could take a shower and right after she took off her clothes, four prisoners rushed in and covered her head. They beat her and kicked her for almost an hour. They stopped when they realized that she wasn't moving any longer. As she gradually regained consciousness and stood up, they poured cold water on her on a winter day and told her she was done with her shower.
Another time, a guard told Ms. Cui that her cell did not pass the sanitary inspection and told her to return to her cell. When she arrived at the cell, two inmates wearing hard pointed shoes kicked her until she couldn't move.
Ms. Cui was beaten numerous times. Her eyes were bruised, and her private parts were injured.
3. Solitary Confinement
Ms. Cui was put in solitary confinement many times. The confinement cell is 8 ft long and 5 ft wide, with a brick bed, and was equipped with a faucet and a toilet. In the mornings during weekdays, Ms. Cui was taken out to be brainwashed. She had to squat down all day. At night she had to return to the confinement cell and a guard would handcuff her to the water pipe. Ms. Cui couldn't stand straight nor squat all the way down without her arms being pulled all the way up. She was left in this position during the night. She had to sleep on the ground with her hands hanging up all night, and couldn't turn around. On Saturdays and Sundays, she was locked to the water pipe all day long. She was allowed lunch and dinner each day, which consisted of a small amount of food with no meat. She was not allowed to brush her teeth nor change her clothes. She wasn't allowed to bring anything to the confinement cell except some tissue paper. The quilted blanket was worn out and the cotton fibers were falling out.
Because Ms. Cui refused to be brainwashed, a guard ordered inmates to drag her over the ground. They grabbed her sleeves during the torture and her shirt went up to her neck and chin and her pants fell to her knees. She was almost naked. The ground was rough and the skin on Ms. Cui's back was scraped until she bled profusely. To cover up their brutality, the guard and inmates locked Ms. Cui in the confinement cell until her back got better. This took three weeks.
4. Forced-feeding
Ms. Cui went on several hunger strikes to protest the inhumane torture. The first time, she was taken to the prison clinic to be force-fed. Five inmates held her head, arms and legs. One of them stuck a tube into her nose down to her throat and poured in some starch slurry. The process lasted more than an hour and was very hard on her nose and throat.
The second time Ms. Cui went on a hunger strike, inmates dragged her to the prison clinic to force-feed her again. At that time, she was severely underweight, had difficulty breathing, and could barely walk. The guards videotaped the forced-feeding process.
When Ms. Cui was on hunger strike, she was tortured many times. She was once tied up on a bed and injected with unknown drugs.
5. Brainwashing
The guards locked Ms. Cui in an attic and took turns watching her. She was not allowed to sleep, sit, wash up, or to use a toilet. They forced her to walk in circles in the attic for several days. Afterward, for several nights, Ms. Cui was forced to squat down and listen to talks from those who claimed that they used to practice Falun Gong. They tried to talk Ms. Cui into renouncing Falun Gong. In order to keep her awake, they often put menthol ointment on her face. Often the ointment got into her eyes and made her eyes water. The guards claimed that Ms. Cui had mental problems and put her in a psychiatric hospital. She was forced to take psychiatric drugs for almost a month.
6. Unspecified Physical Examination and Injection with Unknown Drugs
Ms. Cui refused to undergo a physical examination. The guards ordered six inmates to hold her down on a bed and drew her blood. She was exposed to an x-ray for a lot longer than were other inmates. The inmates dragged her upstairs and gave her injections with unknown drugs.
The following people were involved in torturing Falun Gong practitioners in the Guangxi District First Women's Forced Labor Camp:
Heads of the Education Team: Liang, Lv, and Chen
The First Brigade: You, Mou, Wei
The Third Brigade: Yan, Wu, Wei, Li