Summary
(Minghui.org) A news website in Mainland China published a lengthy report on the evening of April 7 entitled "Secrets of Masanjia Women's Re-education through Labor Camp Unveiled: the 'Tiger's Bench' and the 'Death Bed.'"
This is quite a remarkable occurrence because none of these horrific stories of torture, brainwashing and forced labor have ever before been admitted, much less reported, in mainland Chinese media.
The report was first published on the Qingdao News website, and major Chinese news portals including Sohu.com and QQ.com soon followed. As is widely known, mainland Chinese media are all heavily controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Their role has historically been little more than propaganda mouthpieces for the Party.
While the report was unprecedented in terms of admitting such horrific conditions in the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, it conspicuously neglected to mention that those who were most badly beaten, tortured and brutally mistreated there since mid-1999 were mostly Falun Gong practitioners.
Let's repeat this important point that the article left out: The brunt of the persecution that has been dished out at Masanjia (and numerous other labor camps throughout China) has most certainly been borne by Falun Gong practitioners, at least since the official campaign to crush Falun Gong launched in July 1999.
Since the year 2000, Minghui has published 8,109 reports of various kinds documenting and discussing the persecution experiences of Falun Gong practitioners who have been illegally detained in the Masanjia labor camp alone. (Note: this total was generated by a search of the Minghui website, and therefore includes both original reports as well as commentaries and periodicals that repeat the content of original reports.)
Minghui welcomes concerned citizens in China to provide specific evidence about the persecution of Falun Gong, and asks people around the world to tell their friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbors about this crime against humanity.
Meanwhile, practitioners are reminded that they should not become unduly happy, or allow themselves to relax in their dilgent efforts to bring the persecution to an end, just because of this little bit of positive news reporting in the Mainland. The persecution continues, and this can never be construed as acceptable.
A Few Excerpts
The following paragraphs present a few excerpts from the Qingdao News article. The complete text of the article is reproduced here in Chinese.
The article begins: "Cheap labor, physical punishment, solitary confinement cells, electric shock batons, "hanging up," "tiger benches," and "death beds." Through the stories told by labor camp inmates, various pieces of physical evidence, writings, prosecution papers, and statements of insiders, this article attempts to show what really goes on in a women's re-education through labor institute, and to serve as a snap shot of the current system of re-education through labor. (Editor's Note: It has been announced that China's forced labor camp system will be reformed and/or shut down over the next year)
The article goes on to explain how many of the stories told were contained on manuscripts that were smuggled out of the labor camps by detainees. Knowing they would be searched before being set free, these brave women went to great lengths to handwrite these stories. They painstakinly recorded them in letters as small as they could. This allowed even more stories to be written and smuggled out. They then rolled the manuscripts up tightly, and hid them in their vaginas to (hopefully) escape detection when they were released.
Liu Hua was among those whose "Diary of Re-Education Through Labor" was smuggled out.
She tells of one occasion when she was stripped of her clothes. The guards applied electric shocks to her tongue. She said, "It was one shock after another. The electricity ran through me. My heart pounded so hard, so unsteady. Electricity was applied to the tip of the tongue, like needles piercing into it. I could not stand steadily, and I couldn't even try to."
Liu described her workload, which was less strenous than that of many others. She was asked to match various sized collars and cuffs among other things. "I processed 1,800 to 2,000 articles of clothing a day. Those who had to iron the clothes had a daily quota of 3,000 pieces," Liu said.
One who stitched and sewed final products had to produce 320 finished articles of clothing each day.
In her diary, it was documented after she finished her quota one day, the team supervisor (who was selected from among inmates) told her to work on 50 more pieces of clothing. Liu went to the supervisor to ask for more reasonable treatment. The supervisor beat her in front of the guards. Liu was injured and had to be taken to the Dabei Prison Hopital for a CT exam. This was July 20, 2010.
Her diary also mentioned a lady named Mei Qiuyu, who was of poor health because of after effects of giving an early birth to a child. Mei was not able to finish her workload.
The supervisor told her to either work through the night and finish the quota, or be punished physically by standing for extended hours. Mei said she would rather take the physical punishment of standing. The team leader knocked her to the ground, stepped on her calf with the sharp heel of her shoe, and swiveled her heel around 360 degrees. Mei's calf was pierced. The infection lasted for several months. Even today, the scar can be clearly seen on Mei's calf.
Inmates also stated that the guards use "tiger benches" and "death beds" for torture. An insider revealed that "tiger benches" were originally used for a special group of people. (Editor's Note: "Special group of people" - Any Chinese reading this would understand that this is CCP doublespeak that really means "Falun Gong practitioners.") Later they were applied to average inmates as well.
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