(Minghui.org) Ms. Su Guiying, of Zhanjiang City, Guangdong Province, was arrested on August 31, 2016, for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999. She was sentenced to four years and brutally tortured in Guangdong Women's Prison.
The torture methods included beatings, forced standing for long periods, exposure to the sun, dousing with cold water, freezing, emaciation, squatting, drugging, as well as isolation in a mental hospital. She was also routinely deprived of sleep and restroom use.
To provide evidence of the CCP's brutality against Falun Gong practitioners, Ms. Su, 59, recalls her persecution experiences in Guangdong Women’s Prison below.
Arrested for Clarifying the Truth
I started practicing Falun Gong in 2008 and have been healthy since. To raise awareness about Falun Gong and the persecution, I went out to distribute informational materials on the evening of August 31, 2016, but was arrested. After one night of interrogation, I was taken to Zhanjiang No. 1 Detention Center the next day. I refused to answer any questions or sign interrogation statements.
After one year of detention, on December 12, 2017, the Chikan District Court held a trial against me. My lawyer entered a not-guilty plea for me, but I was sentenced to four years and fined 5,000 yuan. I appealed to Zhanjiang City Intermediate Court, but my appeal was rejected.
One day in early May 2018, a dozen guards forcibly held my hand and fingerprinted some statements. On May 16, I was taken to the No. 4 Ward of Guangdong Women's Prison.
Persecution in No. 310 Team
I was first assigned to the No. 310 Team, which is a “transformation” unit established and controlled by the 610 Office, an extralegal agency created specifically to persecute Falun Gong. A prison guard with last name Xiao encouraged three female inmates to persecute me. The torture measures against me are described below.
Standing
I was forced to stand from early morning until midnight, except during mealtimes and when I would do sanitation work. If I fell over out of weakness, the inmates would rush to me and pull me up. They also scolded me and kicked me, and were so rough that some of my clothes were pulled apart.
Denial of Restroom Use
I was not allowed to use the restroom and was often forced to relieve myself in my pants. I tried to use the time for cleaning to use the restroom while the other inmates weren't watching. If I got caught, the inmates would push me onto the ground and kick me. Whenever an accident occurred, they would then wrap the feces in my bed sheets and put it in the dormitory so that other prisoners could scold me for defecating everywhere. They sometimes mopped the feces onto me.
Exposing to the Sun
The guard forced me to stand in the sun at high noon and ordered hundreds of prisoners to look at me. I always took advantage of this opportunity to shout, “Falun Dafa is good” and “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
Torture illustration: exposure under the scorching sun
Dragging on the Ground
The guard often instigated a strong female inmate to drag me on the cement floor in front of hundreds of prisoners, causing my clothes to be torn and my body to become lacerated. The inmates also poured filthy water on me.
Torture illustratioin: dragging on the floor
Prohibiting Personal Hygiene Activities
I was not allowed to take showers, wash my face, change my clothes, or use daily necessities for more than 20 days. The guard incited the inmates in the same cell to scold me for the bad smell. This abuse stopped only after other inmates complained about the smell to the supervisor.
Due to the smell, many of my clothes, towels and bed sheets were thrown away by the inmates. My legs also became swollen due to the torture.
Tormenting with Derogatory Videos
I refused to count off and participate in roll calls. I also refused to watch the videos that slandered Falun Gong. As a result, Guard Xiao scribbled slanderous words on my clothes, skin and even underwear. She also instigated inmates to insult me.
The persecution had lasted for more than a month. Since the torture failed to make me budge, the prison transferred me to another team on July 1, 2018, and assigned an even stricter guard with the last name Xu to me.
Persecution in No. 301 Team
I was later transferred to the No. 301 Team, which was the most vicious unit on the third floor. Guard Xu and agents from the prison's 610 Office teamed up with seven or eight inmates, who took turns forcing me to stand up and watch videos at the same time for long hours. When I did not watch the videos, they hit me in the head with heavy books and forced me to keep my eyes open. If I disobeyed, they would beat me and step on my toes. As a result, I had wounds all over my body.
These inmates purposely interrogated me loudly at midnight when other inmates were sleeping, with an intent to wake them up and cause antagonism towards me. The inmate team leader would then take this opportunity to slap me and splash water on my face. During this “transformation” period, some collaborators also tried to persuade me to renounce my faith.
Doing Unpaid Labor
I was forced to do overloaded sanitation work. I had to help 15 other inmates clean the jail dormitory, including the floors, balconies, halls, meeting rooms, water platform, and toilets. Despite the hard work, I often got scolded. I was also often called to do various chores on the first floor. If I refused, the inmates would throw me in a damp and filthy room.
Mental Pressure
To force me to give up Falun Gong, the guards came up with a mental torture tactic. They opened up a cardboard box and wrote words that slandered Falun Gong on it. I was forced to stand on the cardboard without moving a muscle. If I moved, even a little bit, they would beat, kick, and scold me. To make sure I did not fall asleep, they took turns watching me. They beat me, pricked my eyelids with toothpicks, poured cold water on me, and stepped on my toes. The torture lasted for five days.
They selected two young female inmates, who then grasped my hands, one on each side, and dragged me along the floor with Master Li Hongzhi's name written all over it. They would then let go of me, slinging me against the floor. They also pinched me afterwards. My blood pressure increased quickly as a result of this torture. Sometimes I was so tired and sleepy that I would fall asleep while standing and collapse, hitting the back of my head on the metal frame of the bed.
After five days without sleep, they began to allow me to have two hours of sleep on the sixth day. Starting the seventh day, I was not allowed to sleep again unless I was willing to sleep on a bed which had Master's name and Falun Dafa written all over it.
Since I refused to get on the bed, they forced me to squat on the floor, which was surrounded with derogatory words. It was difficult for me to keep my balance and I often fell, sitting on the ground. Then they would beat me and bang my head on the metal door.
This torture lasted for more than ten days. But I did not give up my faith.
Torture in No. 401 Team
The guards failed to make me transform and thus transferred me to No. 401 Team on the fourth floor on August 26, 2018. According to the inmates, this team was the most vicious in the No. 4 Ward. It was established specifically to persecute the most steadfast practitioners.
The third guard who continued to abuse me was surnamed Tan. She was big and tall. She picked four young and strong cruel inmates and ordered them to torment me.
Beating
One day, those four inmates covered the surveillance cameras and grabbed my hair to bang my head on the restroom wall. They slapped me and beat me. They forced me to sit on a small stool and pushed me from the back with their legs. They tortured me for the entire afternoon and again in the evening. They asked me questions loudly to wake up other inmates in the middle of the night so as to inspire antagonism against me.
Guard Tan also tried to starve me into submission. She reduced the amount of my meals and sometimes stopped them completely. She limited my sleep and deprived me of sleep. She forced me to do unpaid work in the daytime and punished me by not letting me sit down.
She and another guard tried to persuade me into transforming. They talked to me several times, but I told them the facts about Falun Gong each time. As a last resort, she called all the inmates into a criticism meeting against me. In the meeting, I shouted in protest, “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!”
Perverted Torture
The fourth guard was assigned to persecute me on September 16, 2018. Her last name is Liao. She was short, but very cruel.
She often threatened me, saying “I could do things you could never even think about,” or “If you are not transformed, I'll either make you leave this place in a wheelchair or have your family take you home in a crazy state.”
She said that one practitioner who was admitted to the prison in the same month as me had gone insane after being given an injection. She threatened that she had a hypnotist who could hypnotize me and transform me. Then, she started a series of torture against me.
To mentally torture me, this guard brought food to me, videotaped it and then dumped it without letting me eat it. This act continued for three days, during which time I did not eat any food at all. On the fourth day, they fed me one small mouthful of food for the purpose of their videotape. I was starved for an additional three or four days before they came to shoot more videos. I was too weak to swallow anything at that time. They thus took me to the hospital in a wheelchair for force feeding, claiming that they were saving my life.
The prison guards not only tortured me with these brutal means but also lied to my family. With the videos, they told my family that I had gone on a hunger strike, they told my family to persuade me to transform. When my husband visited me, I said that I was starved. They also videotaped my children when they visited and then showed me the video, saying that my children wanted me to transform. This is a tactic they use to deceive people.
On December 7, 2018, in the midst of winter, the guard forced me to stand by an open window while I wore only a light shirt and cloth shoes. The whirring wind made me shiver. One inmate who watched me wore a heavy coat and was in charge of turning on several fans pointed at me the whole night.
In addition to the recurring torture such as beating, kicking, and banging my head on a metal door, the inmates sometimes flicked my eyes with their fingers. It was so painful that I squatted on the ground, with my eyes covered and tears flowing. They also flicked my face, causing four scars that are still visible today.
On one occasion, Guard Liao instigated inmates to strip off my clothes in the restroom. They first doused my entire body in filthy cold water and brushed my whole body, including my genitals, with a toilet brush. As a result, my whole body was red and bleeding. They then sprinkled detergent powder on my body. They brutally beat me when I rubbed my eyes out of irritation from the detergent. A half hour later, they splashed hot water on me and laughed while I screamed in pain. In the end, I was forced to wear wet underwear strewn with detergent powder.
Torture illustration: Dousing with Cold Water
I wasn’t allowed to have a comforter while sleeping. Sometimes the inmates woke me up 15 minutes after I fell asleep and then forced me to squat over a stool for 15 minutes, with the surface full of nails. If I were tired and sat down, the consequences would be severe. The inmates sometimes pushed me down onto the nailed stool when I was not paying attention. My sleep intervals were shortened to 10 minutes and then 5 minutes.
I was also not allowed to have hot showers in winter. On one occasion, the inmates dragged me out of the bathroom naked to force me to clean. They also forced me to stand by the gate to be watched by other inmates.
In addition to this perverted torture, I was also forced to do heavy cleaning work. When the cleaning was not to their satisfaction (they always found faults with me), I had to do it over and over without a chance to explain.
As a result of the persecution, I became bony and out of shape. But the most evil torture was yet to come.
Poisoning with Drugs
One day in March 2019, a prison doctor told me to take a drug that would make people crazy. When I refused, I was held down on the floor by the inmates and forcibly administered the drug. I quickly ran to the restroom and spat it out.
For this, I was severely punished. One inmate grabbed my hair and banged my head on the restroom floor, causing my forehead to bleed. The scar is still visible today.
They did not give up trying to poison me. The guard ground the pill into powder and ordered the inmates to force-feed me for a few days.
After a while, this team added a drug-trafficking jailbird named Yang, who had long participated in the persecution of practitioners. During one force-feeding session, Yang held my hands first and then my head. Meanwhile, other inmates pressed down on my legs and body. One guard would use a toothbrush to pry open my mouth and put the drug in. They then poured water into my mouth, causing me to choke. At that moment, my hands that grasped this new criminal loosened, and I almost died.
Since Yang’s arrival, I was force-fed with the drug for more than ten days. On six of those days, I vomited blood. They smashed my throat, and swallowing became excruciating for me. They did not feed me any food during this period. In the past, one day of torture felt like a year; now, each second felt like a year.
Persecution in a Mental Hospital
On the morning of April 9, 2019, Guard Liao and the inmates told other inmates that I had a mental disorder. They took me to the mental hospital inside the prison and locked me in a small isolation room. They continued to force-feed me with the drug.
I was not allowed to eat, talk to other people, or sleep. I had to stand up without moving. The inmates watched me around the clock. When I was about to fall because of fatigue, they would order me to squat. But even when I was squatting, I fell down and hit my head many times. My forehead, eyes and face were swollen and bruised.
One kind-hearted doctor asked me what had happened. I told her that I had been emaciated for days and had not had bowel movements for 11 days. The doctor told the inmates to feed me food, but they never did it.
Since I could clearly answer all of her questions, the doctor concluded that I was mentally sound. On the following day, the 610 Office director came to see me. This person commented that I was silly for keeping up my belief.
I said, “A person must have righteous faith. I have followed the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be kind and considerate. It’s the government that’s spreading demonizing propaganda against Falun Gong and persecuting it.”
I received a physical exam on the second day before I was taken back to the ward. I had lost more than 36 pounds and only weighed 103 pounds. The doctor failed to draw blood from me for the tests because I was so emaciated.
I was first sent back to No. 412 Team, where I was allowed to eat, bathe, and sleep even though the time was limited. But I was forced to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong and forced to stand for insubordination. Less than one month later, I was taken back to the No. 401 Team.
Continued Torture
There, the abuse was more severe. I was limited to one quarter the amount of food that everyone else had, and I wasn’t given any water. The inmates would force me to either drink tap water or push my head into the water bucket every day. The torture did not stop until I almost lost consciousness.
The inmates also beat me. Sometimes they kicked my back while I was cleaning the floor. They continued to splash laundry detergent and water on me and forced me to sleep in wet clothes the whole night. One inmate surnamed Li pinched me with her fingernails and pulled my hair. Another inmate stole money from my deposit card.
At the same time, they continued to force me to stand and do intensive unpaid labor for long hours. When the inmates were tired from the torture, Guard Liao would show up with another guard and swing an electric baton in front of me.
The brutal torture finally ended on June 30, 2019, when Guard Liao was transferred away. However, the abuses continued until I was finally released on August 31, 2020.
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Category: Torture of Women
