(Minghui.org) The 12th Ward in Liaoning Province Women’s Prison is designated as an “Intensive Training Correctional Area,” where the guards target Falun Gong practitioners who refuse to renounce their faith.
The guards torture and brainwash the practitioners until they sign statements to stop practicing Falun Gong. Most of the guards in the 12th Ward are in their 20s and 30s. They believe the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda against Falun Gong, and actively participate in torturing practitioners. Falun Gong is a mind and body meditation practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999.
All of the newly admitted practitioners are sent to the 12th Ward after they spend a few days in the 2nd Ward. The measures used by the guards in the 12th Ward to force the practitioners to give up their faith include: Sleep deprivation, no bathroom use, and standing still for a long periods of time. The guards often instigate other inmates and collaborators, to help torture practitioners. The collaborators who follow the orders receive merits and reduced sentences.
To break the practitioners mentally, the guards put them in solitary confinement, force them to watch videos that slander Falun Gong and the founder, make them speak up against Falun Gong, and force them to write thought reports until the guards are satisfied with the content. Any practitioner who refuses to cooperate is labeled “mentally unstable,” and has to be “intensively trained and educated.” She is given only one slice of bread for each meal. This continues until the practitioner writes what the guards want and passes a test, in which she has to answer questions that slander Falun Gong while being videotaped.
After the practitioners pass the test, they still have to attend brainwashing sessions twice a week. They are expected to criticize Falun Gong during the sessions. The collaborators often force practitioners to answer the guards’ questions. If the answers do not meet the guards’ expectations, the guards threaten the practitioners. If no practitioners answer the questions, all of them will be forced to stand still for long hours. Every Saturday there is a weekly test with two questions. The head guard talks to practitioners one on one and threatens them in order to make them write down the standard answers.
The guards and collaborators watch the practitioners closely and do not allow them to talk to, or even look at one another.
The following is the situation of three practitioners, Ms. Xu Qiang, Ms. Guo Peilu, and Ms. Liu Xiaohong, who are currently being tortured in the prison.
Ms. Xu, 63 and a Dalian City resident, was arrested on July 11, 2020 for telling others about the persecution of Falun Gong. She was sentenced to nine years and one month by the Pulandian District Court, and admitted to the prison on March 3, 2022.
Ms. Guo, also a Dalian City resident, was arrested by officers from Xigang District Police Department on July 7, 2020 because they caught her mailing letters with information about Falun Gong. She was sentenced to three years and four months and transferred to the prison on March 28, 2023.
Ms. Liu, 54, also lived in Dalian City. She was arrested by officers from the Baishanlu Police Station in the Shahekou District on November 24, 2020 and sentenced to seven years by the Ganjingzi District Court in June 2021.
Ms. Guo was transferred to the 12th ward six days after she was imprisoned. She was put in a solitary confinement, where two to four collaborators took turns cursing and verbally abusing her. They made her stand still for long hours and would not let her go to the bathroom. She was forced to watch videos that slander Falun Gong, and was not allowed to sleep or close her eyes. When she could no longer stand, the collaborators propped her up and forced her to continue watching the videos. She went into shock from the abuse, and her legs were severely swollen. She once had five thousand yuan in her prison account, but it disappeared.
When the guards found out that Ms. Xu told Ms. Guo about the beating she suffered, they put Ms. Xu and the collaborator assigned to her in solitary confinement on July 18, 2023 and kept them there for one month.
About ten days after Ms. Xu was let out of solitary confinement, a criticism session was held on August 29 against her and her collaborator. Two guards, Meng Shuhan and Gao Xinjing, instigated other inmates to verbally abuse them. During the session the guards asked Ms. Guo her opinion. Because she remained silent, she was labeled as being disrespectful. The guards made her and her collaborator to stand facing a wall to humiliate them. A guard reprimanded them after they returned to their cell. The then-warden Wu Yan was present during the session.
Ms. Guo argued with a guard that there isn’t a law that prevents practitioners from talking to each other. The guard and her collaborator verbally abused her, and forced her to apologize.
Ms. Liu was also tortured in solitary confinement for almost two months. A session was held on November 1, 2023, to criticize her because she was close to Ms. Xu.
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Category: Psychiatric Torture
