Sun Yaomin - 孙耀民
(Minghui.org) The Henan Province Pingdingshan City Bolou Labor Camp has beautiful surroundings and facilities but this cannot cover up the cruelty behind the scenes. Police and leaders of the work teams from the labor camp take and use money belonging to labor camp inmates. In this formal labor camp, police officers do not follow rules or policies; instead they lie and cheat. Physical punishment and swearing at inmates have become the police and team leaders' ways to control inmates. Due to the intensive hard labor and deteriorating working conditions, many labor camp inmates say that this place is even worse than a labor re-education farm. Inmates do not receive any personal respect or legal rights. Cases where inmates are injured, disabled or killed are very common. However, the kindness of Falun Dafa practitioners I have met in the labor camp has let me rediscover my conscience. This has enabled me to write this article and expose to the whole world the shocking persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the labor camp in the past few months.
Towards the end of October 2002, after coming back from a provincial meeting, labor camp chief Xu Chang started planning reformation programs for Falun Gong practitioners. On the night of October 21st, around 30 police guards, following the plan called "Attack those against 're-education' and safeguard the stability of the camp," charged towards a few Falun Gong practitioners who refused to recite the labor camp rules and pushed them to the ground. They beat and kicked the practitioners and tied them up with ropes, then dragged them in and pushed them to their knees. A few other inmates who wanted to speak up for the practitioners were also tied up. Chief Xu Chang yelled, "Tie them up with ropes, I have lots of ways to deal with them."
[Note: "tying the ropes" is a torture in which the guards tie up the practitioner with a thin rope, circle the rope around his neck, and tie his hands behind his back. Then the guards use all the force they can muster to tighten the rope. The rope becomes tighter and tighter around the body of the practitioner, which makes it more and more difficult for him to breathe. The pain is so intense that the practitioner sometimes loses control of his bladder.]
I realized that this was a new wave of political persecution. Everyone witnessed the practitioners' sincerity and kindness. Many inmates and a few police officers who still have a conscience all know that Falun Gong practitioners are trustworthy. They admire the practitioners' righteousness and courage, even though they cannot understand why the practitioners are so steadfast in their belief. They know that the practitioners definitely will not cause instability in the labor camp.
What followed was obvious. A few practitioners had their sentences lengthened and they were confined in separate cells. They were taken to a mine where practitioners Wei Kunpeng and Zhen Qingshan from team No.1 were stripped naked and sprayed with cold water .
Falun Gong practitioners from team No.6 did not usually go out to do hard labor. But now they were forced to work from sunrise to sunset, cleaning up construction garbage in the courtyard. They were forced to continually carry and move things. Sometimes they were forced to run while working. The officials in the camp tried to use hard physical labor to change these practitioners' beliefs.
All this was the prelude to a movement of political persecution. Chief Xu Chang and Deputy Chief Liu Quanliang called in all the manpower they could find and let them stay at the labor camp. There were many big and small meetings emphasizing the fact that if these Falun Gong practitioners were not reformed, the Chief and all guards would lose their jobs. Therefore, on level four of the labor camp building, a true battle to enforce the "reformation" of practitioners started.
They brought Falun Gong practitioners to the fourth floor and separated them. They forced them to continuously study the "reformation" materials and write "experiences." A number of guards would surround one practitioner and take turns forbidding him to sleep and forcing him to sit on the concrete floor. If practitioners fell asleep the guards would kick them. They tried to use these methods to destroy the practitioners' health and weaken their resolve. After all these methods failed, the truth was revealed: under the orders of Chief Xu Chang and Deputy Chief Liu Quanliang, guards such as Li Jianyang, Shao Bing, He Jinzhong and Wang Sanmin started to yell, "'Re-education' is not our only means! It is against labor camp rules not to be 'reformed'! They must be tied up! If they are not 'reformed' they are the people's enemy! They are against the Party! Death is their only choice!" A few police guards would surround one practitioner and tie him up. Some practitioners would cry out, so the guards turned up the volume on the television to cover up the noise. The guards used electric batons and handcuffed practitioners to window frames. Their evil nature was fully exposed. Suddenly, the fourth floor became hell on earth. Without any conscience, these guards frantically persecuted these kind-hearted Falun Gong practitioners for personal gain and recognition and in order to protect their jobs. On the surface, they said it was to help and rescue these practitioners. In contrast, these Falun Gong practitioners held no resentment or hate towards these guards and steadfastly maintained their belief. This showed a strong contrast between kindness and evil. This was the way Pingdingshan Bolou Labor Camp "re-educates and reforms" Falun Gong practitioners under the "re-education, move and reform" program.
Falun Gong practitioner Sun Yaomin refuses to be "reformed," so officials in the labor camp used all the methods they could find. Sun Yaomin has been tortured to such an extent that he is beyond recognition and can no longer do things for himself. Behind the personal gains and recognition of leaders and guards at the labor camp lie many kind-hearted people's blood and tears. The kindness and sincerity of Falun Gong practitioners has let me feel the re-awakening of people's consciences. Why do guards at the labor camp want to "reform" these cultivators who follow Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance?
The actions of Falun Gong practitioners around me have made me doubt the reports on television. I now know what real Falun Gong practitioners are like. What is the point of our country putting in so much manpower, material and money to oppose Falun Gong? I truly feel perplexed and worried about this political movement to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.
