Ever since Jiang Zemin started persecuting Falun Gong, practitioners from Anhui province, like elsewhere in the country, have been very determined in the practice. They have continued appealing to Beijing to clear the good name of our Teacher and Dafa, and to clarify the truth to the people of the world, so as to offer salvation to them. The persecutors send many practitioners to labor camps in attempt to stop these appeals. Female practitioners of Anhui have been mainly detained in the province's Female Labor Camp. As many as a hundred practitioners are locked up there. In order to show "achievements" to their superiors, the labor camp has been using all kinds of cruel means to persecute Dafa practitioners, hoping in vain to "reform" them. A practitioner told us the following. No Talking, No Visiting and No Normal Sleeping "In that labor camp, Falun Gong practitioners do not have the privileges other detainees have. Detainees could talk to each other, but we are not allowed to; we will be scolded at if we do. In order to prevent us from talking to each other, they ordered other detainees to follow us. Wherever we go, there are two people following us, even when we buy food or stand in line. They do not allow our relatives to visit us. Even on holidays they do not allow us to sleep. Other elderly detainees can go to bed at 10pm, but elderly Falun Gong practitioners could not. In the beginning we passively endured these policies. Later, we realized that we should neither acknowledge nor cooperate with the persecution, and so we requested that we be treated in the same way as the other detainees. After our protest, they allowed the elderly practitioners to stop working at 10PM. (The work hours are very long. We have to be at the workshop right after getting up at 5AM, and stay there until 11PM or midnight, sometimes until 1AM or 2AM. That includes 3 meal breaks to the dining hall. Not counting the time spent on meals, the working time is about 16-18 hours a day.) No Practicing and Arbitrary Physical Punishment "They do not allow us to practice the Falun Gong exercises here, but we get up at night and do it anyway. At first the guards on the night shift would come in to stop us when they found out. Then when they could not stop us, they pulled us out to stand still as a punishment. Later, they would simply tie us to the beds when they saw us practicing. Our hands and feet would all be tied to the poles of the bed and could not move. They would untie us only when it was time to get up in the morning. Sometimes they forced practitioners to stand next to the beds and tie their hands to the poles of the upper bunk until it was time to get up. Some practitioners' hands were tied to the window poles of the barbershop's room in the lobby. One day in July 2000, the head of the first division said, "I don't believe that I can't take care of you!" She ordered each of the group leaders to ask Dafa practitioners before going to bed whether they would practice the exercises or not at night. All the practitioners answered "yes." As a result, all of the twenty-some practitioners of the first division were tied to the beds all night long until the next morning. Several practitioners, such as Ms. Chen and Ms. Lu, have been asked whether they would get up and practice every night. They all said yes, so they were tied to the bed every night. They suffered this for almost a month. They still had to work 16-17 hours during the day. The cruelty is harsh. Forced "Reform" and Torture "The guards tied up practitioner Gan in the barbershop room for 5 days and 5 nights because she practiced at night. She was not allowed to rest and was pressured to write a guarantee that she would not practice any more. She refused to write any such guarantee. The division head then hung her hands behind her, suspending her so that her feet barely touched the ground. Practitioner Li was also handcuffed from behind to the bed for seven days and nights for practicing. She was also pressured to write the so-called guarantee, which she refused. So they pulled and tied her hands behind and hung her by them. Due to having to stand for such long periods of time, their legs became swollen and looked like rubber. Practitioners Shi and Gao were found reading and passing to each other short articles written by the Teacher. The guards pulled their hands behind their backs, tied and hung them by their hands in the barbershop for 3 days and 3 nights. They tied and hung practitioners with the same method for days if they practiced at night. "Practitioner Song was locked in for practicing the exercises. After she had been on a hunger strike for 4 or 5 days, they forced her to jog. When she could not run, they forced other detainees to drag her to run. Her shoes wore out during the running; the guards nevertheless made her run barefoot on the track, which is full of cinder and rocks. By the time she came back, her feet were cut and bleeding. They forced her to run around the track several hundred times every morning and afternoon. Because Song was on a hunger strike, she was weak, out of breath and almost fainted. They let her stop only for fear that she might pass out on the field. They tortured Song to such an extent to try to force her to recant her practice of Falun Gong. "To validate Dafa, practitioners never yielded to the persecutors despite such torments. Instead, we protested with hunger strikes. But this led to even more cruelty -- force-feeding. Some had their lips and tongue torn by the feeding-tubes, some had their teeth broken, some had the force-feeding tube in their noses and some lost breath and almost died from the force-feeding. "In the hottest days during the summer, many practitioners were locked in for practicing or for participating in hunger strikes. The guards tied the practitioners arms from behind their backs and let the mosquitoes bite the practitioners. Originally, the Female Labor Camp had two confinement chambers. In order to lock up the Falun Gong practitioners, the guards built more than a dozen dark and small confinement chambers next to the trash heap. "The worst trick the guards used was to force other detainees to scrutinize Falun Gong practitioners, in order not to allow them to practice the exercises or talk to each other. When the non-practitioners failed to watch, the prison guards would deduct points from the watching group (3-4 detainees per watching group). Sometimes they deduct the whole group's (17-18 detainees) points. The detainees are very afraid of deductions, because every 100 points deducted means one more day in the labor camp, while 100 points increased means one less day. Therefore they have to watch carefully in order to keep their points high. When they fail to watch and lose points, they resent the practitioners. The vicious guards use this trick to arouse hatred toward the practitioners and Falun Gong. They wanted to instigate the masses to fight among each other. When the guards on duty found practitioners doing the exercises, they walked in and spoke very loudly to wake up everybody in the group. Some even said, "if you practice again, the whole group cannot go back to sleep." Practicing the exercises at night does not bother anybody, but the guards use these tricks to forbid the practice and to stir up hatred among the detainees. Whenever practitioner Fan practices at night, the group leader would wake up everybody in the group and have them tie her up and beat her. Her body was often covered with bruises. Once her group leader even kicked her down the stairs from the second floor. Another time the guards marked down 80 points for everybody in her group because she practiced the exercises. It was another effort to stir up resentment toward Falun Gong practitioners among the detainees. "In order to further persecute the practitioners, the Female Labor Camp formed a "Strictly Controlled Group" in June 2000. The ones being strictly controlled are practitioners. The other detainees were sent to watch the practitioners. In the Controlled Group, practitioners have even less freedom. They could only use the sleeping dormitory and the restroom. They are not allowed to go to the dining hall, and no meat is in their meals. Their lunch and dinner (there is no breakfast) consists of a vegetable plate that costs less than 0.30 RMB (about 4 pennies in US dollars). Other detainees were told to beat practitioners at will. Being handcuffed, hanged or locked in confinement has become routine for the practitioners. And everyday they would deduct several hundred points from each practitioner." The state-controlled propaganda describes the labor camp as "warm and caring" to the practitioners. It is a disgrace! Here we want to reveal this hypocritical coverage and to reveal the true situation inside the labor camp. The people of the world should know that this is the so-called "educational reform" that the Chinese propaganda describes as "like doctors to patients, like teachers to students, and like parents to children."

Category: Accounts of Persecution