We are Falun Gong practitioners who have been released from labor camps. During the past two years, Falun Gong has been illegally persecuted in China and practitioners have been brutally tortured. All of this is simply because Falun Gong practitioners will not give up their beliefs and want to be good persons based on the universal principles of "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance." If we had not seen it with our own eyes, we could never have imagined the vicious, brutal torture of innocent practitioners conducted by the guards in labor camps.
1. Hewan Labor Camp in Wuhan city
At present, there are 352 Falun Gong practitioners who are sentenced to forced labor in the Hewan labor camp. There are 104 male practitioners and 248 female practitioners.
At the Hewan labor camp, Falun Gong practitioners are deprived of their basic human rights. The officers tie up our arms and legs just because we want to practice and recite Fa [law and universal priciple of Falun Dafa]. And then they push against the practitioners while they can barely even stand up and cannot balance themselves and thus eventually fall heavily onto the floor. The officers shout things like: "You deserve it if you fall and die." They tape practitioners' mouths tightly and even their noses! They only loosen it up a little when the practitioners are suffocating and in danger of asphyxiation. Because they fear that the practitioners will make noise, they wrap the practitioners' heads with clothes, and sometimes their hair gets tangled in. In addition, they threaten the practitioners and often shout: "If you die, for sure we will tell people that you committed suicide. The doctors all work for the government and who can prove that you did not kill yourself?"
They force the practitioners to write repentance statements. Whoever refuses is sent to special sleeping quarters to become food for the mosquitoes. At night, these practitioners are not provided with the mesh nets that keep the mosquitoes off. Moreover, all the lights are kept on so the mosquitoes all gather in that room. Over the course of the summer, the poisonous mosquitoes consumed much blood from the practitioners.
Under these inhumane conditions, Dafa practitioners do not even have the right to go on hunger strikes. If you refuse to eat, you will be violently force-fed. During forced feeding, they use 5 or 6 strong thugs. One sits on the practitioner's legs, two hold the arms, another one grabs the hair, one forces the teeth open with an iron pry, and yet another one places and holds the hard, thick tube, not the soft tube used in clinics, through which the slurry is passed. Many practitioners have been "treated" this way. Some have been force-fed for more than 7 months; their health is broken. Some practitioners have firmly resisted the force-feeding, causing severe swelling of the entire body for more than 100 days and sharp pain of the inner organs lasting a week. Besides this, they even charge a 30 Yuan fee every time they force feed. This is all exactly in accordance with the vicious goal to "collapse the practitioners politically, empty them financially, and eliminate them physically."
In the labor camp, the malevolent officers recruit criminals, including drug-dealers, thieves, and prostitutes, to help them monitor and persecute Dafa practitioners. Practitioners who refuse to be transformed are monitored 24 hours a day even when they go to the restroom, eat and work.
The units that are responsible for the conditions in the labor camp are: the Wuhan Labor Camp Bureau, the Wuhan Legislative Bureau, the Labor Camp Management Committee in Hubei Province, the Division of Public Security Labor Camp Office in Hubei Province, and the Wuhan City Hewan Labor Camp. Contact the Wuhan Hewan Labor Camp 6th Team: 86-27-85878758-2071/2072, 86-27-85601054, 86-27-85878807-2060/2157. Head: Yi Nengxian; Assistant Head: Yao Aijun; Officers: Liu Hui and Hou Qiong.
2. Wuhan Drug Rehabilitation Center
The rehab center is right next to the Hewan labor camp. Practitioners are held on the 4th floor. During the hot summer days, the temperature reaches 38-42 C (100-108 F). There is no fan. A few practitioners wanted to donate money to buy a fan but the head of the jail turned down this request. There are 198 people including some drug-users being held on 4th floor. There are 8 beds in a room of only 20 square meters (roughly 180 square feet), accommodating 30 people. Other rooms have only 10 square meters. There are 4 bunks in this kind of room and 26 people live in there. There is only one bathroom with four toilets on the entire 4th floor for the use of 198 people. The shower facility is 10 square meters in size and has 8 taps for all 198 people. Only cold water is provided in all seasons. There is two inches of dirty water on the floor. One practitioner named Yang Ping was 3-months pregnant. She was forced to have an abortion and sentenced to one year in the rehab center. She was forced to take only cold-water showers and drink only cold water. She was finally released with the efforts of her family. The food consists of a stinky gruel boiled without oil or salt and rotten cabbage. The practitioners' families are not allowed to send any bathroom items such as toilet paper, soap, or towels, so the practitioners are forced to buy these things from the rehab center at double the normal prices.
The guards at the rehab center secretly goad the head inmate to torture the practitioners. Each practitioner is supervised by two drug-users 24 hours a day. Two practitioners sleep in a bed that is one meter wide. Regardless of their age, practitioners have to sleep facing inside. If they practice the exercises, they are kicked and beaten up. But the practitioners always tolerate this and never even shout back. This moved the officers in the rehab center and they admitted that they did not have the heart to beat the practitioners! But later, the team head and the police forced them to carry out the torture orders. So they stuffed the practitioners' mouths with stinky socks and towels. Some practitioners were beaten and fell to the floor; their mouths and noses were covered tightly so they could not breathe. Practitioners work all day and endure the so-called "conversations" at night, which is meant to transform and torture them via physical and mental methods. Sometimes the officers would pretend to be nice and said: "Don't you cultivate ' truthfulness, compassion and forbearance'? Couldn't you compromise and be a little tolerant so our boss will not criticize us? We all know that you are good people and you have really made an impression on us. We are learning from you. But our job is to carry out orders from above." Because we still had attachments and were blinded by the evil lies, we did what a true cultivator is not supposed to do and let our teacher down. Right here and now we solemnly declare: Everything we said or wrote to denounce Dafa and our teacher is invalid! Those were things we did under pressure, threats, and force and were against our will. We will make every effort to expose the wrongfulness, speak out the truth, and thus make up for the transgressions we committed and keep up with the process of Fa rectification.
The responsible units are: the Labor Camp Management Committee in Hubei Province, Division of Public Security Labor Camp Office in Hubei province, the Wuhan Legislative Bureau, and the Wuhan Drug Rehabilitation Center.
3. First Detention Center of the Wuhan City Public Security Bureau
On entering the detention center, every practitioner had to take off his/her clothes and then squat down and jump up several times. If anyone refused to do it, a group of thugs would handcuff and suspend the practitioner by his/her hands. One practitioner was handcuffed and hung up this way for more than 60 days. When it was finally taken off, the handcuff had cut into the flesh and his hands were severely swollen. Another practitioner practiced the exercises and was therefore put into special confinement during the freezing winter days. She had to sleep on a particular kind of wooden board usually reserved for criminals given the death penalty. There was a hole in the middle for urination and her pants were pulled down below her knees. Her arms and legs were cuffed for 8 days. No food or drink was provided and she was force-fed. They finally took her off of the wooden board but put her on another flexible wooden board for another month. Her hair was never combed and her lips were dry. She could not speak and was smelly. She was not allowed to wash herself when she had her period. They even encouraged the criminals to beat and curse her and force her to drink, causing even more pain when she urinated. This practitioner had been tricked into going to the security office and then was detained illegally. She only wore two thin layers of clothes when she was arrested. Her husband tried to send her coat and some money but the officers would not allow it. Then they said to the practitioner: " Your family hates you and will not visit you." How malicious they are! They used up all the handcuffs and other tools they had in the detention center. But there still were not enough and they had to borrow more from other places. The criminals said: " Falun Gong is great."
4. The situation in the transformation class - - another name for labor camp
The transformation class in Jiangan district of Wuhan city started on Dec 8th, 2000. At present there are about 40 people detained there, including several who are more than 60 years old. Everyone is monitored 24 hours a day by guards. They have been detained for almost half a year. In order to avoid interference with their sleep, practitioners drink little water so as to avoid going to the bathroom at night. The officers force them to dance and practice Tai Chi. Most practitioners are not allowed to see their families. In addition, everyone has to pay 500 Yuan. Most of them have lost their jobs and have no income and cannot afford to pay the fee. The officers, on the other hand, freely spend the money paid by the practitioners' families and even get bonuses.
The Qingling transformation class in Wuchang district started in March 2000. Practitioners have been sent there one group after another. Everyone has had to pay 280 Yuan every day.
Some of the facts about what practitioners have experienced and witnessed during their incarcerations are given above. Falun Gong practitioners are thrown into detention centers, labor camps, rehabilitation centers, women's labor camps and transformation classes simply because they want to take advantage of the legal rights protected by the constitution. No one can wipe away these bloody facts. All the good and bad deeds will be requited eventually. We hope those evildoers wake up as soon as possible and take a righteous path.
Practitioners from China
April 25, 2001