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Facts Regarding the Torture of Dafa Practitioners at the Hewan Forced Labor Camp in Wuhan City, Hubei Province

June 17, 2003

(Clearwisdom.net)

1. Persecution by Setting up Long-Term "Jail within Jail"

The Hewan Forced Labor Camp has set up a thorough system of "jail within jail" as a tool to persecute Dafa practitioners in the long run. Headed by police officers Zhang Yi and Gao Junan, they used various methods, and various people to aid their evil cause. It is also known, that they used criminals to help them torture and monitor practitioners. They chose a group of hired men to keep watch, at the on-duty room, while they carefully selected criminals to supervise every move of Dafa practitioners. Two to four criminals supervised each Dafa practitioner. And the criminals were rotated regularly. If the criminals did not act "tough" enough, they were quickly replaced. Police frequently held meetings to teach the criminals "tricks and techniques" on how to "hurt people." They coerced criminals to hurt Dafa practitioners by using reduction or extension of terms as a reward or punishment. The persecutions included:

1) In each group, there were two criminals on duty 24 hours a day. Hired men guarded the doors of each floor to prevent Dafa practitioners from going out. Dafa practitioners are isolated 24 hours a day by criminals.

2) Talking between Dafa practitioners is prohibited, even exchanging daily items is carried out by the supervising criminals. Discussing "how to be a good person" is not allowed, the words of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" are not allowed to be mentioned either.

3. No Dafa practitioners are allowed to use the bathroom, rinse, or wash alone. Dafa practitioners are forced to use the toilet and bath together. Criminals search, insult, or curse Dafa practitioners, at will, and at anytime. Dafa practitioners are not permitted to use the toilet as a form of torture. Under this circumstance, Dafa practitioners were forced to pour out the water in their porridge in order to avoid urinating. Drinking water was restricted.

4. In an unhealthy environment filled with cigarette smoke, Dafa practitioners are forced to sit on small stools or on the ground for over ten hours a day. After such a long forced sitting, they developed sores on their buttocks. In the summer, their shorts would be soaked with sweat, but only one shower was allowed per evening. This caused many of them grow scabies.

5. Dafa practitioners are forced to report to the criminals on duty if they want to use the toilet at night. If they do not, they are dragged back and not allowed to use the toilet for the entire night. Even when going upstairs or downstairs, their actions must be reported. If one practitioner were slightly slower than the others, the criminal group leader hit him or her on the lower back.

6. Dafa practitioners are frequently forced to sit beside the bed but are not allowed to lean on it. They are also forced to sit at a certain distance from the bed and are not allowed to stray from their positions. If they fail to do so, the criminals punch them.

2. Ruthless Persecution Similar to Acts Committed During the Cultural Revolution

During the daytime, police officers and criminals punched Dafa practitioners. While during the night, hired men were coerced by police officers to beat up Dafa practitioners.

Facing various ruthless torture including extension of terms (one extension would be half a year or more), Dafa practitioners in the 2nd Brigade protested in a peaceful way by refusing to work, to squat down, or to answer roll calls. Guards and police officers then extended the mealtime. Each meal would last two hours and was offered group by group. Dafa practitioners were the last group. When it was their time to eat, the food had been frozen cold. Dafa practitioners had to suffer from hunger and cold.

Police officers pasted slogans defaming Dafa everywhere. The biggest one hangs from the top of a building all the way to the ground. Every Saturday, a small meeting is organized in which all people are forced to sit in two rows. All activities are on hold in order to focus on attacking Dafa practitioners. When the entire Brigade has a meeting, the deputy Brigade head Zhou Houshun instigated criminals and guards to hate and attack Dafa practitioners in order to create an atmosphere of terror. Dafa practitioners are not allowed to receive visits, neither are they allowed to buy daily items including toilet paper and detergent. The terror has been getting worse by the day.

After one month, determined Dafa practitioners were scattered to different groups for further persecution.

Violent torture first started with Group 5 on a winter day after supper. At roll call, when it got dark, hired men beat up Dafa practitioners in Group 5. Dafa practitioners were knocked down pushed hard into the ground on a daily basis.

After going upstairs, with the doors and windows closed, Dafa practitioners were forced to stand up for long periods of time. Criminals were instigated to curse or attack Dafa practitioners while hired men are kept on guard, in front of the windows and doors. Police officer Wu Qiang came to the Group several times to coerce criminals to beat up Dafa practitioners by using the reductions of prison terms as an incentive.

At midnight, criminal group leader Luo Wenbin, together with several selected criminals, dragged Dafa practitioners Li Bin, Chen Jinghui, and Zhang Jiagang, one by one, to the bathroom and forced them to squat down in the corners by kicking and punching them. They were coerced to squat down so that their feet, waist and heads touched the wall. A guard named Fan Xiaowu viciously punched their upper bodies, in the area near their heart. Such cruel beatings caused Dafa practitioners to become short of breath for quite a while. Right after they got their breath, another guard would start beating them again. Seeing Dafa practitioners refusing to renounce their belief, Luo Wenbin threatened to beat them to death using the fabricated pretext that they wanted to escape! They forced Dafa practitioners to squat down until late at night and did not allow them to use the toilet.

On the second day, Dafa practitioners Wu Fangwei, Chen Jinghui, Zhang Jiagang and Wang Zhiwen refused to work and were threatened to be transferred to other groups by police officers Zhou Houshun and Wu Qiang. Seeing that the threats were not achieving results, they punished Dafa practitioners by extending their terms for three days and recorded 300 points for each day they did not work. Police claimed that if they did not work for two days, the term would be extended for 6 days etc.

Each day after the roll call, before or after meals, Dafa practitioners were beaten up. Forced into a room, with the door and window closed, they endured further persecution. They also scattered Dafa practitioners throughout the whole brigade for further persecution.

They arranged beds and cabinets for criminals, then added Dafa practitioners to each group. Each Dafa practitioner either had no bed or had to share one bed between two or three other practitioners. Also, people frequently fell down from the upper bed (on the higher level) causing them injuries.

Dafa practitioners Wu Fangwei and Zhang Jiagang were transferred to the New Group 5, and Chen Jinghui was transferred to the Group 1 where they were forced to stand up for almost 20 hours a day, causing their feet to swell and rendering them unable to walk.

Zhang Yi was chosen to be the group leader with Cai Bin, who weighs over 100 kilograms, other criminals were used to assist him. 12 Dafa practitioners' terms in the New Group 5 are close to ending. Although many of them are elderly practitioners, police officers persecuted them even more rampantly.

Police officers coerced criminals to take turns forcing Falun Gong practitioners to stand in the chilly and windy dining hall, to suffer in the cold for over ten hours continuously each day. Sometimes, they were left in the chilly wind until 10pm while the criminals overseeing took turns resting. After 9 p.m. each day, Falun Gong practitioners had to repeatedly report to the criminal on duty. And only until this person nodded, were they allowed to use the toilet. Because of long hours of physical torture every day, practitioners (especially those who were elderly) suffered from frequent urination. Elderly Dafa practitioner Zhang Sifeng and Hu Shuixin were frequently dragged back before they were able to urinate; they had to wait until morning before they were allowed to urinate.

On one cold winter morning at breakfast time, there was freezing rain and a lot of water accumulated on the ground. Police officers and criminals colluded together to abuse Dafa practitioners. Several criminals would beat up whoever resisted slightly. Police officers also instigated criminals to push Dafa practitioners into the frozen slush on the ground. Several strong police officers pulled up and then pushed down Zhang Sifeng, who was almost 60 years old, to the ground for several minutes. Zhang Sifeng, Liu Tao, and Yi Zhifa were tortured until they could hardly walk. When they were finally released, they were lame and walked out by the support of their relatives.

This kind of persecution lasted for almost half a year. Falun Gong practitioners in each group experienced different kinds of tortures. Relatives of Dafa practitioners were allowed to visit only after 6 months had passed. And when they finally did, police officers threatened them as well.

3. Being Shut-Up in Sunless Small-Cells and Subjected to Brainwashing

One way of torturing Falun Gong practitioners is to shut them up in the closed up small-cells. Each small-cell has an area of only several square meters with a bunk bed in it and little space to move about. There are no windows and no light comes in to the cell. Only a ventilation port of about one square meter is available. Falun Gong practitioners were detained in these rooms and had to take their meals and also emptying their bowels in the cell. Police officers, criminals, collaborators [former Falun Gong practitioners who went astray due to brainwashing and torture] took turns trying to brainwash Falun Gong practitioners and didn't allow them to sleep. When practitioners were tortured to the state of being mentally confused, police then coerced them to write down something to defame Falun Dafa and its founder. Zhang Yiyuan, who is over 50 yeas old, was detained in a small-cell to be brainwashed. Each day, he could only sleep for two hours. As soon as he went to bed, the person in the on-duty room would turn the volume of the radio to the maximum and talk very loudly. Not long after he fell asleep, he would be wake up to face a new day of brainwashing.

Police officer Zhang Yi threatened him and said:" This evening you will either be brainwashed or be shot to death!" After 9 days of useless attempts at brainwashing, he was transferred to the intensively monitored Group 7 for further persecution.

In this place, all Dafa practitioners were isolated from the outside world, deprived of the right of communication and all information was blocked. Police tried all means to force Dafa practitioners to renounce their belief in "Truthfulness-Compassion-tolerance". Younger Dafa practitioners were shut up in the small-cells for even longer times and suffered more.

4. A Partial List of Cases of Persecution

A partial list of police officers that actively persecuted Falun Gong practitioners in the Second Brigade:

Zhou Houshun(Vice Deputy Brigade Head), Chen Geng(Vice Deputy Brigade Head), Zhang Yi, Gao Jun'an, Wu Qiang, Zhang Lei, Zhang Hao, Li Jinsong. Hatchet men include: Wang Yiqiang, Cai Bin, Luo Wenbin, Fan Xiaowu, Zhou Chao, Li Hao etc.

Zhang Yi and Gao Jun'an have ruthlessly beaten up many Falun Gong practitioners on their own. Zhang Yi once threw the bed quilts of Falun Gong Practitioners in the Group 5 on the ground and walked over them. Then, he threw the quilts into the wet corridor. Because it was raining, the quilts were soaked.

Torture Suffered by Falun Gong Practitioners:

Yi Zhifa is a 45 year old male Dafa practitioner. He was illegally sent to the forced labor camp for one year after he went to appeal. The street office and the residential authorities threatened to fire his wife and daughter [non-practitioners] from their jobs, so he was forced to divorce them and cut off all relationship with his children in order to protect their means of making a living. When he was detained in the Hewan, scabies grew all over his body. The injuries caused by the scabies cut deep into his flesh and made it hard for him to walk and turn around when sleeping. At each roll call, he would be knocked down to the ground. The situation lasted until he was finally released.

Zhang Sifeng is a 55 year old male Dafa practitioner. The persecution he suffered made it very hard for him to walk. At each roll call, he was knocked down to the ground. The situation lasted until he was released from detention. He had to walk out of the camp door being supported by others.

Liu Tao is a 33 year old male Dafa practitioner. His term was extended for half a year. The persecution he received caused the skin on his hand to tear open. It is also very hard for him to walk. He was beaten up at each roll call.

Wu Fangwei is a 33 year old male Dafa practitioner. He was became nearly blind after being persecuted while in detention and nearly lost his ability to walk.

Mr. Hu Dongsheng was force-fed for over 100 days and injected with fluids. Later, he was detained separately for further persecution.

Zhang Jiagang is a 35 year old male Dafa practitioner. Police officer Gao Jun'an punched his head and pinched his neck's blood vessel. He also continuously punched him from 3pm to 5:30 pm during one afternoon. In the process, Gao would take a break when he got tired from administering the beating. Then, once he rested, he would start the beating again. After the onslaught, it was very hard for Zhang Jiagang to move his head and he could only support it by laying flat on his back or lowering his head. When his hunger strike went over ten days, police officer Zhang Yi punched his head and forced him to stand for a long time, causing his feet and hands to swell. They both became bruised and his feet became stiff.

The above exposed facts are only a fraction of the persecution suffered by Falun Gong practitioners at the Hewan Forced Labor Camp. More violent acts of torture are still hidden.

June 5, 2003