(Clearwisdom.net) We heard the shocking news that the Party is premiering a TV series called Life is Innocent, to slander Falun Gong and to whitewash the persecution taking place in labor camps. We, a few of the tens of thousands of practitioners who were illegally detained at Beijing Female Labor Camp, the former Tiantanghe Labor Camp or Xinan Labor Camp, can attest that the people who made the TV program are fabricating facts. Here we just want to tell the truth about life at the Beijing Female Labor Camp.
Construction of the Beijing Female Labor Camp was finished last year. The dormitory looks like a palace in a fairy tale, and flowers and plants flourish in the yard. However, none of these can hide the brutal persecution.
Heavy Labor
The labor camp policy states that detainees must work four hours a day from Monday through Friday, and they get time off during holidays and weekends. However, most of the time we were forced to work from early morning to late at night, and we rarely got the weekend off. In order to get as much work done as possible, the guards woke us up at 4 a.m. and made us work until after midnight. In order not to be seen violating the policy, the guards didn't turn on the light when they woke us up and they ordered us to wash in the dark. Then they turned on the light and asked us to start working immediately. Oftentimes the guards didn't write down our names and the hours we worked, but every time we filled out forms the group leaders asked us to write as they told us. Some practitioners ignored their unreasonable demands and wrote down the facts. The guards found these practitioners according to their handwriting and class, sent them to the office and asked them in a vicious manner, "What did you put on the form?" the practitioners said, "You said the form is anonymous, why do you ask?" The guards couldn't answer.
Other than obtaining bonus money by forcing the practitioners to do heavy labor, the guards also tried to brainwash the practitioners, and not let them have access to Dafa books and articles.
Terrible Hygiene Conditions
There are all kinds of hygienic facilities available at the labor camp, but in the summer we were allowed to take only one shower per week, and once every two weeks at all other times. The whole labor camp had to finish showering within half a day. After we returned from the shower, the guards pressured us to wash our clothes within the shortest time. When we washed our face and brushed our teeth in the morning and evening, the guards looked at their watches and urged us to finish quickly. In this high-pressure atmosphere, many elderly practitioners only had time to wash their feet once a day or not at all, and they could wash their clothes only infrequently.
Because of this high pressure, many practitioners developed hypertension and other illnesses. The guards lied and claimed they weren't healthy when practicing Falun Gong, and the government took care of them and gave them medicine. However, the fact is these people were mostly healthy before their arrest, and no matter how sick they became in the labor camp, they quickly recovered by doing Dafa exercises after they returned home. The so-called medication cost expended at the labor camp is proof of the persecution.
Worse and Worse Food
When the labor camp went by the name Tiantanghe, they provided low quality food, and as a result many people showed symptoms of malnutrition. The food became steadily worse and worse at the female camp. We were rarely given any meat, and there was little oil in the vegetables. Once, the female camp gave us pure fat boiled in water, and we all suffered diarrhea. Every time people visited the labor camp, the menu at the cafeteria would say beans and other fresh vegetables, but in fact we ate the same food as we were normally given.
Early this year, the female camp opened a supermarket. Things that cost one Yuan outside are sold for 1.5 Yuan here. From then on, our food became even worse, and our meals basically consisted of dirty cabbage and carrots boiled in water, with a little salt. Because of the terrible food, even the people with financial resources had to purchase the salted vegetables from the female camp's supermarket. The practitioners had no financial resources since their previous jobs were taken away, yet the female camp made money this way and added to the financial burden of the practitioners' families.
Brutal "Rescue"
The government claims their policy toward Falun Gong is "educate, influence, rescue." Let's take a look at how the practitioners are treated at the female camp.
Falun Gong practitioners in all groups face brainwashing. The thugs try to confuse the practitioners with hypocritical Party theories. The head of Group Seven made up lies that sounded laughable even to the other guards. The thugs from Group One, Three, Five and Seven mainly used sleep deprivation to torture the practitioners. Newly arrested practitioners are not allowed to sleep as long as they don't give up Dafa, and some groups don't even allow them to enter the dormitory. They force the practitioners to stay in the hall or the underground pathway for days on end. If they still refuse to give up Dafa, the thugs would force them to squat, stand and stay in a position with their body bent down to extreme and their arms lifting up behind them. They also order the collaborators [former Falun Gong practitioners who have gone astray due to torture and brainwashing], drug addicts and prostitutes to beat the practitioners. These thugs usually hit the practitioners' sensitive body parts. In the end, the guards sent persevering practitioners to the "concentration training group," also called "the cage."
The "concentration training group" uses specialized cages. When practitioners are in these cages, they can neither stand nor squat. The guards also use electrical batons to force the determined practitioners to walk in a squatting posture until their shoes are worn out. When they can no longer walk, the guards kick them so hard they roll on the floor. The guards also shock the female practitioners' private parts with electric batons, until they crawl in pain and try to cover their lower bodies with their hands and arms. Some practitioners are repeatedly beaten until they don't have any perceptible pulse. For practitioners who are too weak to take another beating, the guards open the door in the winter to freeze them. Several practitioners held hunger strikes to protest this gross abuse and mistreatment.
At the end of 2002, the head of Group Two ordered drug addicts and collaborators to beat a determined practitioner for a whole night, until she was on the verge of death. After this, 80% of the Falun Gong practitioners detained at Group Two claimed their forced brainwashing to be null and void. Because of pressure from the practitioners, the female camp authorities sent the perpetrators to the concentration training group; they dissolved Group Two and sent the thugs to the other five groups. The team leaders of Group Two were sent to another group, and Cheng Cuie, the head of Group Two, who is very adamant in the persecution, was sent away. The attempted brainwashing completely failed.
The message in Life is Innocent that the persecution is like "a sprinkling rainfall and breezes in spring" is really an outrageous distortion of the facts.
We advise all people and those who took part in the making of this TV program to please wake up and understand that there is an eternal, heavenly principle: goodness is rewarded and evil deeds are punished. People who distort the facts and slander mighty Dafa are committing unforgivable crimes!
Category: Perspective
