Name: Xu Jianmei (徐建梅)
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Dongguan Village, Fangshan District, Beijing
Date of Most Recent Arrest: November 25, 2008
Most Recent Place of Detention: Daxing Women's Forced Labor Camp (大兴女子劳教所)
City: Beijing
Persecution Suffered: sleep deprivation, forced labor, brainwashing, illegal sentencing, beatings, being hung up, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, sexual assault, starvation, interrogation, detention, and denial of restroom use
(Clearwisdom.net) Practitioner Ms. Xu Jian Mei was arrested in 2008 and taken to Daxing Women's Forced Labor Camp. During two years of detention at the camp she endured many kinds of torture. She was released on November 24, 2010.
Ms. Xu Jianmei was intercepted by a police car on the highway in Liangxiang, Fangshan District, Beijing at 4 p.m., on November 25, 2008. The police tied her up, took her to the Liangxiang Police Station and interrogated her. On the following day she was taken to Fangshan Detention Center, where she was interrogated by the Domestic Security Division three times. The officers claimed that someone reported seeing her posting Falun Dafa fliers. Ms. Xu Jianmei was sentenced to two years of forced labor by the Beijing Forced Labor Commission. She was taken to the Beijing Police Department "Dispatch Center" on January 3, 2009 and transferred to Daxing Women's Forced Labor Camp in Beijing on March 4 the same year.
Ms. Xu Jianmei endured inhuman torture from the day she entered the forced labor camp until the day she was released. The torture included sleep deprivation, forced standing for long periods of time, denial of food and water, denial of restroom privileges, forced sitting in painful positions for extended periods, cold water dousings and verbal abuse. The authorities also spit on her, pinched her nipples, sat on her back, stripped off her clothing, and tried to force her to write the so-called three statements.
In the first two months at the camp, the guards locked Ms. Xu in a storeroom to separate her from other detainees. There, she was forced to sit on a hard bench without moving for a long time every day. The authorities limited her restroom use to two or three times each day. She barely had two hours of sleep at night. When she was menstruating she was not allowed to wash her underwear or pants. The camp authorities only gave her one cup of water a day. Sometimes when she was menstruating she was not given any drinking water. They starved her for a very long period of time by allotting her half of a steamed bun a day. Guard Guo Kaiyang instructed drug addict inmates to, “Just give her a little food—enough to keep her alive.”
Inmates who were ordered to monitor Ms. Xu under instructions from the guards often verbally abused her and beat her. They pinched her nipples many times. One afternoon, the inmates punched and kicked her. She was even kicked from a bench onto the floor. On another occasion, one inmate grabbed Ms. Xu's hair and slammed her head against the wall, saying, “If I kill you, it will be considered a suicide.” Ms. Xu Jianmei suffered such abuse in the storeroom for over two months.
Since Ms. Xu Jianmei refused to recite the prison rules, one day in July 2009, the guard would not give her any food. However, she still had to to do manual labor in the field. At noon the guard forced her to run around the drill ground, and prevented her from sleeping that night. On the third night Ms. Xu was so tired she was unable to keep her eyes open. Whenever the inmates saw her sleeping they would beat her.
One day in August 2009, Ms. Xu was forced to sit on a hard bench. The inmates kicked her right shoulder and hit her with a plastic ruler and a fly-swatter until the plastic broke into pieces. On another occasion, the inmates forced Ms. Xu to squat on the ground with her hands on top of her head. When Ms. Xu was unable hold the position any longer and fell onto the ground, four inmates punched and kicked her, slapped her face, and pulled her hair, causing her forehead and eyes to swell. The inmates then drenched Ms. Xu's clothing and bedding with water.
When Ms. Xu Jianmei renounced the “three statements” she had written while under extreme duress, the camp authorities threw her into the storeroom and again forced her to sit on a hard bench. Several inmates kicked her off the bench and rode on her back, grabbed her hair, slapped her face, and pinched her nipples and other flesh. They did not let her sleep. Whenever she closed her eyes, the inmates would beat on the iron gate with a metal rod to wake her up.
One day at the end of August, the division head incited inmate Guo Xinge to hit Ms. Xu Jianmei. Guo tried to force Ms. Xu to stay in one position without moving but Ms. Xu refused to cooperate. Guo then held Ms. Xu's temple between her knees and stuffed toilet cleaning rags into her mouth so she couldn't yell. Three other inmates, Yan Xin, Zhang Fengying, and Yang Mingming, all joined in beating Ms. Xu.
One day in September, 2009, Zhang Fengying, Xin Ge, Yan Xin, and Gao Zan dragged Ms. Xu Jianmei into the guards' meeting room. They punched and kicked her, pulled her hair, and twisted her arms behind her back. They beat her all over, and as a result her clothes were torn to shreds and the buttons even fell off onto the floor. Afraid that Ms. Xu would shout, they stuffed a piece of cloth into her mouth. Ms. Xu Jianmei was left covered in cuts and bruises.
Ms. Xu Jianmei was forced to stand still for seven days from 4 p.m. to 1 a.m. the next morning in May, 2009. Her body was swollen beyond recognition, which made it hard for her to walk. The inmates prevented her from sleeping by pounding the table and kicking the bed to make a lot of noise. Division Head Han woke her up from time to time and finally kicked the door hard in an effort to destroy Ms. Xu Jianmei physically and spiritually. All this was for one purpose—to make her renounce Falun Gong.
Inmate Chen Xiaofen often spit on Ms. Xu Jianmei, insulted her, and threatened her by saying, “If you don't give up your beliefs you will be buried alive or will be made to suffer a mental collapse.”
In order to prevent the practitioners from reading Falun Gong books, the authorities searched the camp once a week. During that time the practitioners were made to strip off all their clothes to humiliate them and to punish them as well.
In October, 2010, when Ms. Xu Jianmei's term at the forced labor camp was just about over, the guards still forced her to sit on hard bench.
Daxing Women's Labor Camp:
Address: 12 Weiyong Road, Tiantanghe, Huangcun Township, Daxing District
Switchboard: +86-10-60278899
Contact Number: +86-10-60278383, +86-10-60279500
Public phone of Disciplinary Section: +86-1060278899 ext. 5819
Zhu Xiaoli, Head of the forced labor camp: +86-13901159752
