(Minghui.org) Seven Falun Gong practitioners are currently being held in the Jiangmen Detention Center in Guangdong Province. Five of them are women--Ms. Ou Yinghua, Ms. Hong Xiaogen, Ms. Li Aiquan, Ms. Ren Youling, and another whose name is unknown--and two are male--Feng Qifeng and Liang Xianbo.
Practitioners are forced to get up at 7 a.m. and work until 11:30 p.m. every day. They only get very short break for meals. The main products they make are plastic flowers and cosmetic masks. The workload for everyone is heavy, and the nature of the work is physically demanding. For example, the repetitive finger movements required to assemble plastic flowers break the skin quickly. Fingers bleed, yet everyone still has to keep working. Blood and glue mix, and the pain is unbearable. The skin peels, then heals, but breaks again because of the work.
If practitioners do not finish their quota on time, they are forced to stand still for one to two hours. If someone doesn’t finish their work three days in a row, they have to stand still for three hours. If practitioners refuse to do the slave labor, they are tied to the four corners of a bed around the clock and forced to eat and relieve themselves on the torture bed.
Surveillance cameras are installed in every corner of every room. Inmates are watched even when they shower and use the toilet. Wardens on duty in the watch towers can see every inmate clearly at night after they have gone to bed.
The inmates are forced to live on two meals of plain rice and a few pickles each day. Inmates have to pay for their breakfast if they want any. Better dishes are available to buy for ridiculously high prices. For example, 100 grams of boiled vegetables cost 10 yuan (average annual salary for entry level jobs in a medium Chinese city is 3,000 yuan); a serving of meat is 25 yuan, etc.
If inmates refuse to eat, they will be force-fed the next day. A young woman with a hearing and speaking impairment was sent to the detention center after she was suspected of stealing. She refused to eat anything and was force-fed by several male wardens with the assistance of several strong female inmates. A long screwdriver, a hose, and a metal tube were used to force-feed her. They inserted the hose into the woman’s esophagus while one person covered her nose. The inmates who were assigned to assist came back and said it was so brutal that it made them sick.