(Minghui.org) (Continued from Part 2)
Solitary Confinement and Torture at the Shandong Women’s Prison
Initial Attempt to Transform Ms. Jiang Failed
Upon arrival, Ms. Jiang was placed on Division No. 11, Cell No. 207. The cell is 100 square feet, about the size of an SUV. She was monitored by inmate Wu Manping (from Longkou) and Cui Lili (from Laizhou). The two of them told Ms. Jiang that she had to put in a written request to be able to buy daily necessities such as a cup and a roll of toilet paper. When Ms. Jiang protested, she was kicked and not allowed to use the bathroom. She was also made to stand for a long period of time.
After getting up at 5 a.m. the next day, Wu and Cui were replaced by two other inmates. Two shifts of inmates monitored Ms. Jiang around the clock. Their primary goal was to try to make Ms. Jiang give up her belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She was forced to watch propaganda programs slandering and demonizing Falun Gong. When Ms. Jiang protested, she was made to sit on a small stool for the entire day. She was not allowed to do anything, even using the bathroom. She also found out later that the inmates monitoring her slipped high blood pressure drugs into her food.
In order to make Ms. Jiang write a statement denouncing Falun Gong, inmate Li Wei (serving a ten year sentence at the time, has since been released), Li Xia, Qiang Bing and a few others attacked Ms. Jiang on January 18. They pushed her to the ground, grabbed and pulled on her hair while Li Wei pried her teeth open with a spoon. Her front teeth became loose and bled. It was all under the watch of guard Yu Jianhua who was on duty that day.
Sitting for Long Periods of Time and Abused by Inmates
After the initial attempt to make Ms. Jiang renounce her belief failed, division guards arranged for felons serving heavy sentences, including murderers to watch Ms. Jiang one on one.
Inmate Wang Wenli (sentenced for bribing and abusing power) made it a big deal that Ms. Jiang “sit up straight and stand up straight.” While sitting on a small stool, Ms. Jiang was to keep her lower back and neck straight at all times and her hands on her knees like in the military. After sitting in this position for an extended period of time, Ms. Jiang’s buttocks were burning. Her legs hurt due to poor blood circulation but she was not allowed to move. After an entire day of sitting in this position, her legs and feet were swollen.
Inmate Tang Weiwei (serving a 19-year sentence for fraud) first pretended to be friendly and asked Ms. Jiang about her family. When Ms. Jiang showed no interest in becoming best buddies, Tang changed her attitude. She put a strict limit on how much water Ms. Jiang could drink and only allowed her two bathroom uses a day. Ms. Jiang was also not allowed to move at all while sitting on a small stool.
Inmate Zhang Yaoyun (sentenced for fraud) told Ms. Jiang that she went to graduate school and was in prison for having committed murder. She told Ms. Jiang her life story and attempted to “transform” her with the soft approach. When her plan failed, she turned hostile and abusive.
Zhang made Ms. Jiang sit up straight, looking straight ahead for the entire day without moving. Whenever she moved even a little bit, Zhang scolded her for having fallen asleep and opened the window despite it being wintertime. Zhang once also poured a basin of cold water on Ms. Jiang’s head.
Zhang once crushed Ms. Jiang’s toes until they were badly bruised. She nitpicked and found any excuse she could to punish Ms. Jiang. She made Ms. Jiang stand in a military stance for long periods of time and would not let Ms. Jiang wash. Sometimes Zhang made Ms. Jiang sit on a small stool for hours after all the other cellmates had gone to bed.
Ms. Jiang once asked to go to bed at around 10:30 p.m. but was turned down by Zhang. Fearing that others would hear Ms. Jiang’s protest, Zhang stuffed a dirty mop in Ms. Jiang’s mouth. When Zhang charged toward Ms. Jiang, she instinctively put up her arms to protect herself and ended up scratching Zhang’s wrist. Zhang told the guards the next day that Ms. Jiang hit her.
Locked Up and Beaten in the Bathroom
Soon after the Chinese New Year holidays in 2018, a round of torture against the unyielding Falun Gong practitioners began on March 4. The head of Division No. 11 was Li Huiju and the assistant instructor was Xu Yumei whose sole purpose in life, as it seemed, was to inflict pain on Falun Gong practitioners in the division.
Several inmates, including Wei Ping, pushed Ms. Jiang into the bathroom that day. The bathroom is a scary place. According to an inmate, more than just a few unyielding practitioners each year get locked up in the bathroom and are not allowed to leave unless they wrote a guarantee statement denouncing Falun Gong.
Ms. Jiang was made to stand day and night in the bathroom but was not allowed to use the toilet. The inmates opened the windows and let the freezing cold air get in. Inmate Tang Weiwei and Jiang Xiulian abused Ms. Jiang during the day and at night Zhang Yaoyun and another inmate teamed up and took over the shift.
Zhang hit Ms. Jiang on the head and kicked her chin and mouth until she fell to the floor. The inmates covered her mouth to keep her from screaming and pulled her up again to stand on her feet. After a night of beatings, Ms. Jiang was allowed to rest briefly on a wooden board.
Ms. Jiang, however, couldn’t rest because she needed to use the bathroom. As soon as she turned due to discomfort, she was made to get up and continue to stand. After a few days of such inhumane treatment, Ms. Jiang was taken back to Cell No. 207.
Solitary Confinement and First Time on “Special Watch”
Ms. Jiang was confined to her small cell for many days without much contact with the outside world. Eventually, she was put through intense brainwashing which got her out of her box during the day but only to return at night. The guards tried to make her write “thought reports” against her belief and tell on other Falun Gong practitioners. Ms. Jiang didn’t cooperate. Guard Liu Fei and other team leads took turns to pressure her, but she did not budge.
Guard Zhao Liyun and Liu Fei asked Ms. Jiang again on June 13 if she’d write the thought report. Ms. Jiang said she had not. The guards called on the “expert” Liu Hongyan to join them. Liu has a reputation for successfully “transforming” Falun Gong practitioners. As soon as she got there, Liu shouted at Ms. Jiang hysterically, “I can handle you all by myself.”
Ms. Jiang was put on “special watch” in a special unit on the second floor. Liu and several others twisted her arms behind her back, grabbed one of her hands, and pried her fingers to force her to hold a pen. As they cursed, they squeezed and moved Ms. Jiang’s hand to write things that slandered Falun Gong and its founder on a piece of paper under her buttocks.
They then stuffed Ms. Jiang’s mouth with a rag, pushed her to the ground, and stomped on her. They grabbed her by her hair and slammed her against a small stool again and again. Each time her head hit the stool, Ms. Jiang felt as if she was going to pass out.
Ms. Jiang was made to sit on a small stool but only on one corner. If she moved ever so slightly, Liu Hongyan would kick her so hard that she would fall down. The prolonged sitting on the edge of the stool left many painful red marks on Ms. Jiang’s buttocks.
Ms. Jiang was allowed only one cup of water a day and three uses of the bathroom. When she ran into Liu in the bathroom one time, Liu kicked her to the ground. After 20 days on “special watch,” Ms. Jiang was placed in a regular cell but was forced to keep submitting “thought reports” to guard Liu Fei.
Second Round of Mistreatment and Abuse while on Special Watch
Inmate Cui Lili became the team lead of the cell at the beginning of August 2018 and Liu Ruixue became the guard in charge of their cell. Liu Ruixue is very hypocritical and found different excuses to put Ms. Jiang back on “special watch.” Assistant instructor Xu Yumei was on duty one day while inmate Wei Wucui brought Ms. Jiang to the meeting room. Former practitioners Li Xue and Sun Jiangchun (those who had denounced their belief in Dafa sometimes help the guards to persecute and persuade unyielding practitioners) joined Wei Wucui.
They pushed Ms. Jiang to the table, covered her mouth with a rag, pulled on her hair, and twisted her arms behind her back. They grabbed and moved Ms. Jiang’s hand and wrote five sentences slandering Dafa and its founder. Ms. Jiang couldn’t breathe. She felt weak in the limbs and almost lost consciousness.
Former practitioners Lu Meiduo and Song Chunmei tried to convince Ms. Jiang to give up on her belief by repeating the CCP’s lies slandering Falun Gong. Lu kicked Ms. Jiang and wouldn’t let up on her. Ms. Jiang had since experienced consistent nightmares. Her arms were numb and she sometimes had symptoms of paralysis of one side of her body. Inmate Cui Lili and Liu Wenqin gave Ms. Jiang a hard time, made her write additional thought reports and ordered her to say things insulting to Dafa and its founder.
Two More Rounds of “Special Watch”
Guard Liu Ruixue put Ms. Jiang on “special watch” in a corner of the cell in June 2019 for not writing thought reports. She was made to sit on a small stool for consecutive days and monitored by Cui Lili.
Two weeks of such abuse didn’t change Ms. Jiang’s mind. The guard told Ms. Jiang they needed to collect her fingerprints one day and kept her in the cell. However, instead of getting her fingerprints, the guard had many team leads and division heads come in and talk to her, trying to persuade her to write thought reports. They offered to reduce prison terms as an incentive but when that didn’t work, they threatened to put her on “special watch.”
No matter how they tried, Ms. Jiang was not going to a write thought report. Liu Ruixue was infuriated. She had inmate Tang Weiwei, Zhou Hongman (a murderer), and a few others who are experienced in torturing Falun Gong practitioners and together they dragged Ms. Jiang to the special unit on the second floor and put her on “special watch” for the fourth time.
Two former practitioners were assigned to get Ms. Jiang to renounce Falun Gong. That night, guard Liu Fei took a look at the surveillance camera footage and told Ms. Jiang, “Look. We just replaced the system but have not started uploading the recordings. I can put you on ‘special watch’ whenever I want.”
Inmate Zhang Yaoyun and Dong Lei came in later. They intimidated Ms. Jiang and beat her. Dong Xue blocked the camera while Zhang Yaoyun hit Ms. Jiang’s head, face, and chin. Ms. Jiang felt dizzy.
Ms. Jiang was not allowed to use the bathroom and the inmates made her use her hands instead of utensils to eat food. A group of inmates would randomly barge into the special unit and ask Ms. Jiang whether she was going to write the report. They stuffed her mouth with a rag, pulled on her hair while pushing her head, and stomped on her legs. They twisted her arms to the back and forced her hand to write sentences insulting Dafa and its founder. This was repeated at least three or four times a day, sometimes even up to nine times.
Ms. Jiang’s hand bled and her arms hurt. She couldn’t move or even touch them. She was bruised under her arms and all over her body, with painful scratches. She was not allowed to use the bathroom and soiled her clothes twice.
Inhumane Torture
Ms. Jiang was on the seventh day of “special watch” on July 7, 2019 when assistant instructor Xu Yumei and guard Jiang and Hua Lei were on duty. Ms. Jiang was subjected to the most inhumane torture on that day.
Inmate Xu Miaomiao (from Zibo City, serving a more than 10-year term) and Dong Xue (from Longkou) beat Ms. Jiang without taking the usual hour-long breaks in between each session. The beatings came hard and fast. The two of them twisted Ms. Jiang’s arms until the tendons in her arms were ripped. Although one cannot tell from looking at the arms, but the pain was excruciating.
They forced Ms. Jiang’s hands to fingerprint some document and beat her ruthlessly. Ms. Jiang couldn’t hold herself up and fell to the ground. The inmates shouted at her and told her to sit up straight.
The torture session lasted until 9 o’clock at night and Ms. Jiang was dragged from the meeting room to Cell No. 203, the special unit, and thrown to the ground. The inmate on duty threw water on her and dragged Ms. Jiang to sit up on a small stool against the wall. Ms. Jiang didn’t last very long before she slumped to the floor again. After a long while, she managed to slowly crawl onto a wooden box to rest.
Ms. Jiang had purple and blue bruises on her face and all over her body. She couldn’t raise her arms and could only let them hang. The skin under her arms was all scratched up. The inside of her right upper arm had a mass of blood visibly welled up underneath the skin. She was covered with bruises, cuts, and scratches. The inmate on duty couldn’t bear to look at her.
Ms. Jiang suffered severe lower abdominal pain as a result of the beatings and requested to see the warden. She wanted to talk about the torture she was subjected to and see a doctor. However, a new team lead named Jiang Ping (serving a more than 10-year term for fraud) was assigned the next morning and Ms. Jiang’s request was dismissed. The clinic nurse Liu Yuanyuan ignored Ms. Jiang’s request, cursed, and scolded her.
When the guards came to work that day, Ms. Jiang confronted Liu Ruixue, “You are knowledgeable regarding the law. What should be done according to the Prison Act?” She was then allowed to ice her wounds and use warm water to wash up.
Covering up the Abuse During Visitation
Ms. Jiang’s husband visited her in mid-July, a week after the torture session. Guard Liu Ruixue told her, “If your husband sees the bruises on your body, just tell him you accidentally bumped into the wall.”
At the visitation room, Ms. Jiang picked up the phone using her left hand but couldn’t hold it for long due to pain in the arm. After dropping it a couple of times, she held the phone in place with her head. However painful it was, she kept it to herself and didn’t want to cause more worry to her husband. She carried a conversation and asked how their son and other family members were doing. Her husband didn’t have the heart to tell her about their son’s worsened mental state and mumbled an ambiguous response.
Ms. Jiang’s husband turned to guard Liu Ruixue at one point and asked, “What type of labor does she have to do here?” Liu didn’t expect it and improvised, “She doesn’t have to do labor here. She only watches TV and studies.” Thinking about the torture she was subjected to just a week ago, Ms. Jiang dared not tell her husband the truth.
Ms. Jiang was heartbroken watching her husband leave after the visit. Little did she know that this would be the last time she saw him.
On their way back to the division, guard Liu Ruixue saw a bucket placed under an air conditioner unit to catch the drips. She ordered Ms. Jiang, who couldn’t even hold the phone during visitation, to empty the bucket full of water. Instead of dumping it down the drain, Ms. Jiang watered some withered weeds on the side of the road.
A week later, assistant instructor Xu Yumei assigned inmate Jiang Ping and Li Xia to make Ms. Jiang write things slandering Dafa and its founder. Ms. Jiang didn’t comply.
Guard Liu Ruixue reported to the director falsely and said Ms. Jiang was spreading Falun Gong. Ms. Jiang was put on “special watch” for almost two months. Ms. Jiang was then placed in Cell No. 206 with other unyielding practitioners in mid-September. During her last six months in Shandong Women’s Prison, Ms. Jiang was beaten by inmate Liu Xiuqin and Li Yujie.
(To be continued.)
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Ms. Li Li and Ms. Jiang Tao from Shandong Province Illegally Sentenced
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