The Facts of the Persecution of Falun Gong  -- January 4, 2007

Issued by Clearwisdom Net

Content


  • The Persecution at the 2nd Forced Labor Camp of Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province



  • The Persecution at the 2nd Forced Labor Camp of Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province

    The authorities of the 2nd Forced Labor Camp of Shenzhen City here established a "Falun Gong Special Administration Office" [abbreviated "Special Administration Office"] for the sole purpose of persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.

    The Officials do not go through legal procedures to sentence a practitioner to forced labor nor do they hold a trial. In addition, they forbid practitioners from appealing their sentences. The officials simply run through brief administrative procedures with the police. A police chief or even a local police officer can deprive a practitioner of his freedom by sending him to a forced labor camp based on a series of made-up charges.

    Physical Torture

    The environment in this camp is filled with great tension and hypocrisy. Several thousand people are held there. The camp is run in a semi-military style. Detainees usually go through several months of military training after their arrival and do military drills, regardless of the weather. The detainees also work long hours each day to make products for export, bringing the camp tremendous profit. The detainees' living space is crowded, and the food is terrible. Steadfast Falun Gong practitioners are placed with other detainees.

    Li Hangzhou, Su Yijie, and other guards at the camp subjected practitioners to brutal persecution under orders from the 610 Office and the head of the labor camp.

    The guards order criminal inmates to monitor practitioners around the clock to make sure they cannot do the Falun Gong exercises. They also make the practitioners work long hours or watch Falun Gong-slandering videos. They have a secret torture chamber where the prisoners who are retired artillery soldiers and former special agents torture practitioners through sleep deprivation and long-term standing in an attempt to destroy their will.

    Guard Li Hangzhou ordered inmates to push practitioners to the floor and tie their arms behind their backs. They held the practitioner down by putting their feet on his shoulders. Then they pulled his arms up from behind as high as they could go. They then tied the practitioner's chest, arms and handcuffed hands together with rope, making it difficult for the practitioner to breathe. Following that, they made the practitioner sit in the full lotus position and used rope to tie the practitioner's ankles and pull the feet towards the hips as much as possible. The practitioner was then tied firmly. They then pushed the practitioner's head down until it reached his knees and they connected his feet, legs and bowed neck with a rope and tightened it as tightly as possible. The practitioner's body formed a triangle-circle shape, an excruciatingly painful position. Furthermore, the inmates and guards verbally insulted Falun Gong while pouring cold water on the practitioner's face and burning the soles of his feet with cigarettes. They yanked the practitioner's nose upward until blood gushed out and also pinched the male practitioners' foreskin.

    Practitioner Mr. Xu Tianbao, whose former name was Xu Qitian, was illegally arrested in 2002. He was savagely tortured and sent to the camp where he is still being held. The guards handcuffed him to a long bench in a very painful position while blasting slander into his ears with two loudspeakers. His ears bled and later became infected. Ever since then, pus and other fluid often come out of his ears. Despite his insistent requests, the labor camp officials only gave him superficial anti-infection treatment. Xu Qitian completely lost the hearing in his left ear. He now suffers from dizziness and headaches as aftereffects of the torture. The camp officials still deny him medical treatment.

    Brainwashing

    The "staff members" and "reformed" practitioners at the zone of the "Special Administration Office" can engage in various sports and entertainment activities; their mobility is unlimited. Doctors and camp officials treat them them with extraordinary care when they experience any slight discomfort. Their family members, friends, and work supervisors can visit them. In the evening they can watch TV, sing songs and read books. They live in spacious upstairs rooms and are served good food. "Reformed" practitioners can meet and talk with each other. Former practitioners who completely cooperate with the labor camp officials are released within a short period of time and can return to work. The camp officials try to create dramatically different conditions for practitioners who are determined and for those who have "reformed," in an effort to destroy the will of the steadfast practitioners. In this environment people conduct themselves with false kindness and carry out "reform" work.

    The camp officials met with little success when they tried to "reform" practitioners through violence. They racked their brains and resorted to the Communist Party's book of psychological war tactics accumulated over the past several decades. They studied the hobbies of Falun Gong practitioners and tried to make a "breakthrough" by targeting the practitioners' fundamental attachments. They even promised the practitioners that they would be able to "study the Fa" after they "reformed." Their tactics had some effect on practitioners with strong human attachments, as these practitioners think "reforming" is the right thing to do. Some practitioners even have the misconception that "reforming" is a necessary step on their cultivation path. The "Special Administration Office" would never create a true cultivation environment for Falun Gong practitioners. Their goal is to deceive the practitioners and to achieve a high "reform" rate.

    The officials targeted some practitioners' pursuit of comfort and their admiration of veteran practitioners and practitioners with advanced academic degrees. They brought some collaborators who have PhD or Master's degrees and who were veteran practitioners or volunteer assistants at practice sites to reiterate how they had once been determined in Falun Gong practice, how they had appealed for Falun Gong, and how much tribulation they experienced yet they still could not free themselves. Their tribulations grew worse and they realized they had gone astray, so they decided to follow their "gut feelings" and switch to another cultivation method. After they had voluntarily "reformed," their troubles were reduced and the pressure was gone, the path of cultivation became more and more smooth, they feel better and better as they went along, and they now feel great about themselves. They lied, saying that one can transcend humanness and truly practice cultivation on a high level only through "reforming."

    The officials also ordered a group of collaborators and guards with legal knowledge to argue with and verbally attack determined practitioners. They took passages from Zhuan Falun and twisted the meaning by interpreting out of context. They continuously asserted tremendous pressure on determined practitioners for a long time.

    Several determined practitioners were sent to another labor camp to be physically tortured because they had resisted brainwashing. Su Yijie, head of the Special Administration Office, sarcastically said these practitioners were "drinking a forfeit for refusing a toast."

    The camp officials also transferred determined practitioners to other labor camps because they are afraid of their crimes being exposed and the effect of steadfast practitioners on "reformed" practitioners. 

    The camp heads told the Special Administration Office guards that they could do anything to "reform" a practitioner. They also threatened the guards with loss of their jobs if they couldn't force the practitioners to renounce Falun Gong.

    These camp officials also make "reformed" practitioners write essays to slander Falun Gong. Then they spread these lies to people who don't know anything about Falun Gong saying, "This-and-that practitioner has reformed," in order to incite hatred against Falun Gong.