Because we practice Falun Gong and believe in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance," we were illegally arrested by the local police stations or the National Security agents and sentenced to forced labor. During our detention in Nanmusi Women's Forced Labor Camp in Sichuan Province, we were brutally tortured and humiliated by the guards, led by team head Zhang Xiaofang.

The guards always discussed how to make us suffer more. Under their instigation, drug offenders or prostitutes did their best to torture practitioners in order to decrease their prison terms. Their ruthlessness went to extremes. Innocent practitioners were tortured every day with beatings, being handcuffed with their arms behind their back, being hung up while handcuffed, shocked with electric batons, tied up with ropes, tortured with the tiger bench, splashed with dirty water or excrement, being forced to stand for long hours, not allowed to go to the restroom, were deprived of sleep, not allowed to brush their teeth or wash their face, and so on.

Besides this inhuman torment, Falun Gong practitioners were forced to work to produce export products day and night. The following is information about the abuse suffered by practitioners under persecution at Nanmusi Women's Forced Labor Camp.

1. Sleep deprivation

Sometimes, Falun Gong practitioners were only allowed to sleep two or three hours a day, or even one or two hours every three days. Sometimes, all the practitioners were forced to work overtime without any sleep at all.

2. Beaten and forced to work long hours

Because of the forced labor, the practitioners often felt dizzy and had blurred vision. They were often scolded if they worked too slow and were often beaten. Practitioner Wang Hongxia was an English teacher in Anyue. She had been hung up off the floor for long hours, was beaten and endured the "tiger bench" torture, which made her lose consciousness several times. Practitioner Zhu Yinfang was beaten by Tang Min, Fan (given name not known) and others in the shower room, which caused her death. Many practitioners were forced to sit on small plastic stools for long hours, which made their buttocks develop sores. The practitioners were forced to work day and night to earn money for the guards. Tasks included doing embroidery on baby clothes, sorting pig hairs and so on. Sometimes the practitioners were not allowed to sleep for several days and were forced to work continually.

Once, guard Zhang Xiaofang (team head) said to the other guards in the duty room that the task just finished by the practitioners helped them earned 290,000 yuan; 140,000 yuan was handed over to the labor camp and the balance of 150,000 yuan would be divided among the guards. The guards all laughed hysterically.

3. Extortion by guards

Falun Gong practitioners were forced to labor without any income. Their daily needs such as plastic stools, rice bowls and wash basins had to be purchased at a high price in the labor camp with money from their family members. Zhang Xiaofang was in charge of that money. Sometimes, she would say to a practitioner, "I took three hundreds yuan from your account as a fine."

They even robbed the hard-earned money of the practitioners' family members.

4. Withholding food

Sometimes all the practitioners in the team were punished by the withholding of meals. The guards would say that the food would be dumped down the sewer pipes to feed the mice. There were many mice in the labor camp. They ran around among the cells, damaging the practitioners' clothes and shoes, leaving excrement in the clothes, and even making nests in their clothes. The guards in the labor camp didn't attempt to control the mouse population and said, with regard to the damage they wreaked, that the mice needed to grind their teeth.

For a long time, many practitioners were punished and given very little food to eat, less than 1/10 of a pound per day and no water. As a result, they were hunger and thirsty. At the same time, they were forced to do heavy physical labor such as carrying water, excrement or garbage.

Zhang Xiaofang said with a complacent smirk, "I am just glad to see you all look thin and sallow." Practitioner Xu Ping from Guanghan City protested, "We are forced to do heavy labor every day but the food given us would not even feed a chicken. What is the point in surviving?" She was immediately dragged to the duty office and was brutally beaten. Her face was deformed and there were wounds all over her body. Zhang Xiaofang stomped on Xu Ping's feet with her heavy shoes, injuring Ms. Xu's feet badly. Xu Ping was also forced to face the wall and stand for long hours without food, drink or sleep, while the perpetrators took turns watching and beating her.

5. Withholding water or force-feeding water

Sometimes the practitioners were given no water at all or else were filled with great quantities of water but not allowed to go to restroom. Practitioner Gao Yan was tortured until she had a mental breakdown. During her period, her menses would drip everywhere in her pants and on the ground. Sometimes the practitioners were punished and not to allowed to go to the restroom, which made many of them have to relieve themselves in their pants. Those guards would laugh wildly and scold them, "You are so dirty."

6. Forced to sing the songs that praise CCP

The guards forced practitioners to sing songs several times a day to praise the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The guards would approach the practitioners closely to check whether they were singing. If one was detected not singing, she would be immediately dragged out and brutally beaten. Some practitioners were forced to dance to praise CCP. Those dances were very similar to those used in the cultural revolution. Everyone was forced to write one's thoughts every day and to praise the guards' "education." If someone was "transformed" and started to bully other practitioners, the guards would praise her and say she had advanced. That person would get a promotion such as being head of a cell or a group.

Zhang Xiaofang often said, "I represent the police, the country, and CCP! Anyone against me would be against the police, the country and CCP."

Practitioner Xie Wenying once replied, "You can't!"

Zhang Xiaofang immediately punched and kicked her and grabbed her hair to drag her to the shower room. Xie Wenying was brutally beaten there by a group of people. Practitioner Su Shihui has been unable to walk because her feet were severely injured with wooden stakes.

The crimes committed against practitioners in the CCP's forced labor camps are too numerous to describe. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Falun Gong practitioners have suffered brutal persecution for eight years. The crimes are still being committed. Even practitioners at home are often monitored and harassed by the authorities. Many are are unable to go home and are forced to move constantly in order to avoid persecution.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/9/8/162328.html

Ms. Guo Boqing, 41 years old, has been an employee at the Chemical Engineering Corporation in Chenzou City, Hunan Province. She started to practice Falun Gong in April 1998 and because she refused to give up her belief in "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance", she has been detained five times for a total of six years. Currently, she is being detained in Tiziling Detention Center in Chenzhou City.

1. Encountering Falun Gong and Unexpectedly Finding a Way Out of Desperation

In 1998, Guo Boqing was just over 30 years old and had suffered from various diseases during the last four years. She had hyperthyroidism, heart disease, septicaemia, and was emaciated and seriously dehydrated. One day in April, her husband took her to the Guangzhou Military Medical College and consulted a professor, who told her: "You have many diseases and the symptoms are not mild. I can give you some medications, but they could counteract one another. It is hard to tell what effects they might have, and you won't be able to afford the medical cost." Upon hearing that, she and her husband were both in despair. The professor introduced Falun Gong to them and gave them some examples of patients who had incurable diseases but gained a new life after they practiced Falun Gong. Guo Boqing listened enthusiastically and could not wait to practice Falun Gong. After about two months, all of her illnesses disappeared without treatment, and the whole family was overjoyed. Her relatives and colleagues were all surprised to see her newfound health. "Practicing Falun Gong has meant everything to me," she told them sincerely.

2. Firmly Practicing as Disaster Approaches

In July 1999, the persecution of Falun Gong started in mainland China. Falun Gong practitioners were faced with huge pressure and had to decided between practicing or not practicing. Even under this pressure, Guo Boqing chose to practice Falun Gong without any hesitation and remained steadfast in her belief.

General Manager Huang Yonglan at her workplace disregarded the huge physical and spiritual benefits Ms. Guo had gained from practicing Falun Gong and vigorously followed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Jiang's regime to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. From 1999 to 2001, she instructed Guo Boqing's local branch manager to only pay her 200 yuan for living expenses, and they did not provide any receipt for her deducted wages.

In 2000, Huang Yonglan actively cooperated with the local 610 Office and police officers, and sent people to deceive Guo Boqing into leaving her home. They then illegally arrested her and detained her at the 2nd Detention Center in Chenzhou City for two months. While detained, Guo Boqing was slapped in the face and only allowed to buy daily necessities once a month, while other prisoners could buy items four times a month. From February to April 2001, Huang Yonglan colluded with the 610 Office and police officers in Chenzhou City and Beihu District to sent Guo Boqing to the Nitrogenous Fertilizer Factory in Yongxing County, where she underwent brainwashing in a totally enclosed facility for three months. Every day, four men and four women threatened and tried to coerce her with different tricks, but they were not able to make her give up her belief.

Guo Boqing continuously clarified the truth to people who mistreated her, and told them that Falun Gong had given her a second life. During that period of time, Huang Yonglan repeatedly caused trouble for her and clamored viciously on different occasions, "I must send her to jail. We'll see how capable she is then."

According to insiders, in February 2001, Huang Yonglan called the 610 Office and police officers in Chenzhou City and Beihu District and requested that they sentence Guo Boqing. Since her verbal requests were ignored several times, she submitted a written request.

Soon thereafter, Guo Boqing was again detained at the 2nd Detention Center in Chenzhou City for 18 months. She was forced to wear foot shackles and was beaten cruelly. At the end of December 2001, the Beihu District Procuratorate appealed to the local court, and the trial was held in January 2002. Guo Boqing was sentenced to four years in prison. She was sent to the Changsha Women's Prison on September 12, 2002, but was rejected because she did not pass a health examination. After Huang Yonglan learned about this, she instructed workshop director Chen Jian, personnel of the detention center and police officers from Beihu District to send Guo Boqing to the Changsha Women's Prison on September 18, 2002. Chen Jian was instructed by Huang Yonglan to give a big envelope with money in it to the prison authorities, and then Guo Boqing was jailed for four years.

Guo Boqing refused to denounce Falun Gong while in prison, and she was locked up in confinement for a month. She was tortured with the method called "wearing a sword" continuously for eight hours. The strict discipline team forced her to write reports about her thoughts almost daily. She conducted a hunger strike for three days to protest the unreasonable persecution and her maltreatment. She was compelled to work and make slave labor products. During her prison term, she had to peel over 32 kg of broad beans and make mats for nine beds.

Guo Boqing was released four years later in 2006, and both of her legs were injured as a result of the torture she was subjected to in prison. Even though she was released, she could not escape being monitored by personnel from the security department of her workplace and even from her husband's workplace (Chenzhou City General Machinery Factory), as well as from the residential committee office. She was deprived of the right to work, and when she requested that her company return the payment of over 2,000 yuan they had withheld, they refused. Because her husband was laid off from sentry duty, her family had no financial resources, so she had to do menial work to maintain a livelihood and send her son to school.

3. Arrested Again for Clarifying the Facts

Even in this difficult situation, Guo Boqing tried her best to tell people the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong. She told people to remember that "Falun Dafa is great," "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance are good," and that they will have a good future if they positioned themselves well.

On July 25 at around 11 a.m. over ten thugs hired by the police branch in Beihui District broke into the home of Guo Boqing and intended to arrest her, claiming it was for "maintaining social order," because someone found Falun Gong truth-clarification material in the Chenzhou City General Machinery Factory, where Guo Boqing worked. She was not at home, so they went to her workplace to arrest her and took her house keys from her. In the process of searching her home, they ransacked everything and her personal items were thrown everywhere. They tore down Master Li's portrait from the wall and stepped on it, and confiscated all the Falun Gong books and materials. They also confiscated a TV, VCD player, radio, cassette player, MP3 player and more.

When they were about to complete the ransacking, a CCP official in charge showed up. At that point, several people violently pushed Guo Boqing into a police car and took her to Xiameiqiao Police Station. They interrogated and tortured her there for nine hours continuously.

After 9 p.m., Guo Boqing and two other Falun Gong practitioners who had been arrested one day earlier were cuffed together with handcuffs and sent to Tiziling Detention Center in Chenzhou City. The National Security Unit in Chenzhou City and the police branch in Beihui District, as well as detention center policemen tortured the practitioners.