A description of how Falun Gong practitioners are followed and arrested. The police try to avoid public notice and disturbance, and often lie to practitioners saying they only wish to ask some questions. Once in custody, practitioners are tortured to make them 'confess' to whatever charges the police devise.
How the National Security Team of Daqing Police Department Persecutes Falun Gong Practitioners
The National Security Team of Daqing City Police Department is a main force in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners in Daqing City. They use branch stations of the police department to monitor, arrest, and persecute practitioners. Around April 25, 2007, they took part in arresting a large number of practitioners in the Daqing area, persecuting them and "illegally detaining" them for a long time. Last June, Ms. Jiang Pai, a young practitioner from Daqing City, died from the persecution.
Usually, the National Security Team will not make an immediate arrest after they have identified a practitioner. They will follow the person for a while and then arrest him. They do not need any evidence to made an arrest.
When arresting practitioners, they usually do not drive police cars. Rather, they drive private cars or cars with a private company license plate. They dress in plainclothes and work in groups of four to five. They do not announce their names and will not give their names even if you ask. Even when they arrest elderly practitioners, they go in a group. They normally leave in the morning between 5:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m., since practitioners are usually home at this time. If the practitioner has a job, they go to his workplace. They search the practitioner for the key to his home and then take him to his home to ransack it. Two or three policemen watch the practitioner, and the other two or three do the ransacking. They are very excited when they find a computer, a printer, any paper, an MP3 player, a tape recorder, any DVD, or a cell phone. No matter who they belong to, they take these things. Once these items are taken, they are usually gone for good. To avoid further harassment, the families often do not try to get them back. When someone tries to ask for them back, the police use all sorts of excuses to deny the request.
When arresting practitioners, a few policemen will first circle around them. If there are bystanders, the police will talk nicely. As soon as the bystanders are gone, the police will yell at the practitioners. They say that they have to yell to get their jobs done and that yelling and hitting people is part of their job.
In the beginning, they threaten, insult, yell at, lie to, trick, and coerce the practitioners, and tell them, "It's up to us to decide if things are a big deal or not. It will be okay as long as you cooperate." They also do the same to the practitioners' families. But once the practitioner is brought into the interrogation room, things are totally different, and the police will display their true faces. No matter whether the practitioner is old or young, or how serious the matter is, he is handcuffed to a very small metal chair. His feet are bound to a steel ring and secured. The knees are bent at about 90 degrees and immobilized. The chair is of hard steel, with a semicircular board in the front, so that the practitioner can sign his name. The board presses against the practitioner to hold him back and force him to sit up straight. Some chairs have armrests with handcuffs on them and some do not. The practitioner is handcuffed behind his back. The practitioner is held motionless. After being fixed in one position like this for a long period, the practitioner will be unable to stand or walk when he is released from the chair.
During the interrogation, the police are often most unreasonable, finding all sorts of reasons to verbally abuse practitioners. They say, "You have been targeted by the government, so whatever we do to you is all right. You are in the iron chair, and I am not. Not being on the chair makes me a person, and being on it makes you not a person. So I can do whatever I want to you. No one knows that you are here, including your family. If you do not tell me what I want to hear, I'll make it so that no one can find you."
After all the coercion, threats, yelling, and verbal abuse, if the practitioner still does not provide them with the answers they want, they begin torturing the person to try to force him to "confess." They mix from one to three bottles of mustard oil in a solution, and, depending on the thickness of the solution, they may mix a few solutions together. Normally three policemen work together, with one holding down the practitioner's shoulders to immobilize him, the second pushing on the practitioner's head or grabbing his hair to bend his head back, and the third pouring the solution into the practitioner's mouth and holding his nose so that he is unable to breathe. The duration of the procedure depends on their mood at the time. They find this trick very handy. It does not take too much effort, nor does it cause extensive external injuries, and it is a miserable torture. They often keep some solutions of mustard oil in their cars so that when they drive to arrest practitioners, they can apply it whenever they need to. They use other methods, such as using a hypodermic needle to inject mustard oil into the practitioner's nose or mouth, pouring water into the mouth, punching the person's head, depriving him of sleep, and burning his face with a light bulb.
If these tactics do not work, they threaten to apply electricity to the iron chair. Being held motionless in the chair for a long time is itself already unbearable, let alone being shocked with electricity. One can see how evil the police in the National Security Team in Daqing City are.
If the police cannot get any real evidence, they fabricate it. They use the objects that they ransacked from the practitioner's home and make up stories about his offenses. They can keep the practitioners in jail or forced labor camps for as long as they want to. They do not need any factual evidence to arrest or sentence a practitioner.
Ms. Jiang Pai, a young practitioner from Daqing City, died after she was arrested and held by the police. She died before she was able to communicate with anyone, so we do not know the details of how she was treated, however the authorities kept a big, forged file describing her confession. Ms. Jiang was sent to jail three days after her arrest. Originally strong and healthy, she was very frail at the time of her death two months later.