Many Falun Gong practitioners were tortured in Nanshan Detention Center, Shenzhen (city), Guangdong (province). It is hard to described the cruel and obscene methods they used to make Falun Gong practitioners suffer. The crimes that happened in this black den will be revealed to the world. Let's see how a young healthy female teacher with an optimistic lively nature was tortured until insane.
Wang Xiaodong was a female teacher of Nanshan District Foreign Language School, Shenzhen, Guangdong. She had been dismissed from public employment because she appealed in Beijing. She was sent into Nanshan Detention Center on April 29, 2000, and transferred to Sanshui Women's Detention Center after being sentenced to two years of labor education on July 13, 2000. However, in the middle of August, an expert group of legal doctors from Foshan diagnosed her as having a prison type mental disorder with the symptom of losing behavior ability. It was less than 100 days after she entered the detention center that she was diagnosed as having a mental disorder. How did it happen?
Since being imprisoned, in order to protest her illegal detention, Wang Xiaodong refused to wear prison clothes and went on many hunger strikes, which resulted in persecution by the prison. She wrote letters to the higher authorities and the people's procuratorate to report the persecution against her and the torture of other Falun Gong practitioners. However, the director of the Nanshan Detention Center, Wang Churong, did not submit it to higher authorities, but instead showed the letter to a guard, Li Yanzhi. As a result, they began their retaliation. They transferred Wang Xiaodong from cell No. 6 to cell No. 1, which was famous for tormenting inmates.
Wang Xiaodong went on a hunger strike in the new cell; all inmates were punished by not being given food for a whole day. This aroused the hostility and anger of inmates towards Wang Xiaodong. After that incident, the inmates beat and insulted Wang Xiaodong whenever they were not satisfied with her. Everyday she was punished with various methods. The prison director Wang Churong and guard Li Yanzhi thought Wang Xiaodong did not listen to them and should be punished. They held a meeting of "four-people group" several times to discuss how to treat Wang Xiaodong. They put on her a 35-kilogram fetter that was almost the same as Wang's body weight. They assigned two inmates to monitor her 24 hours a day and record what Wang said and did. The two inmates imposed upon Wang words she did not say. They said those methods could prevent Falun Gong practitioners from suicide, but in fact they were pushing Wang into a dead end.
According to the document promulgated by the Ministry of Public Security, "Notice about Using Instruments in Detention Centers," female prisoners should not be fettered. If it is necessary, the fetter should be less than 5 kilograms; female prisoners, except on death row, should not be fettered for more than 15 days. Indefinite long term fettering with overweight fetters was to punish this Falun Gong practitioner and force her to give in. Wang Xaiodong became thin as a lath. She was too weak to stand, and could not walk at all. Two inmates dragged her back and forth every day. The rings surrounding her ankles had dug deeply into her muscles, which caused her ankles to fester and bleed. It was extremely painful when the iron ring touched her naked bone. But director Wang Churong still did not take the fetter off; her ankles festered more severely. A few months after Wang Xiaodong was transferred to Sanshui Detention Center, her legs and feet remained swollen for several months. Policemen in Sanshui Detention Center had never seen nor heard of a person being fettered to such a degree.
Because Wang Xiaodong could not walk, two inmates dragged her to the bathroom, and left her lying on the floor. Wang Xiaodong could not move and had to sleep in the bathroom during the night. When an inmate went to the bathroom, she dragged her out. After finishing using the bathroom, the inmate dragged her back into the bathroom. Day after day, anyone who showed sympathy to her would be punished harshly. One inmate that just said one sympathetic word was forbidden to purchase anything for three weeks, as a punishment from guard Li.
More miserably, one afternoon, under the instigation of Li, one inmate who was one of the four members of the leader's group in the prison and in charge of arranging chores, pierced Wang Xiaodong's insteps and lower legs with a needle used for handiwork. Wang Xiaodong's feet and legs were full of perforations and there was blood all over. Wang bore the pain and dared not to shout, since the inmates beat her face with slippers whenever she shouted. It was no use for her to shout. The torture lasted for almost one hour and was witnessed by many inmates.
That night, the persecution became more severe. Around 1:00am, the two inmates who were monitoring Wang Xiaodong wanted to sleep. They made a string with thin threads and tied Wang's hands tightly together, and forced her hands to be pressed under her body. With 80-pound fetters and hands fastened behind her, she could neither turn her body nor sit up. Her body was numb and swollen. The inmates beat her if she made any sounds. It was really horrible, even worse than death. The torture lasted for six and a half hours until the next morning when a policeman was patrolling the cells. Inmates unfastened her, and Wang Xiaodong reported loudly to the policeman about the torture she had received. The policeman just left without a reply. Two hours later, another policeman came to patrol cells. With the string in her hands, Wang reported to this policeman the torture, but the police ignored her as well. The inmates laughed violently, grabbed the strings from her hands and threatened her saying, "Do you dare to report again? We do not fear if you report to the director. Wait and see how we torture you tonight!" Wang was in deep fear. Later, an old doctor in the detention center went patrolling the prison. Wang reported again to the old doctor about the process of being pierced and tied up last night. She requested the doctor to tell the director. The doctor shook his head sympathetically and went away. Never-ending shackles, day-by-day torture, the instigation of prison keepers, policeman's indulgence, and recently more horrible threats took away all her hope. Around 1:00pm, Wang Xiaodong tried to commit suicide by ramming her head against the wall, still with the fetters on her feet.
Wang Xiaodong told the vice director on duty about the process of being tortured and the attempt to commit suicide. The vice director said, "Is there such a thing? I will investigate it and deal with it seriously." However, what he meant by "dealing with it seriously" was to whip each inmate in Cell 1 three times, and forbid them to mention this issue again.
Long-term brutal persecution forced Wang to collapse. The prison not only did not provide any mental examination or treatment, but also failed to provide treatment to her swollen feet. Her family asked to visit her many times but was refused. On July 13, when she was sent to Sanshui Labor Camp, Wang Xiaodong was extremely thin, bruises were all over her body, she had atrophy of the muscles, her feet and legs were swollen severely, she had a dull look in her eyes, no language ability, and no response ability. Even when she had been tortured so brutally, the director of Political Security Section from Nanshan District Police Station, Zeng, and the director from Nanshan Detention Center, Wang Churong, drove in person to Sanshui Woman Detention Center to conceal their crimes and planned further persecution. It was not until over a month later did Wang's family find her whereabouts.
In just over two months, a healthy person could be persecuted to such a miserable state. Those vile people who persecuted Wang Xiaodong bragged " What is the result of not giving up practicing? ---Cultivation insanity. Wang Xiaodong is the model." The deceivers' lies are simply shameless. In the prison, they did not allow Wang Xiaodong to do exercises or read Falun Gong books. How could she have cultivation insanity without even practicing? Why would they make such lies? Obviously, it can only be to conceal their bloody persecution and crimes.
A Practitioner from Mainland China
November 2000