I am a Falun Dafa practitioner. Just because of speaking out to say "Falun Dafa is good," I was sent to the Shuanghe Labor Camp in Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province. I have heard and seen so many brutal and inhuman tortures in the labor camp that I would like to tell the world.

When Falun Dafa practitioners first come to the labor camp, they are all sent to the small cells and isolated from others for so-called self-examination. The criminal prisoners are in charge of watching them. According to the criminal prisoners, if the practitioners practice exercises, then the prisoners watching them would be punished with extending their prison term; if the practitioners could be persuaded to write a statement to guarantee not to practice exercises, they would be awarded with decreasing their prisoner term; if the practitioners could be persuaded to write a statement to break from Falun Dafa, they would be awarded more.

Here is the case of practitioner Wang Hongzhou (female), 52 years old. In order to force her to write the "guarantee" statement, the criminal prisoners in the small cell beat her and cursed her everyday. She was forced to recite the 65 prison rules. She would be punished by being forced to stand for several hours if she had one word wrong, while the prisoners shouted filthy abuses. Because she kept practicing the exercises, she suffered electrical shocks from the jail police. She had been handcuffed to the pole of the bed with both hands behind her back for over ten hours whenever she practiced exercises. Her head was lowered almost to the ground, and she lost feeling in her arm. Her mouth was sealed with tape. The sounds from policemen slapping her face could be heard several cells away.

Practitioner Meng Fan'guang was handcuffed to the ground pole for three days and three nights in a small dark room because she refused to write the "guarantee" statement. Practitioner Dong Xiuqin, a lady over 60-years-old, was forced to stand until 10 PM because of refusing to write a "guarantee" statement.

In the labor camp, the prison term can be extended for any reason such as going on a hunger strike, practicing exercises or reciting Dafa materials. Such things happen everyday and at any hour and cannot all be written down. Whoever treats Falun Dafa practitioners more ferociously will be rewarded with a decreased prison term. Now more Falun Gong practitioners are sent to this labor camp. Some of them never even appealed to the authorities for Falun Dafa. They are put into "re-education through labor" just because they admit practicing Falun Dafa. Once they arrive there, they are required to write "guarantee" statements. If they refuse, they will be punished by standing in the corner or get handcuffed. The jail police told the practitioners that if they didn't write the statement, they would not be released even after they have served their terms. Now some of the practitioners have been detained after their prison terms have expired because they refuse to write the statement to break away from Falun Dafa.

There is no freedom to speak in the labor camp. If a practitioner speaks, he will be cursed immediately. The practitioners will be charged for "instigation" and their prison term increased by three months if they are not careful in speaking. The prison term will be extended up to three months whenever a practitioner is found to practice exercises. If a practitioner refuses to write the statement to break away from Falun Dafa, her term will be extended 15 days more for every quarter of the year. There are many illegal rules in the labor camp to extend the prison term. The head of the police said, "We can make you stay here for three months more by simply filling in a piece of paper. We won't lose anything. The leftover dishwater from washing cooking pots will be enough to feed you." If a practitioner practices exercise, he will be immediately sent to the small cells without a definite time range, suffering handcuffing, physical and mental abuses. Many practitioners have been continuously handcuffed even until now. They have been suffering many inhuman tortures.

Here are some more cases.

Fu Hui: she has been handcuffed 41 days and is still handcuffed today. She is fed only one piece of steamed sponge cake for every meal, which is not enough at all.

Xu Jiayu: she has been knocked out and lost consciousness because of practicing exercises.

Li Ping: because of practicing exercises, she has been knocked down to the ground, kicked in the head and arms and she was handcuffed a whole night.

Jin Chunxian (female), 50 years old:

She was beaten several times by the criminal prisoners because of practicing the exercises. One time, she was practicing the exercises in the yard; several criminal prisoners jumped on her like vicious tigers. Her four limbs were stretched apart and her stomach skin was scratched. The sounds from beating and cursing her were heard far away. After she came back from outside, she started to do the sitting meditation in the cell. She suffered brutal beatings and cursing again. Then she was sent to the small cell. She was forced to squat while her mouth was sealed with gauzes and both hands were handcuffed behind her back. She was forced to keep such a position, neither standing nor sitting, for a whole day and a whole night while her mouth was sealed for over 8 or 9 hours. When the handcuffs were finally taken off the next day, her two hands had swollen so much that they lost feeling. It took three months for her hands to recover. Even now she sometimes still feels numbness in her hands. One day in May 2000, because of practicing the exercises, she was held down to the bed and brutally beaten by the policemen and criminal prisoners again. With both hands tied with rope and over her head, she was left hanging on the bed. Because she was reciting "Lunyu" [Foreword of Zhuan Falun] while hanging, her mouth was then sealed with gauze. The policemen kept shocking different places on her body with the electric baton. Because she started to go on a hunger strike, she was brutally kicked and beaten, and hung again for a whole day and whole night. She was force-fed brutally causing her nose to bleed due to forced insertion of the tube. While she was on the hunger strike, she still had to work on the farm, planting potatoes, fertilizing the land and doing other heavy farm work.

Kong Xiangli (female), 35 years old

Because of practicing exercises, she had been handcuffed for 18 days and 17 nights, and for three days and three nights within these days, she was not allowed to sleep. In that time period, the criminal prisoners were told to watch her. She was beaten and cursed whenever they wanted. To protest the illegal handcuffing, she started a hunger strike. She was force-fed with corn congee every two or three days. When she was force-fed, the director of the jail and policemen beat her. Hong, the head of jail, said, "You are nothing. I have seen so many headstrong Falun Gong practitioners. We have a lot of ways to deal with you. If you died, we would just fill out a form to report to the upper branch and we would not be responsible for your death at all."

Wang Guofang (female): she had been handcuffed to a pole in the ground with both hands behind her back because of practicing exercises.

Several practitioners have been stripped, left only wearing underwear and brassieres, and handcuffed to the bed with both hand behind them for several nights. The prison officials want practitioners to suffer bites from mosquitoes at night. There are many mosquitoes in that area.

Yao Yuming (female):

Because she practiced exercises on the third day after she came to the labor camp, she was drug by the hair on the ground by the prisoners. They kept dragging and beating her and then handcuffed her to the door. The head of the jail, the director and the jail guards came to check her. They said the handcuffs were too loose and re-handcuffed them more tightly; her hands kept bleeding because of the handcuffs. Later she was brought to the guardroom. She suffered beating, kicking and electric shocks while she was handcuffed to the radiator. After she was released and sent back to a small cell, the prisoners handcuffed her to the bed again with her two arms against the bed for two days and two nights in order to force her to write the "guarantee" statement.

On the morning of Mid Autumn Holiday (the fifteenth day of August in lunar calendar, in September 2000), all of 74 Falun Dafa practitioners collectively did group exercises together. Later some of the key members were isolated from others. On the morning of the eighteenth day of September in lunar calendar [in October 2000], the practitioners in different cells started practicing exercises at the same time again and recited "Lunyu." Some of practitioners were dragged out and tortured. Hong, the head of the jail who was in charge of the Falun Gong issue, agreed to talk with the practitioners. Around 3 PM the next day, the practitioners told the head of the jail about a series of events involving tortures to the practitioners. However his answer was, as long as the practitioners kept practicing Falun Gong, it was all right to punish the practitioners in such ways.

Force-feeding became more ferocious. So-called "guarding team" (the name of "the team of hatchet men" is more accurate) was formed to do force-feeding. They first tie up the practitioners on a hunger strike, then pull the hair of the practitioners, forcibly open their mouth with a steel spoon or a screw driver, insert the upper half of a mineral water bottle with the bottom cut open into the mouth, and dump the corn congee into the bottle. Some practitioners had their teeth broken, mouths injured and swollen tongues . Their bodies were covered with dark bruises. In the evening of September 19, 2000, four jail policemen and criminal prisoner Li Xiaoyang force-fed Dafa practitioner Yang Yin. They had tried in the morning and did not succeed. They dislodged her teeth with the screw driver. Her three teeth were loose and there were many cuts inside her mouth. Her mouth bled the whole night. Now her upper teeth and lower teeth cannot close, and she can't pronounce words clearly. She is disabled. The policemen said, "It is the decision from the Central Committee of the Party. There is no use to appeal to anywhere." This is so-called "humanity" in their words.

Under such unfair treatment, we would rather be persecuted to death than to break away from Falun Dafa. If we died, it is definitely not because of committing suicide or caused by the Falun Dafa practice, which they would claim. I truly believe that evil cannot last long when encountering the justice and I hope that kind people of the world will give us support and help.

Dafa Practitioner in China

February 28, 2001