September 25, 2003
(clearwisdom.net September 26, 2003 news)
Minxi Prison is located in a suburban area of Longyan City, Fujian Province. This prison incarcerates about 60 to 70 male Falun Gong practitioners from Fujian Province. All of these Dafa practitioners are innocent but were illegally sentenced for distributing Dafa truth-clarifying information to people, going to Beijing to peacefully appeal, or openly practicing the exercises in a park.
These practitioners were separately imprisoned with other prisoners in 30 teams of 10 divisions. They were forced to do hard labor every day, wear prison uniforms, be shaved bald and wear inmates' identification badges. Moreover, they were not allowed to study the Fa or practice the Falun Dafa exercises. If Dafa practitioners did not obey these demands they were brutally tortured by being hung up, beaten, verbally and physically abused or locked in a cell to be strictly monitored.
For example, at the end of 2002, political instructor Deng Yingchun for the No.2 Team, and Xu Shangxian, a guard who did not follow the law, instructed the common prisoners to hang up Dafa practitioner Jiang Sheng for six days and seven nights just because he practiced the Dafa exercises in his cell at night. They used handcuffs and thumbcuffs to tie Jiang Sheng onto the metal bars of the window. Jiang Sheng's toes were barely touching the floor. He was taken down only for feeding or going to the toilet. Jiang Sheng's feet were swollen so much that he could not put on his shoes. Deng, the political instructor, still claimed, "If you dare to practice again, I will torture you to death. After that, I will find some prisoners to say that you died from practicing these exercises!"
At the end of March 2003, Zhang Yongsheng, a vicious prison guard, used a wooden stick to brutally beat Mr. Xu Guotai from Team Four in Division One. Xu was beaten so severely he had cuts and bruises and had to remain in bed for four days because he was unable to get up.
Among all of the persecution methods, the most inhumane one was known as, "all day, all directions, and fully enclosed," which was a program to deliver severe physical punishment and brutal beatings to practitioners. Another component of this strategy included brainwashing until practitioners' spirits were totally destroyed and they were coerced under pressure to write the guarantee statement*, "other materials proving they had renounced their belief, and to "acknowledge guilt."
The coerced statements fell under the heading of the "Three Complete Transformation Methods" and they had already been applied four times in Minxi Prison, each time lasting for five days. During these five days, all practitioners were gathered in the third building near the main entrance of the new prison area. Each practitioner was locked up individually. Several young and strong prison guards who were led by either the team's political instructors or the division political instructors, took turns torturing these practitioners in each unit.
The first two rounds of "Three Complete Transformations" were directed by the prison's assistant chief named Hong Jianjun. The exact dates for these periods were March 17, 2001 to March 21, and June 15, 2001 to June 19. Prison guards took turns talking at practitioners 24 hours straight. They forced practitioners to stand for extended periods and didn't allow them to sleep for several days. Furthermore, they even hung up practitioners by their handcuffs in order to force them to write the "guarantee statements." However, the vicious prison guards failed to achieve their goals. So, from June to August 2002, under the command of Luo Yingjie, assistant prison chief, the prison guards carried out the third and fourth rounds of the "Three Complete Transformation."
The fourth time was the cruelest. In order to complete the assigned tasks given to them by the higher authorities and to achieve promotion and get extra money, the prison guards disregarded any twinges of concsience. According to those prison guards who were involved in this particular part of the persecution, whoever would "transform" one practitioner would get a 500 Yuan bonus. At first, the prison guards said nothing but simply put the pen and paper in front of the practitioners. Then they used one or two handcuffs to hang the practitioners on the window's metal bars, with feet dangling off the floor. The practitioners were hung up like this until the prison guards got what they wanted. Even when some practitioners fainted, they were not let down. Instead, they had to endure beatings from the prison guards. One prison guard said, "You cannot leave this place if you don't write these statements!"
The chief instigator Luo Yingjie said to all of the Falun Gong practitioners in the brainwashing class one week before the fourth "Three Complete Transformation," "I am not afraid if you do not "transform." We have other methods to force you to transform." This method, he said, was the "Three Complete Transform." Luo Yingjie also mentioned that this method was taught by people from the higher authority department, the Fujian Province's Jail Administrative Bureau. It was the "task assigned by the higher authority."
Using torture and violence, the law enforcement personnel forced Falun Gong practitioners to give up their belief. This behaviour is openly violating human rights and trampling the law. The prison guards still deceived themselves by saying that they were only doing their job and following orders from higher authorities because they had to support their families, and other reasons. Obviously, they are also victims in this brutal persecution. Under Jiang's despotic power, in order to keep their jobs, they threw away their conscience.
