(Clearwisdom Net) I am a Falun Gong practitioner from Beijing. I began to practice Falun Gong in 1997. After the persecution began, I was illegally detained by local police five times and then sent to forced labor camp. I was detained because I appealed for justice for Falun Gong, because I practice Falun Gong, and because I had been handing out materials clarifying the truth about the persecution. My physical and mental health was badly damaged during the illegal imprisonment, especially in the forced labor camp.
In early August 2000, several fellow practitioners and I were sent to the Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp Dispatch Center. The environment was very evil, with no human rights granted to us at all. Breakfast consisted of a cup of soup, a bun and a piece of pickle. Lunch was a cup of vegetable soup and two buns, and dinner was the same. We had to get up at 5:00am and then stand in line to use the toilet. More than 40 people had to finish using the toilet within half an hour. After that, it was time to exercise. The breakfast started at 8:00am, and then it was time to go to work packaging chopsticks. We had to work the entire day except lunch break. Sometimes we had to work until 8 or 9pm.
Falun Gong practitioners were treated very harshly here. They grouped two drug offender inmates with each practitioner to try to force us to give up our practice of Falun Gong. We were tortured, cursed, and physically abused if we rejected their demands. Because I refused to be "reformed," I was forced to squat with my arms around my head, and tortured by one of the head guards. My body was covered with bruises. The prison guards used electric batons to shock me on my arms and head until I could not lift them anymore. With their shoes taken off, some practitioners were shocked on their feet, head, legs and entire body. Some were forced to stand against a wall or squat. They were not allowed to go to sleep or take a bath. In the three months I was there, I was allowed to only take two short baths, slept 3-4 hours daily and was regularly forced to squat on the floor with my arms around my head for long periods of time.
In early November I was dispatched to Tuanhe's 5th division, and then the 3rd division. The prison guards here used even more cruel ways to persecute practitioners. Some practitioners became mentally abnormal due to the persecution. Practitioners' arms were tied to a ladder that connected the top bunk bed with the bottom bunk bed while being forced to sit on the floor. Then their heads were pushed down towards their toes beneath the bed. One of the practitioners stopped breathing for a few minutes after being pulled out from under the bed, and recovered slowly afterwards. Another practitioner's lower limbs became paralyzed and he lost control of his bowel movements and urination; he lost his ability to live independently. Some practitioners were forced to perform hard labor, and some of them were tortured and physically abused.
