(Clearwisdom.net) I read a book that described all sorts of execution methods used throughout the world's history, many of which are pretty horrifying. Among these inhumane executions, there were the Chinese silk-cloth (1) and crucifixion. Most victims of these brutal killings have been innocent religious believers. These execution methods and those people of faith who conquered their fear of death make me think of Falun Dafa practitioners today. Maybe their experiences are not as visibly horrifying as the scenes of early Christians being fed to lions, but the amount of their suffering is actually greater.

For example, there is a strait jacket torture, which has been used by the Xuchang City No.3 Men's Labor Camp in Henan Province, and in the Henan Provincial Shibalihe Women's Labor Camp since April 2003. It is usually used on steadfast Falun Dafa practitioners who refuse to give up their beliefs. The jacket itself is made of fine canvas. It is put on the victim from the front and tightened from behind the back. The sleeves are about 10 inches (925 cm) longer than the victim's arms, and they have straps. They force practitioners to wear this jacket, and then cross and tie their arms behind their backs. Then they pull their arms up over their shoulders toward the front of their chests, tie up the practitioners' legs and hang them up in the air from windows. At the same time, they gag practitioners' mouths with cloth, put earphones in their ears and continuously play messages that slander Falun Dafa. According to an eyewitness account, both arms of the victims are immediately injured. The tendons and bones of the shoulders, elbows, and wrists are torn and fractured. When the torture is prolonged, the spinal cord is fractured and the result is an extremely painful death.

Another example is from the Maojiashan Women's Labor Camp in Chongqing City, which has many stinkbugs, flees, lice, mosquitoes and flies. Falun Dafa practitioners are detained there for long periods, beaten constantly, handcuffed, and locked in solitary confinement. Hence, many practitioners' bodies are swollen and have rashes. The labor camp police torture practitioners and call it "treatment." Police instructed one inmate who had been a drug addict to "put medical ointment" on practitioners. Sometimes, police let six to seven prisoners deal with one practitioner. They would drag the practitioner to the playground, strip off the practitioner's clothes, then apply sulfur cream onto his body by the handful. The gloves they wore were covered with dirt and blood. They would not wash the gloves, and directly used them on other practitioners. They would hang practitioners who resisted by handcuffs after this torture ended. Practitioners' bodies would be covered with dirt and blood, and their scabies would get worse instead of better. This painful torture has become a daily routine there.

In labor camps nationwide, many illegally detained Falun Dafa practitioners went on hunger strike to protest the persecution. In order to raise the "reform rate," force-feeding has become guards' regular means to torture practitioners. In countless cases, several guards or prisoners, who are not medical professionals, viciously stuff down practitioners' noses or throats hard rubber tubes or plastic tubes, which are not regular medical instruments and are not lubricated. Then, through the tubes, they force-feed practitioners highly-concentrated salt solutions, in which the salt volume is greater than the volume of water. Sometimes they force-feed uncooked cornmeal plus water, chili powder soup, liquor and stomach stimulating drugs. In order to quickly make those practitioners weak from hunger strike give in, police and prisoners move the tubes in and out, or completely out, then push them in again repeatedly, as a torture method. Almost all practitioners who go through force-feeding bleed from their throats and noses, their stomachs are bloated and have strong burning sensations. Some practitioners were suffocated because the tube went into their trachea, and some vomited a large quantity of blood. We want to point out that this kind of force-feeding is done repeatedly: as long as the practitioners are still alive, they are force-fed. Many people stopped their hunger strike because they were unable to endure such cruel torture.

The tortures in ancient times were aimed at inflicting maximum pain for the longest time, ending at death. Usually this would take several days at most. Although we should perhaps not try to quantify pain, since all pain of innocent victims is unacceptably huge, I just want to make a point. Jiang and his followers' torture of Falun Dafa practitioners does not stop at death. This persecution aims at forcing practitioners to give up their faith. It is just like forcing a Buddhist to curse Shakyamuni, or forcing a Christian to swear at Jesus. This is not acceptable to a believer. Therefore, Jiang has instructed police and other authorities to brutally torture these Falun Dafa practitioners.

Jiang correlated the "reform" rate with police officers' bonuses, and assigned a "death allotment" to each region. Hence, these police use all their might to torture practitioners, not fearing responsibility, even if practitioners are tortured to death. Since the goal of the torture is not death, but "reform," the only goal of torture is to create intense, long-lasting suffering so as to force practitioners renounce their faith. This kind of pain in not limited to several days, but goes on day after day, month after month, year after year. This kind of pain is worse than death, and that is why people have said, "It makes living worse than dying." Some practitioners chose death rather than endure the pain any longer. This is absolutely wrong according to Falun Dafa's teachings, but it is the result of this evil persecution. Jiang and his followers use the state-controlled media to slander Falun Dafa; they torture them to death, and then they heartlessly condemn them as people who commit suicide.

There is another difference between the tortures of ancient times and what Falun Dafa practitioners have endured. In ancient times, those killings were conducted in public to scare the general population. There was no cover up, since it was done for the horrifying effect. But currently, freedom of belief and freedom of speech are common values in the world, and are even affirmed in the Chinese Constitution. All these crimes are conducted behind the scenes, and are not aimed to produce deaths to scare the public, but to "reform" practitioners by having them condemn their own faith on TV, and further brainwash the general public. That is why Jiang has not only created conditions for practitioners that are worse than death, but also covers his evil deeds up, and decorates a few labor camps to show the public. Following in Hitler's footsteps, he has invited overseas journalists to visit labor camps decorated for show to deceive the world's media. It is just these cover ups that make this evil even more vicious.

We must expose the lies of Jiang and his followers, and let the public see how cruel they are. We must unequivocally condemn Jiang's crimes. This is a necessary step in stopping the cruel torture. I hope the anti-torture exhibitions by Falun Dafa practitioners will continue all over the world, that they will continuously be perfected, and that they will harmonize with other forms of clarifying the truth and expose Jiang and his followers' evil deeds to the light of day.

(1) Silk-cloth: a victim is strangled to death with a silk cloth.