(Minghui.org) Even the most vivid imagination could not conjure up such a dreadful place in this world; however, my own experience proves such a den of evil does exist in China. I am referring to the Gongzhuling City Prison in Jinlin Province, from where I was recently released. Unmatched brutality is exerted upon Falun Gong practitioners held in this prison. It culminated in October, 2011, when the prison appointed its new warden Niu Guoshen, who spared no effort to invent new torture methods to make the mistreatment of his victims even more sinister, bloodier and terrifying.
Practitioners Sent to Prison Teams and Tortured
In February 2012 the prison set up a so called “Strict Discipline Team” to intensify the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. All prisoners charged with violating prison rules and discipline were sent to the team and tortured in a room of about 500 square feet, which is located on the second floor in the main hall of the new prison section. This five-story building can hold more than 1,500 prisoners. Prisoners can be charged with violating the prison rules by doing any of the following: staying too long by the window, sewing, quarreling with each other, wearing clothes with colored lines, or arguing with the prison guard, which is called offending the authority of the government. Any prisoners who fail to watch their own behavior can be sent to the Strict Discipline Team to be cruelly tortured.
The room of the Strict Discipline Team has a window that is fortified with white steel pipes outside and an iron wire net inside. The floor is covered with many tiles about two meters wide, and under the tiles are the wooden floorboards. Some parts of the floorboard are removable.
Beneath the removable part, there are iron rings stuck to the floor. Two people can be cuffed to the rings side by side. Practitioners who refuse to give up practicing Falun Gong and other prisoners who have violated the prison rules are cuffed to the rings. They can be cuffed for many days, with the minimum being one week. In such confinement the best thing the victim can expect is that some other inmates might clean up their excrement for them, but most of them have to excrete in their pants. During the confinement some inmates are assigned to feed the victim with corn porridge to prevent them from starving.
Unimaginable Suffering
A Falun Gong practitioner, Mr. Fu Hongwei, in his 40s, was cuffed that way for nine days. The room was humid, cold and dark, and there was no heat supplied even in the winter. At the corner of the spacious and empty room, two people were cuffed under the floor, moaning helplessly. The victims were entirely unseen by people from outside the building, and the removable floorboards and rings underneath were completely hidden to inspectors sent by higher authorities.
The prison guards devote themselves to inventing torture methods to make their victims suffer more, many of which are hard to imagine by the average mind. Among those torture methods, the most widely used were forcing practitioners to sit still on a small stool and shocking them with electric batons. In most cases they would shock their victims simultaneously in groups of five. In the so called “Group of Assaulting the Steadfast”, the prison guards forced their victims to sit straight on a cage made of iron rails about 15cm distance from each other. Their purpose was to inflict pain by forcing them sit on the cage for long periods of time without moving. The least movement would incur electric shocks and cruel kicks and punches. The electric batons are more than 50cm long, with a diameter of more than 3cm.
A torture called Squeezing and Binding is widely used on the prisoners. The instrument is a black nylon band about 3cm wide with some holes every 5cm. The prison guards use it to bind the victims' arms and bodies at their waist, and tighten it to the maximum extent at their back. The victims can be thus squeezed for many days. In September 2012 a Falun Gong practitioner, Mr. Yang Chunman, in his 60s, was tortured this way for over one month. As a result, his arms were disabled, as he could not even hold chopsticks several months after he was released from the torture.
No Respect for the Law
The prison has a building named Yuxin School (Training Center Through Re-education). The office of the Re-education Section of the prison is located in the building. In May 2012, directed by Niu Guosheng, Li Zhuang and Liu Xiangwu, the re-education section organized the “Group of Assaulting the Steadfast” on the second floor of the Yuxin Building. The group had 20 staff members under their command, many of whom were involved in abusing Falun Gong practitioners. Since May 6, 2012, the group has held 16 practitioners: to name a few, Mr. Bai Jingzhi, Mr. Zhang Beiqi, Mr. Fu Hongwei, Mr. Yang Chunman and Mr. Rong Encheng. The prison guards respect no laws in making their victims suffer. Often they audaciously claimed, “You call us villainous hooligans. You are right! We are hooligans! So what?”
The chief of the Strict Discipline Team is under the command of Li Guohui, Wang Jidong, the director and Xu Hai, a prison guard. Among them Xu Hai is the most violent when beating prisoners. One prisoner, Li Zhiqiang, became blind in one eye when Xu punched him with much force. He is now held alone in a confinement cell in the prison hospital without his eye being treated. Another prisoner, Hu Chunkai, had the tendon in his wrist damaged when his hands were tightly cuffed in April 2012, and went without treatment.
Three Falun Gong practitioners, Mr. Fu Hongwei, Mr. Yang Chunman and another whose name is unknown were tortured with the aforementioned rings on the ground for nine days in September 2012 because of their resistance to the persecution in late July and early August 2012. Practitioner Mr. Zheng Lijun was held in the Strict Discipline Team for more than six months, where he was tortured in many different ways, including solitary confinement in a small cell. Another practitioner, Mr. Zhang Yinshen was mistreated there for over two months.
Brutal Forced Labor
All prisoners are forced to work without any payment. The 1st prison section makes toy cars that are exported abroad. The 2nd the 3rd, and 5th and 6th make clothes. The 4th section, where more than 300 prisoners are held, makes gloves for export. The environment in the workshop is suffocating, the air contaminated with dust. Some prisoners suffered from allergies as they had red spots on their skin, some felt ill in their chest, but none of them were allowed to take any breaks without a diagnosis of the prison hospital.
Anyone who could not finish their assigned workload was sent to the Strict Discipline Team and mistreated. Under such intensive pressure they had no other choice but to grit their teeth and carry on, because the mistreatment in the Strict Discipline Team was so horrifying that no one would take the risk of being sent there. The 7th section also makes toy cars. All workshops kept running without any break, even on Sundays. The prison stipulates the eight-hour work day, but it is never enforced.
As horrifying as it is, what I saw, heard and experienced in the Gongzhuling City Prison constitutes only a small part of what practitioners endure. More horrifying and inhumane atrocities have yet to be exposed. We call on all people of good will to see through the CCP's demonic nature and cut their connection to it so as to avoid the destiny of being purged along with it from the universe.
