(Minghui.org) Shandong Province Prison, located in the capital city of Jinan, has been used to jail and torture male Falun Gong practitioners in the province since the Chinese communist regime began its brutal suppression of Falun Gong, an ancient Chinese mind and body practice, in 1999. The 11th Ward in the prison was specially set up as a brainwashing center aimed to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith. It is under the direct supervision of Shandong Province 610 Office.

The 11th Ward has its own five-story building with a courtyard. The first floor is all solitary confinement rooms. The windows are covered with sealed shutters, thus there is no sunlight inside.

In order to force practitioners to renounce their faith, prison guards ordered the inmates to physically and mentally torture them, such as punching, kicking, slapping, shocking them with electric batons, restraining them in metal chairs, tying them with ropes, hanging, deprivation of sleep and long-time standing.

The prison guards and inmates openly claimed that if practitioners refused to give up their belief and were beaten to death, their death would not be a big deal.

Newly Admitted Practitioners Tortured with Appalling Methods

When practitioners arrived at the prison, they were first taken to the basement or a small room without surveillance cameras, where they were ordered to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. Anyone who refused to comply was subjected to the tortures detailed below.

“Plucking the Pipa”

This torture was dubbed “plucking the Pipa.” Pipa is a four-string plucked musical instrument. With this torture, the victim was tied to a chair, and two inmates used a finger-sized stick to violently rub against his ribs one by one. After one to two hours of torture, the victim’s skin became bruised and swollen, and it got worse the next day which caused him more pain. The area that was rubbed against would peel off after a few days.

“Plucking the Pipa”

Collarbone Picking

The inmates used a chopstick to pick the victim’s collarbone.

Collarbone Picking

Shocking with Electric Baton

The victim was tied to a wooden chair, and then two prison guards shocked him with electric batons from head to toe. They often specially targeted the root of the ear, the most sensitive place. After a while, the guards left and two to four inmates continued to frantically shock the victim, while verbally abusing him.

Shocking with Electric Baton

Twisting Fingers with Sticks

The inmates put the stick between the victim’s fingers. One inmate then grabbed the fingers to stop them from moving, and another one turned the stick with force. The torture hurt the fingers and left the victim in great pain. His fingers would swell immediately and the swelling would last for at least three months. It took up to six months for the fingers to heal, as the bone was usually injured as well.

Twisting Fingers with Sticks

Long-Time Sitting on a Small Stool

Under the direction of the prison guards, the inmates forced the victim to sit on a small plastic stool in a fixed position, with his hands on his knees, his back straight, and his heels together. At first, the sitting hour was about eight hours a day. But later it was extended to 9 p.m., until 12 a.m., and even 3 a.m.

The victim was deprived of a noon break, forced to have meals on his seat, and was limited drinking water to avoid going to the toilet. The flesh of his buttocks was torn and bleeding after a few days and the pain was excruciating.

In the meantime, the victim was forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong, or the inmates took turns bombarding him with slanderous propaganda defaming Falun Gong. The victim suffered tremendously physically and mentally.

Past Torture Cases in Prison

More than ten practitioners have been persecuted to death in prison since 2002, and many more became disabled due to the torture.

Mr. Lu Zhen Beaten to Death

Born on July 25, 1976, Mr. Lu Zhen, a resident of Mengyin County, Shandong, was sentenced to 11 years in December 2004 for his faith in Falun Gong.

In early June 2009, the then-prison warden Zhang Leiguang, instructor Li Wei, and prison guard Chen Yan instructed the inmates to persecute Mr. Lu. Inmates Xie Xiaogang, Li Dapeng, Cai Hejie, and others put him in the strict control room and tortured him with various means for over ten days. He was tortured to death on June 20, 2009, at the age of 33.

More death cases in the prison were reported in the article: In Shandong Province Prison, Inmates Threaten Falun Gong Practitioners With “Life Worse Than Death”

Calligrapher Liu Xitong Severely Tortured

Mr. Liu Xitong, 62, a renowned calligrapher from Qingdao City, Shandong, was sentenced to four years in May 2008 after his arrest in November 2007 and was subjected to appalling torture at the 11th Ward of Shandong Province Prison for more than eight months, from September 2008 to May 2009.

Mr. Liu was tied up for nearly 80 days and often deprived of sleep for over 10 days in a row. He was beaten so savagely that he passed out more than 50 times.

He had been tied up, pushed to the ground, and stomped on. The inmates had punched his face as if they were practicing boxing and his face was swollen so much that he could barely open his eyes. The inmates once stripped off his clothes and poured salt water on his wounds and then brushed over the wounds. They had stripped him naked in the winter and splashed him with cold water.

The inmates tortured Mr. Liu with a wide variety of methods, including poking his armpits with a shoe brush handle; slapping his head and face with the shoe sole; striking his bones and joints all over his body with a wooden stick; hanging him from a bed; hurting his eyes with strong and bright light; pricking his fingers and toes with needles; burning him with cigarette butts or lighters and brushing his private part with chili water.

They humiliated him publicly by putting a white paper hat on him, hanging slanderous signs from his neck, and pasting slips of paper on his face, reminiscent of the tactics used against “enemies” during the Cultural Revolution. They forced him to bow down, with his hands hanging in front of his body. They rolled up toilet paper to stick into his nostrils, pushing it down to his stomach.

More details of his ordeal can be read in the article, Accomplished Calligrapher Files Criminal Complaint Against Jiang Zemin for Torture.

Related article:

Shandong Province Prison Guard to Inmates: “Don’t Treat Falun Gong Practitioners as Human Beings”