(Minghui.org) When she read a recent Minghui.org report, “Xinxiang Women’s Prison in Henan Province: Three-Stage Brainwashing Process Targets Falun Gong Practitioners,” a practitioner who was once imprisoned there wrote about what she witnessed.
The prison forced steadfast practitioners to take psychotropic drugs. I witnessed several practitioners who were labeled “mentally ill” being drugged and afterwards they were confused and dazed. They also drooled a lot. If a practitioner became more “obedient” afterwards, the prison may lower the dose upon her request. If she was deemed “disobedient” again, she’d be forced to take high-dose drugs again.
Before I was sent there, I heard how Falun Gong practitioners were abused in that prison. But still I was shocked when I saw these things happening right before my eyes. I couldn’t believe that the guards would so blatantly drug practitioners in front of the inmates.
The guards planted informants in each cell. These informants monitored the practitioners closely and occasionally wrote reports detailing what each practitioner did and said. Communication between practitioners and lack of “thorough transformation” were deemed “offenses” and reported to the guards. The guards then subjected these practitioners to intensified brainwashing.
In recent years, all jailed practitioners were sent to Division 9. The other divisions typically kept the same inmates in the same cells throughout their prison terms, but Division 9 moved people around frequently, on purpose. The goal was to prevent practitioners from influencing each other or non-practitioners.
For those who refused to renounce Falun Gong despite the prison’s tactics, they were moved out of Division 9. Younger practitioners were usually sent to the main team to do hard labor while the older ones were transferred to the team for the elderly and the infirm (also known as the mentally ill team as it had a lot of inmates who indeed had mental illnesses). The main team was the main source of income for the prison. Inmates held there were forced to get up early and work until late at night. Ms. Sun Haihong, around 40, from Nanyang City, Henan Province, refused to do hard labor and was repeatedly held in solitary confinement.
The guards were very skilled at making practitioners feel that they were in imminent danger if they refused to renounce Falun Gong. As such, they were under great stress. That, coupled with physical punishment, led to some practitioners’ mental collapse and eventual submission to the guards to give up their belief.