(Clearwisdom.net) The Shandong Province First Women's Labor Camp is located at 2 Xiangshuiquan Road in Jinan City, Shandong Province. All the practitioners detained here were first forced to go through a medical examination at the Police Hospital. Then each practitioner had to have a blood test, but the test results were unavailable to us practitioners.
All the newcomers were handcuffed and gagged with duct tape and taken to a special team designed just for practitioners. The guards assigned two inmate "helpers," former practitioners, to monitor the newcomer practitioners. As these helpers talked to practitioners, the guards tried to determine which helpers the practitioners wanted to talk with. Their goal was to find ways to get practitioners to give up their belief. At the beginning of each practitioner's term, the guards repeatedly called her family, telling them to come visit her. The guards often threatened the families, telling them to persuade the practitioner to give up her belief by using the threat of divorce or ending family relationships.
When we went on a hunger strike to protest the mistreatment, the guards held us down and force-fed us by inserting a tube into our nostrils. Many of us bled profusely. The guards were afraid we would reveal this brutal treatment to our visiting families, so they later completely banned all visits.
The guards have developed a host of tactics and methods of torture to persecute detained practitioners. Below are some major ones.
Putting Practitioners in Small Cells and Brainwashing Them
Many practitioners were held in a small cell alone since the first day they arrived--for three months in a row or even longer. One practitioner was held alone for three months. Because she had no chance to talk to anyone, she lost the ability to speak normally when she was finally let out of the small cell.
While in the small cell, we were forbidden to see anyone except the guards and the helpers. The door was always closed, and we had to eat, drink, relieve ourselves, and sleep all in the small cell. We had no dignity, and the guards physically abused us at will. Sun Qunli was a guard who often beat and cursed practitioners. The verbal abuse was extreme, aiming to have us feel we were the most incapable, stupid, and disgusting person in the whole world. The guards also tried to instill the idea that only they were the dearest people in our lives. Guard Sun Jun said, "Why are you afraid of being "reformed?" In our team, the reform rate is 100 percent. I'd say it's just a matter of time before you give up your belief."
The guards played videos slandering Falun Gong and Master all day long, from 6:00 a.m. till midnight, sometimes for over a month. They wrote Master's name on the floor and benches and then forced us to step on them. They also marked our shoes, arms, and legs with Master's name.
We refused to acknowledge we were detainees, so we were then denied restroom privileges and not allowed to sleep or wash ourselves. We had to urinate into our teacup. We also refused to have our hair cut or put on detainees' uniforms, so seven to eight guards held us down one at a time to cut our hair and strip off our clothes. All the items that our families sent us were taken away. Only the clothes were left to us.
Forcing Practitioners to Squat for Long Periods of Time
We had to squat for over 10 hours at a time or even longer. Two helpers watched each practitioner, making sure we did not move. Their plot was to wait for our vulnerable moments to force us to write statements to denounce our belief. If we urgently needed to use the restroom, we would be told to write the statements first. When we refused to comply they all swarmed over us, put a pen in our hands, and had us write. Then they forced our fingerprints on the statements, saying, "Now that you have written such statements, your Master no longer wants you." We certainly did not acknowledge such "reform," but that was exactly how they achieved their 100 percent "reform" rate.
After such torture, we usually could not walk for over a week.
Forcing Practitioners to Sit on Plastic Benches
The plastic benches used in this torture were only about 12 cm tall, with many holes on them. We were ordered to sit on these benches with our backs upright, hands on our laps, and eyes forward. We were not allowed to talk to each other or to stand up and walk around. Every day from four o'clock in the morning to midnight we had to sit there, motionless. Sometimes we were forced to endure such torture for several months in a row. Two helpers were assigned to keep an eye on each of us. If they thought our seated posture was not good enough, they would kick us. In the summertime, the benches were very damp. Our flesh got stuck in the holes on the benches and soon festered. It was very common for us to have a couple of pot marks on our bottoms. When we went to use the restroom, we had to be careful when taking off our pants because the rotten flesh, pus, and blood all stuck to the pants.
Denying Practitioners Washing Privileges
This was a despicable tactic. The guards often intensified the torment by using this method on us on very cold or hot days. In the hottest days in the summer we were forbidden to change our clothes or wash ourselves. The guards ordered the helpers to wrap the only faucet in the restroom with plastic bags. We were even prevented from seeing to our personal hygiene during our menses. We all had heat rash.
Depriving Practitioners of Sleep
Sometimes we were forbidden to sleep for five days in a row, or even longer. We could not even blink our eyes or we would invite beatings from the helpers. In order to keep us awake, these helpers poured cold water on us. They also stabbed us with their ink pens. Many of us had bruises everywhere.
In addition to the physical sufferings, such long-time sleep deprivation resulted in mental problems for some of us. Yet the guards blamed Falun Gong for this outcome.
Subjecting Practitioners to Forced Labor
Every day we got up at 5:00 a.m. and labored until 11:00 or 12:00 at night. Each meal took no more than 30 minutes, and the rest of the time we were all working. Later on, the Minghui website (Chinese version of Clearwisdom) exposed this abuse at the labor camp, and the camp's supervising agency gave orders that we be let off work at 8:00 p.m. Actually, we were still made to work well beyond that time. The guards' trick was to have us work in our cells after 8:00 p.m. We couldn't go to sleep until 11 or 12, sometimes even 1 o'clock in the morning. Later on the supervising agency became more rigorous in its camp inspections, and the guards were forced to let us sleep at 10 p.m.
The workshop was a dangerous place. The fuzz from the plush toys was everywhere. Even though we wore surgical masks, our mouths, nostrils, and bodies were still full of the fuzz. Many of us developed a cough and skin diseases. In addition, the mask given to us was never replaced. So, no matter how long our term was, we had to wear the same mask over and over again.
Every day we had four restroom breaks: at 5 and 9 in the morning, 3 and 8 in the afternoon.
Everyone was given three jobs to finish each day. However, when we were done with our assignments, the guards increased our workload to five jobs. When we were able to do five jobs every day, the guards dumped more work on us. The workload kept increasing until we reached the limit of our capacity and were totally exhausted. At the end of every day we were all tired beyond words, yet we still had to sit upright and attend meetings meant to brainwash us.
We were given two washing breaks every day, one in the morning and the other at night. Every team (consisting of at least 12 people) got a total of only five minutes. No matter what we did, be it washing our face, brushing our teeth or washing our clothes, we had to be out in five minutes as a team. If we failed to finish our things on time, we were scolded at different meetings. According to the actual camp rules, every team is to be given 10 minutes every week for thorough personal hygiene and cleaning the cells. However, we often didn't get such breaks in several months. Oddly enough, whenever the supervising agency sent people to inspect the labor camp, they would for sure see newly painted walls, well-maintained machines, newly replaced linens, and spotless rooms.
There was a surveillance camera in every corner, hall, workshop, and detention cell. The guards could see clearly what was going on anywhere inside the labor camp.
In one strictly monitored team headed by Yang Xiaolin, there were 12 detainees, three of whom were practitioners and the rest criminals charged with prostitution, drug dealing, and battery. The three practitioners were made to wear blue badges while non-practitioner detainees wore yellow badges. The practitioners were forbidden to talk to anyone and were under round-the-clock watch by the guards and non-practitioner detainees. The guards often incited those non-practitioner detainees to verbally and physically abuse practitioners, promising to reduce the terms of those that cooperated with the guards.
The guards often softened their attitudes toward practitioners whose terms were about to expire, because they feared the released practitioners would expose their crimes. They would reiterate that all the torture the practitioners suffered was initiated by the helpers and that all they did was shower practitioners with tender care and love.
Camp head Hao Taofang
Deputy heads Hao Xiuyun, Liu Yulan, Wang Qinghe, Yang Ping ,and Niu Xuelian
Phone number of the labor camp: 86-531-88931747
Political committee members Yang Qing, Diao Chunfeng, Pan Zhisheng
Discipline committee head Lu Weidong