Ms. Cui Yaning Arrested Again Following Two Stays in a Forced Labour Camp

Ms. Cui Yaning, a Falun Gong practitioner from Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, had already been arrested and in a forced labour camp twice before. In the forced labour camp she was subjected to torture at the hands of the guards during her five years' incarceration. On February 25th, 2008, she was arrested for the third time. Jinzhou City police officers were responsible for the arrest, although Guta District police issued the arrest order. Ms. Cui is now being held in the city No. 1 Detention Centre. She will be sentenced.

Cui Yaning

Ms. Cui Yaning, 39 years old, was a former staff member for the Party Committee Office of the Huaguang Electric Power and Electronics Corporation in Jinzhou City. She is kind and handy and and writes well. She travelled to Beijing on October 8th, 1999, to appeal for Falun Gong and was arrested. By October 13th, 1999, she had been incarcerated in Masanjia Forced Labour Camp to serve two years.

Arriving at the Second Women's Camp in Masanjia the first time, Ms. Cui was subjected to a body search and was told to memorize the camp rules. She refused to memorize the rules and went on a hunger strike lasting three weeks. The guards beat her with electric batons and locked her up in a toilet room for a long time. Her husband and son travelled from Jinzhou to visit her, but officials turned them away. The boy cried and shouted so loudly to see his mother that Ms. Cui could hear clearly from the inside, even with the visitors' door shut.

Ms. Cui was eventually transferred to the First Women's Camp of Masanjia Forced Labour Camp. She was assigned to do heavy manual labour, beyond the capacity of any human being. Because she insisted on Falun Gong practice and refused to do the hard labour, the guards urged other inmates to beat her severely. She sustained injuries all over her body. Several of her bones were broken and she almost lost consciousness. Nevertheless, they carried her to the workshop and forced to work, despite her deplorable physical condition. She had to listen to daily broadcasts that slandered Falun Gong and had a load of work to do, placing her under extreme tension. Working on a production line, she had to keep up the pace or else the inmate that worked on the assembly line with her would verbally abuse her for lagging behind and the guards would physically abuse her further. Rising at 5:00 a.m. she started work at 6:30 a.m. and worked until 10:00 p.m. Sometimes she had to work until 11:00 p.m. or midnight or even 2:00 or 3:00 a.m. She once worked 36 hours in two days, between October 11th and 12th, 2001.

Many practitioners were detained in Masanjia, and the camp got crowded. More than 20 people had to share one cell. Practitioners did not have their own beds. They slept in the narrow spaces between two single beds. Criminal inmates monitored the practitioners around the clock, seven days a week. No matter where they went--to the toilet, the cafeteria, or at work--they were monitored. Conversation between the practitioners was forbidden. Ms. Cui was detained under these conditions for two years. She was prevented from seeing her family because she would not give up her practice of Falun Gong.

In June 2000, the camp authorities subjected the practitioners to intense brainwashing. One day, guard Zhou Qian brought Ms. Cui to her office and ordered her to give up Falun Gong, but she refused. They slapped her in the face and made her stand straight, in the hallway, from 6:00 a.m. to midnight for six days. Persisting in her faith, she was then forced to squat from 6:00 a.m. to midnight in one position for five or six days in a row, except for bathroom and meal breaks. Several days later guard Zhou Qian called her in again. Ms. Cui again defied their demands. Zhou beat her with an electric baton, which left red marks on her back. Then she had to squat, too. Such violent physical abuse and mental torment traumatized her severely.

On October 14th, 2001, after two years of' torment, Ms. Cui was released from this den of monsters. Huaguang Electric Power and Electronics Corporation officials had meanwhile fired her. At home, her husband attempted to force her to give up the practice, but she refused. Her husband struck her while drunk and confronted her with a knife, forcing her to agree to a divorce. She got divorced and decided to leave home.

About 8:00 p.m. on December 28th, 2001, Ms. Cui wanted to visit a friend, but three male and two female undercover police officers blocked the entrance. They pushed her into a room and attempted to search her. When Ms. Cui asked for identification, one undercover officer, whose name was later discovered to be Jia Wenxiang, slapped her face several times and said that was the identification. Police searched her bag and found five Falun Gong flyers, so they arrested her and detained at the Lingan Police Station in Jinzhou City. She was tied to a metal chair and beaten. Several police officers pushed her to the floor and beat and kicked her so severely that she fainted. They still did not stop. They had her on the floor, face down, and had a person weighing more than 200 pounds stand on her back and kick her heavily. Then they turned her over, face up. Police officer Zhang Kebin slapped her while several others held her down. Then they beat her with a shoe so that her face turned black and blue for 15 days. After the beating, they handcuffed her in the position called "Carrying a Sword on the Back" (she was handcuffed behind her back, with one hand pulled over her shoulder behind her head and the other hand twisted from below up to the middle of her lower back) for more than half an hour, followed by single handcuffing for two to three hours sitting on the floor.

Ms. Cui had injuries all over her body and suffered great chest and rib pain from such brutal tortures. She was short of breath and could not stand up. She petitioned the head of the police station for a medical examination of her injuries. However, this individual pretended not to hear her. One police officer ran over and slapped her. Officer Zhang Kebin said, "If you want to die, don't die here (Lingan Police Station)! Go and die at a detention centre." In the middle of the night, they transferred her to the Second Detention Centre where she was again tortured by being handcuffed to a metal chair¹, forbidden to use the toilet, and was force fed. On January 13th, 2002, she was secretly transferred to Masanjia Forced Labour Camp. Her family was not notified. She was sentenced to three years of forced labour, in complete violation of the Chinese constitution.

Toward the end of March 2002, Cui Yaning went on a persecution protest hunger strike. She was subjected to force-feeding through a tube and was given injections of unknown drugs. Her captors locked her in an isolated cell. She experienced severe physical and mental trauma and suffered from oedema. In May and June 2002 she continued the hunger strike and was isolated and detained on the first floor. Second division guard Dai Yuhong poured garlic water into her mouth. In December 2002, the labour camp authorities gathered many guards together in an attempt to "reform²" firm practitioners. Ms. Cui had been locked in an isolated cell for nine days. Her hands and feet had frostbite, but the guards could not budge her firm belief. The camp officials declined to approve any family visits just because of her firm belief.

After the 2004 Chinese New Year, Ms. Cui's health was critical. She was examined at the on-site camp hospital. The doctors could not measure either her blood pressure or heart rate, of which division head Zhang Xiurong and deputy division head Zhou Jun were fully aware, but they reported that Ms. Cui's condition was normal and refused to release her. Instead, Ms. Cui was sent back to the small cell again. Ms. Cui completed her term on December 28th, 2004, but Masanjia Forced Labour Camp officials refused to release her until March 2005.

Ms. Cui had to find a job. On February 25th, 2008, she and two other practitioners took a train to Shenyang City [to find work] but were arrested by Guta police and are now behind held in Jinzhou City First Detention Centre. Police officer Li Jia and others from Guta Police Station were involved in this harassment.

Note

1. Iron Chair: The "Iron chair" is made of iron pipes. Victims are restrained on the iron chairs with both arms and legs tied for a long period of time, see illustration at http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/1/9/17577.html

2. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/4/4/175770.html