Ms. Wan Xiaohui's Account of Her Persecution at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp

Name: Wan Xiaohui
Gender: Female
Age: 56
Address: Dalian City, Liaoning Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: March 21st, 2010
Most Recent Place of Detention: Masanjia Forced Labour Camp
City: Shenyang
Province: Liaoning
Persecution Suffered: Detention, forced labour, brainwashing, brutal beatings, torture, denial of toilet use, force-feeding, injected with unknown drugs.

I was distributing Shen Yun Performing Arts DVDs¹ in front of the Liaoning Normal University main gate at around 1:00 p.m. on March 21st, 2010, when I was arrested by two officers from Fumin Police Station. They took me to the police station, and dragged me out of the car. Four officers carried me into a room.

When I refused to divulge my name, two of them twisted my arms. One grabbed my hair and tried to take my photo, but I struggled and did not cooperate. My arm was severely bruised from my shoulder to my wrist. I was forcibly taken to a hospital that night for a health check, and was then transferred to Yaojia Detention Centre.

Two male and two female officers took me to a hospital near Masanjia Forced Labour Camp for another health check at around 8:00 a.m. on April 28th, 2010. We left in such a hurry that they didn't even allow me to put my shoes on.

After finishing at the hospital, I was taken to Masanjia Forced Labour Camp, where guard Yu Xiaochuan stripped off all my clothes. I started getting cramps in my arms and legs and could not walk. Inmates were assigned to monitor me around the clock. My family was told to bring me food and clothes, but they refused to let my son see me. They told me that if I didn't give up my belief in Falun Gong, they would not allow anyone to visit me. Zhang Lei, Zhou Xiaoguang, Zhang Zhuohui, and three other inmates tried to force me to sign a guarantee statement, promising to give up the practice, and forced my fingerprint onto a piece of paper. I tore up the paper immediately.

When my son tried to visit me, the guards refused to let us meet. My son was determined and insisted on seeing me. By noon time the guards agreed to let us meet. When my son saw that I needed assistance to walk, and then saw my injuries and bruises, he burst out crying. He shouted to me, “Mum, you have to survive!” My son suffered a huge trauma from this experience.

I was taken to the eastern sector of the labour camp every day in mid-May, 2010. They tried to brainwash me by filling my mind with propaganda and telling me lies about Falun Gong. I was thrown into a cell and forced to listen to audio recordings defaming Falun Gong on an mp3 player. I threw the mp3 player onto the ground. Six guards then pinned me to the ground and cuffed my arms and legs to two beds. They stuffed an old, smelly shoe insole into my mouth and forcibly put the mp3 earphones into my ears. They then put tape around my mouth and ears. When I tried to shout, “Falun Gong is good!” they placed a bucket over my head, as they were afraid that others would hear me. The bucket was so heavy that I couldn't lift up my head, and I couldn’t move my neck. The pain was so excruciating that I can't describe it in words.

In late October 2010, the guards at Masanjia Forced Labour Camp began a new round of persecution. One morning in November, I was taken to the eastern sector, where they continued to bombard me with lies and propaganda. They used all sorts of ways to try to brainwash me. I was beaten, shouted at, forced to sit on a cold floor, and to kneel down for long periods of time. They also poured boiling water onto my neck.

Zhang Lei said bad words about Falun Gong to me, while Ye Ling beat my head and back with a wooden club with nails on it, causing my head to swell up in pain, and my back and shoulders to turn purple. When Zhang started saying bad words about Falun Gong again on another day, I tried to reason with her, but the male section chief with the surname of Li beat me with the club three times on my left cheek. The left part of my face instantly became swollen. He threatened me by saying, “I'm going to torture you more.”

To ensure that no one could hear what was going on in the room, they taped up all the windows and turned the volume of the TV as high as possible. I was not given any food and was not allowed to use the restroom. Whenever my eyelids closed, they poked me in the eyes. After being there for one day, my feet were in so much pain that I couldn't stand. My arms were so numb that I could no longer feel them. My hair also started to fall out. The next day, they inserted needles into my fingernails.

I started a hunger strike to protest my persecution. Three days later, Zhang Huan, Zhang Lei, Ye Ling, and two others began force-feeding me. I was beaten to the ground, my hands were cuffed to a bed, and my feet were tied to the bottom of the bed. I couldn't move. The guards used an implement to pry open my mouth and inserted it deep into my throat, which caused severe bleeding, and I had difficulty breathing. Even when they couldn't force any more food down my throat, they didn't stop. I thought they were trying to kill me. After every force-feeding, I was drenched in sweat. They continued to do this until night fall.

On the second day of force-feeding, chief Shi Yu came in with four male section chiefs. Shi handcuffed me to the bed. A female doctor then tried to insert the implement down my throat, but failed. Then the guard with the last name of Li, who is about fifty years old, tried to force the implement down my throat, but could also not do it. They broke two of the implements in the process. Blood poured out of my mouth. The doctor then injected me with an unknown drug. When they finally took me off the bed, I could feel something wrong going on with my temples.

I was forced to stand on one end of the bed, and then had to bend down, as my hands were stretched forward and were handcuffed to the other end of the bed. They made me listen to recordings slandering Falun Gong on an mp3 player, and then forced my thumbprints onto a guarantee statement to renounce practising Falun Gong. I tried to resist, but to no avail.

The next day, Ye Ling, Zhang Zhuohui, and two other guards handcuffed me at two different heights on two beds. I couldn't kneel down or stand up straight. They then started pulling the railings of the beds in opposite directions.

The pain was excruciating. The handcuffs cut deeply into my flesh. When they opened the handcuffs at around 1:00 p.m., I couldn't even move my feet. My hands were so numb that I could not hold anything. I was tortured for seventeen days nonstop.

A few days before the Chinese New Year, attempts were made to force me to write guarantee statements again. Dai Xuemei took me to the eastern sector, where I was forced to stand for long periods of time. I was also forced to clean the toilets in the labour camp, because they said that my blanket failed to meet their required standards. They made me clean the toilets again in March 2011, because I didn't greet a guard.

About two weeks before I was released, Dai Xuemei stopped me as I was walking up the stairs and took me to the eastern sector again. Zhang Huan, Zhang Lei, Dai Xuemei, Wang Danfeng, and two others beat me. My hands were cuffed behind my back and they tried to force my fingerprints onto a piece of paper. Wang Danfeng slapped me in the face and asked if I would still do expose the persecution of Falun Gong when I was released. My elbows were so severely twisted that they still hurt more than two months later. I didn't give up my beliefs and told them that I didn't deserve to be imprisoned in a labour camp. I refused to recite the labour camp's regulations, refused to sign their guarantee statements, and refused to do whatever the guards ordered me to do. As a result, my sentence was increased by ten days.

I suffered many forms of brutal torture in the one year that I was at the labour camp. The above is a brief recollection of what I can remember.

Related article:
The Persecution I Suffered in Dalian Forced Labour Camp
http://clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2005/4/14/59610.html

Note

1. Shen Yun Performing Arts is a New York based company showing traditional Chinese culture through classical dance and music. Some dance pieces in the show depict the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China and how they show their compassion under extreme conditions.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/10/20/248080.html