(Minghui.org) With tightly-closed giant doors and electric fences above high walls, Liaoning Women's Prison in northern China has long been known as a place of torture of Falun Gong practitioners.
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline and meditation practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since July 1999. Many practitioners have been arrested, imprisoned, and even killed for their organs because they refuse to renounce their faith.
The prison has 13 wards, each divided into ten teams. Each team has at least 50 detainees, including Falun Gong practitioners. The prison often uses felons to abuse practitioners in exchange for term reductions or monetary rewards.
In order to weaken practitioners' willpower and eventually make them renounce their faith, the prison has resorted to physical torture and forced labor. The practitioners are not only abused on a regular basis but are also forced to work with very little or no pay for extended periods of time.
When all else fails to shake a practitioners' faith, the prison is thought to have turned to sonic weapons. Ms. Chen Fenghua was working one day when she suddenly experienced unbearable headaches and soon suffered from hearing loss, nausea, and loss of balance. She suspected that she may have been attacked by a sonic device, a weapon that uses sound to disorient, incapacitate, or kill.
Ms. Chen Fenghua, a 54-year old resident of Anshan City, had been sought by the police since April 24, 2014. She was arrested on July 31 and taken to Shenyang Zaohua Detention Center on August 1.
She was illegally tried by Tiexi District Court on March 31, 2015, and given four years in prison.
Ms. Chen was taken to Liaoning Women's Prison in November 2015 and assigned to Team 10, where she was to be “transformed” for one year.
During the first four months, Ms. Chen was beaten by inmates, splashed with cold water, and made to stand in icy cold water. She was severely beaten while being forced to stand, facing a wall, for 12 hours. She was also made to sit motionless on a small bench for three hours every day.
After a long period of abuse, she had pain in her back and legs. She could not bend to touch the ground or clean herself after using the restroom. Her abdomen swelled so much that the oversized prison uniforms no longer fit.
Enduring the harsh torture for four months, Ms. Chen still did not renounce her belief. Prison guards then forced her to squat motionless on a brick for 15 hours every day. They instigated inmates to beat her when she was squatting. The torture made her arms and legs numb. She could only walk back to her cell slowly in small steps. On one occasion, she was taken back to the cell in a wheelchair.
Near the end of 2016, Ms. Chen suddenly complained of a severe headache in the workshop, as if a blood vessel had burst. The pain lasted through the night, and she completely lost her memory the next morning.
She could not recognize people or objects. Other symptoms followed each headache: low blood pressure, poor heart function, nausea, and fatigue. While the cause is unknown, it is suspected that she might have been subjected to some kind of supersonic wave that can destroy the central nervous system.
Ms. Chen still feels fatigued and disoriented after her release this year. Ms. Chen was lucky to have survived, but 36 other practitioners have died from torture in the prison.
The brutal abuse of practitioners is ubiquitous in the prison, and the torture in Ward 1 is the tip of the iceberg. In addition to long-term forced labor, practitioners have endured other torture for refusing to be “transformed.”
Every practitioner assigned to Ward 1 would first be sent to Team 10, which is notorious for its brainwashing techniques and the ability to force practitioners to renounce their faith. They are threatened, beaten, and have their feet frozen in ice water for their refusal to “transform.”
As illustrated below, the torture includes beating, sitting on a small bench, force-feeding, freezing, dousing with cold water, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, pricking with needles, isolation, and poisoning with unknown drugs.
In 2016, the prison performed DNA tests on every practitioner and entered the results into a database that is believed to provide sources for live organ harvesting.
Liaoning Women's Prison is a manufacturing center for making uniforms for police officers and employees of the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of Justice, and the Railway Bureau. It also makes brand-name clothing for export to Japan, the United States, and European countries.
To maximize profits, the prison accepts more orders from outside companies than they can handle. Wards 1 and 7 took the lead.
Prisoners are forced to work long hours, from 7 am to 8 pm every day. They take lunch in turns by the machine tools. They are forced to work overtime on Sunday, which is a scheduled day off, and are symbolically rewarded with 10 yuan a month.
The prisoners have passed around a saying describing their treatment: “waking up earlier than a rooster, going to bed later than a dog, working harder than a mule, and eating food worse than a pig.”
A total of 36 torture deaths of Falun Gong practitioners have been documented at Liaoning Women’s Prison. Some of the victims are briefed below.
Liu Xuyan from Anshan City was tortured to death at the age of 49.
Zhu Yulan from Fushun City was tortured to death at the age of 70.
Sun Min, a teacher in Anshan City, was tortured to death. Her father filed a lawsuit eight months ago against those responsible, citing evidence of torture. The perpetrators are still in the same roles, however.
Liu Jing from Jinzhou City was brutally beaten by inmates repeatedly. She was also forced to sit on a small bench every day. On one occasion, she was placed over a sewer after a beating and was kicked in the head by inmates. Inmate Zhang Meizhen was the mastermind of the torture.
Xing Dan, a young teacher from Anshan City, was tortured and poisoned with drugs that destroyed her central nervous system. She became mentally disoriented and incapacitated.
Jiang Wei from Zhaoyang City was disoriented as a result of torture. Inmates dragged her on the ground, causing the skin on her buttocks to tear. She was confined to a dark isolation room, where she passed out and was taken to the prison hospital for emergency care.
Zhang Qinghua, in her sixties from Shenyang City, was pricked under her fingernails with sewing needles.
Wu Yuping from Tieling City was tortured with squatting, beating, and sitting on a small bench. Ms. Wu was deprived of a quilt for more than a month during the winter season. Her memory became very bad after being severely beaten on her head. Her neck swelled for an extended period of time.
Another practitioner from Dalian City also became disoriented as a result of torture. She hit her own head nonstop the entire day and injured her own face with a knife and scissors.
Every prisoner, especially a Falun Gong practitioner, who survived Liaoning Women’s Prison would immediately relive a nightmare when asked about their haunting experiences.
While Minghui.org has reported on the crimes committed by Liaoning Women's Prison against Falun Gong practitioners for more than a ten years, the torture continues.
Many practitioners in China and around the world have contacted the supervisors of this prison through various channels. They have also reported their criminal acts to the Liaoning Prison Administration Bureau and Justice Department, urging them to hold the perpetrators accountable.
Responsible parties at Liaoning Women’s Prison:
Jia Fujun (贾福军): warden, Liaoning Women's Prison, +086-15698808121Wu Yan (吴妍): chief, Prison Administration Section, +086-024-31236020Shi Jing (师静): chief, Ward One Education Section, +086-024-89296863Li Aidong (李爱东): party secretary, Commission of Discipline Inspection, +086-15698805353Wang Zhi (王治): director, 610 Office, +086-15698800291
Torture Methods Used in Liaoning Women's Prison
Practitioners Persecuted in Liaoning Women's Prison and Its “Correction Division”Crimes in the Liaoning Province Women's Prison
Liaoning Women's Prison Makes Huge Profits by Using High-Intensity Forced Labor
Liaoning Women’s Prison: Forced Labor Until the Last Breath
Liaoning Women's Prison: A Place for Torture, Death of Many Falun Gong Practitioners