Being force-fed  during detention

Ms Dai Ying was talking to a UN Raporteur

Arrested for Signing Petition to UN Secretary-General

On July 21, 1999, my husband, Li Jianhui, and I appealed to the municipal government of Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. The Shenzhen police arrested us and the police department detained my husband at a secret location until he escaped ten days later.

On September 23, 1999, we heard that UN Secretary-General Annan was going to visit China. We thought that we should let him know about the human rights violations and the persecution of Falun Gong in China. So my husband went to meet with another practitioner, Mr. Gu Haiying, who used to work at the Shenzhen Railway Company Office but was sent to do janitorial work due to practicing Falun Gong. We signed the letter that we wrote to Mr. Annan. Then we all left and tried to find more signers. I also asked another practitioner, Ms. Hao Bingtai to help collect the signatures. Soon we had over 90 signatures. My husband planned to take them to Beijing on September 30.

On September 26, 1999, my husband and I went to Guizhou Province. Soon after we arrived, we received a phone call from the Shenzhen City Police Bureau requesting us to go back to Shenzhen immediately. We realized that they were monitoring our cell phone. We went back home on September 28.

On September 29, 1999, the police from the Shenzhen City “610 Office” wanted to talk to my husband, so they went to a restaurant. After eating, they arrested him. Policeman Wang Xiang and more than 10 other policemen ransacked my home, and arrested me too. They searched every corner of my house including the ceiling and the safety box, until they found the letter and signatures. My husband and I were detained at the Futian District Detention Center. I was released on bail fifteen days later, but they detained and tortured my husband.

My Husband was Sentenced, Our Lawyers were Threatened

The Shenzhen municipal government reported my husband’s name to both the “610 Office” of Guangdong Province and the “610 Office’s” Central Committee. A prosecutor in the Shenzhen Procuratorate thought that my husband was innocent. However, higher authorities ordered the court to sentence him for political reasons.

Before the court hearing, I appointed an attorney named Ms. Qu Ci from New Century Attorney Office in Shenzhen City, and my brother-in-law appointed another attorney named Ms. Xu to work with her in defense of my husband. After they studied the files, they both believed that my husband was innocent. Attorney Qu Ci brought the files to Beijing and invited legal experts to discuss the case in a forum. The experts comprehensively proved, from constitutional and legal points of view, that my husband was innocent. So attorneys Qu and Xu decided to plead my husband innocent.

Two days before the court hearing, the Shenzhen City Police Department acted on behalf of the Shenzhen municipal government to stop attorney Xu from defending my husband. The Shenzhen City Judicial Bureau also forced attorney Qu Ci to terminate her contract with me, thus preventing her from defending my husband. Neither attorney, nor any family members were allowed to attend the hearing. The court assigned another attorney to plead my husband guilty.

China’s constitution stipulates that every defendant and his/her family members have the right to appoint attorneys to act on the defendant’s behalf. However, the Shenzhen City Court knowingly violated the law. At the end of February 2000, the Futian District Court in Shenzhen City sentenced my husband to four years in prison.

On March 5, 2000, I went to Beijing to appeal to the State Council for justice and to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. The police arrested me and sent me back to Shenzhen to be detained at the Futian District Detention Center.

Torture and Forced Labor

To continue protesting the persecution, I had no choice but to go on a hunger strike. During the third day of my hunger strike, the guards at the detention center began to force-feed me.

They dragged me out of my cell. Four or five people pressed me against the ground to prevent me from moving. They inserted a very thick rubber tube into my nostril, causing my nose to bleed. When the tube failed, they used a screwdriver to pry open my teeth, and inserted a thick, sharpened bamboo tube into my mouth. It hurt so much that I felt as if they were splitting my mouth open. This force-feeding consisted of either food or dense salt water. I nearly suffocated. Food and blood kept spurting from my mouth and nose. Every time they finished, I felt as if I had died. They force-fed me every two or three days, not out of concern for my life, but for the purpose of torturing and devastating me. Once I gritted my teeth and tightly closed my mouth. Doctor Zhou in the detention center used the largest screwdriver to pry open my teeth. He pried off my two front teeth, and loosened the rest of my upper and lower front teeth.

A fellow practitioner, Ms. Jiang Xiaowen, was detained in the cell next to mine. The guards pried off her two front teeth. Practitioner Ms. Xue Aimei was detained in the same cell as I was. I witnessed how the guards brutally force-fed her with chili oil and chili powder. Every time she came back from force-feeding, her nose and face were covered with blood, and chili oil and food covered her body.

Since we had not committed any crimes, we refused to wear prison uniforms. Over a dozen of the Futian District Detention Center’s policemen and policewomen came in and forced over twenty female practitioners to strip naked. One female practitioner was dragged in front of male prisoners naked in order to humiliate her.

We were also forced to do slave labor in the detention center every day. We manually sewed leather shoes, which caused blood blisters to form on our fingers. Our fingers also became deformed and curved from this labor. All the products we made were exported to the United States and Europe. We were forced to work from 7:30a.m. until midnight or 1:00 a.m. In addition, we had to work a night shift of one to four hours every night. We worked on weekends, as well. Thirty people lived in a room of about 30 square meters (or 330 square feet), with a squat toilet. When we slept, we had to lie on our sides to save space, with one’s head next to another’s feet and vice versa. In the labor camp, no one treated us like human beings.

Soon I was sentenced to three years in prison. On March 8, 2001, I was transferred to Shaoguan Prison (currently known as Guangdong Province Women’s Prison). Because I refused to give up my belief, Instructor Luo, Director Dai, Chief Zheng Zhu’e, Chief Cai Guangping, Clerk Lin and Clerk Yang lectured me in turn every day. They coupled threats with promises. They threatened me, verbally abused me, and brainwashed me. They often forced me to watch programs that slandered Falun Gong and its founder. They also forced me to face the wall. I was not allowed to move, sit down or sleep. On the third day, I couldn’t stand it anymore and my legs gave out beneath me. They woke me up and forced me to stand again. I fell down again, and they forced me to stand once more. This process repeated until I could not stand up again. They allowed me a short nap, but soon made me face the wall once more. They didn’t allow me more than two or three hours of sleep for many days. Even during those two or three hours, they ordered two prisoners with infectious diseases to supervise me as my “personal cangues.” One had pulmonary tuberculosis (TB) and the other one had a skin disease.

During a large-scale meeting, the guards took me onto the stage. Instructor Luo told everyone that I practiced Falun Gong and no one was allowed to talk to or share anything with me.

Every day, three or four personal cangues watched me. They followed me everywhere I went, including when having meals, using the toilet, or taking a bath. They deliberately created trouble, and abused and insulted me. They reported my every word and action, throughout all 24 hours of the day, to their chief.

As I refused to be “transformed,” the guards frequently shocked me with electric batons. They often threatened me, “If you don’t transform, we will send you to the Northwest.” Northwest referred to the concentration camps in the remote and secluded regions of northwestern China, the area in or around Qinghai Province. Many people who had been sent there had vanished.

After being tortured for only one month, my blood pressure was 220 and escalating, even though it had always been normal before. I was in a trance-like state. My blood pressure remained high. Even so, I still did 14 hours of slave labor a day. I couldn’t rest if I didn’t finish my assignment. We made all kinds of leather sandals and stringed lights for Christmas trees. The high intensity of the labor and the long work hours exhausted me. I always felt as if my limbs were falling apart.

Instructor Luo found out that I still refused to give up practicing Falun Gong, so one day she told me that she had been too nice to me. She threatened to lock me in a cell with a mental patient so that the patient could spread her excrement on me. She gave me 15 minutes to consider it. I told her, “I am not afraid.”

Losing Vision in My Left Eye

A few days later, at around 10:00 p.m., CCP Secretary Lin and three prisoners with heavy sentences came in and dragged me to a basement. The three prisoners pressed me to the ground and held me so tight I could not move. Secretary Lin began to shock me with an electric baton. She pressed it onto my acupuncture points and sensitive spots, including my temples, the Renzhong acupuncture point (philtrum), the central nervous system at my cervical vertebra and other places. I cried out in pain. It felt like my head had split open from the shocks. I could hardly endure the pain that permeated my body. After thirty to forty minutes of this torture, I could no longer stand it.

The morning after that, I found my vision was blurry. Everything looked cloudy. This was a direct consequence of the electric shocks. Under my strong request, Chief Zheng and Clerk Yang took me to Lishi Hospital (outside of the prison). The examination showed that my optic nerves were bleeding in many places. I was losing vision in my left eye. The doctor said that it would not recover, and I would soon be blind. My right eye was also affected. Now, my right eye has a vision of 0.1 and my left eye vision has a vision of zero. (Normal vision is 1.5.)

Prisoner Liu Cheng tortured me at the prison. He told me, “You are nothing compared with Song Ping. She was tortured even worse. What you have endured is only 1/10 of what she has suffered. When Song Ping was shocked with electric batons, they poured water on her until she was soaked. Then they used several electric batons to shock her simultaneously. When she was shocked, she bounced against the wall, and then bounced back to the ground. And then they shocked her again. She had bruises all over her body...”

When my family came to visit me at the prison, two policemen escorted me to the meeting room. There was a glass window between my family and me, and we used a telephone to talk. There was always a policeman monitoring and recording our talk using another handset. I was not allowed to tell my family that I was tortured at the prison. If I said even a little bit about it, our talk would be cut off and they would not be able to visit me again. Therefore, the outside knew nothing about the torture that happened inside.

My eye was blind after the electric shock. However, I was still forced to work overtime every day, until two months before my term expired when the prison agreed to release me, under the condition of bail, for medical treatment. My family came to bring me home.

Second Detention

Only two months after I returned home, at 10:00 p.m. on February 27, 2003, policeman Wang Xiang and over a dozen others from the Shenzhen “610 Office” broke into my home and arrested my husband and me again. They took us to the Futian Detention Center again. In the detention center, I met Ms. Wang Suqin, a 67 year-old Falun Gong practitioner. She told me that when the police from Shenzhen “610 Office” interrogated her they handcuffed her in a small, solitary cell. In the freezing winter, for two days and nights, they continuously blew on her with a fan, and didn’t allow her to eat or sleep. She said her daughter Li Xiaoqiu was also detained in the Futian District Detention Center. The Shenzhen “610 Office” mercilessly tortured her daughter. She asked someone to pass a note to her mother, telling her that she would not commit suicide and, if she died, it would be due to torture.

Brainwashing

At the Sanshui labor camp, I was locked up in a small cell. All the windows and doors were sealed. Warden Xie, Warden Tang, Section Chief Ge, Section Chief Chen, Chief Sun, Chief Tang, Chief Zhang and Guard Liu Ai persecuted me. They did not allow me to write to my family, nor did they allow my family to visit me. Every day, they brainwashed me and forced me to watch television programs that slandered Falun Gong. They did not allow me to sleep or relieve myself in the lavatory. The pain of such torture was beyond description. I saw some practitioners become seriously ill right after they were “transformed.” More than 30 practitioners were persecuted and suffered from high blood pressure. I knew a female practitioner who was tortured and became mentally ill; the prison didn’t notify her family. Some practitioners were tortured until they were nothing but skin and bones.

Some practitioners were transported out of the prison when they were on the verge of death. When the prison transferred such practitioners, the guards drove everyone else into another room and locked the door. Then guards would wrap the dying practitioner in a blanket, carry her downstairs, and secretly transfer her. No one knew where she was sent.

Sorting Trash

Our slave labor consisted of sorting trash. The trash was shipped in from Hong Kong. It was dirty and smelled awful. We had to sort out plastic and metal from the trash. However, we were forced to do it. Everyone had a daily quota. Our term would be extended if we failed to meet the quota.

Forced Injection

One day in May 2004, they assembled about 160 Falun Gong practitioners together. Doctors from People’s Hospital of Foshan City came to give us injections of unknown drugs. I asked Chief Sun why only Falun Gong practitioners, but no other prisoners received injections. She answered, “We would not give them injections even if they wanted them. This is the government’s special treatment for you.”

Several guards held a practitioner and injected her by force. The practitioner fainted right on the spot. Seeing that, many practitioners resisted the injections. I also resisted. Despite the struggle, some practitioners were still given the injections. But overall, the guards gave up when we resisted the injections.

A few days later, the guards took a few practitioners at a time to the labor camp’s clinic. The doctors from the People’s Hospital in Foshan City came to give physical exams, and take blood tests, electrocardiograms and x-rays. Some the equipment was brought from the People’s Hospital and installed in a large bus.

When a doctor examined me, he inquired about my heart condition in detail. He asked if I had ever had any heart problems before. During the physical exam, the doctor especially pressed and tapped at my waist (kidney region), and asked me if it hurt. Every practitioner was given a physical exam and had a blood sample taken, including the practitioners who had mental disorders. However, prisoners who were not Falun Gong practitioners were not examined.

When outside people came to visit or inspect the prison or the labor camp, all Falun Gong practitioners were locked in a secret room, except those who had formally renounced Falun Gong. They were interviewed and repeated the lies that the instructors had ordered them to tell.

I was on the verge of collapse from the long-term torture at the Sanshui Women’s Labor Camp. My blood pressure was as high as 250, and I often fainted. The labor camp was reluctant to take responsibility if I died there, so on September 20, 2004, they released me on bail for medical treatment.

Escaping the CCP’s Grasp

During the time my husband and I were imprisoned, my daughter was only 14 years old and had no one to take care of her. My mother had died during the persecution. I was not be able see her final time; it is something that there is no way to recover.

In 2005, the Shenzhen “610 Office” started another round of persecution. On the evening of September 7, 2005, we were informed before they came and immediately left home. We left just in time, as they arrived soon after. They failed to arrest us, but did not give up. They searched for us in many places, tracked us through means of telecommunication, and used video cameras at the major entrances and exits of Shenzhen City to pursue us.

We were destitute and homeless for nearly two months. Our arrival in Thailand came after numerous untold hardships. We went to the United Nations’ Refugee Agency and told them the true situation of Falun Gong in China and of our own experiences. With the help of the UN Refugee Agency, we finally escaped from the CCP’s grasp and arrived in Norway.

My husband and I would like to thank the United Nations and the Norwegian Government for their support and help. We would also like to appeal to all kind people around the world and all governments, to help rescue the practitioners who are still detained in jails, forced labor camps, detention centers and many other unknown places in China.

Dai Ying

March 10, 2006

(posted on Dec. 11, 2006)