Urgent Appeal: 25-year-old Woman Unable to Walk from Sexual Abuse in Hebei Labor Camp

NEW YORK—A 25-year-old kindergarten teacher was severely sexually abused in a Hebei Labor Camp in June 2010, the Falun Dafa Information Center has learned. Months after the attack, she continues to have trouble walking and her family has been denied access to visit her. The Center urges the international community to investigate her case and pressure the Chinese authorities for her immediate and unconditional release.

Police abducted Ms. Hu Miaomiao (???), a Falun Gong practitioner from Chaigoupu Town in Hebei province’s Huai’an county, from her home on the morning of June 15, 2010. Without informing her family, she was quickly sent to the Hebei Province Women’s Re-education Through Labor Camp in Shijiazhuang. At the instigation of the unit leader Wang Weiwei, three criminal inmates beat and tortured Ms. Hu in an effort to force her to renounce her belief.

In June, they tortured Ms. Hu by repeatedly stabbing broom handles into her vagina, causing her severe physical and psychological trauma. Months after the assault, sources inside China report that she is still having trouble walking and cannot stand up straight. She remains in extreme pain.

Eventually, Ms. Hu’s family members discovered her whereabouts and attempted to visit her at the camp. However, camp guard Wang Weiwei refused their requests. Hebei Women’s RTL Camp is newly constructed and has been in operation since 2008. According to sources inside China, by August 2008, it was already holding 400 female Falun Gong practitioners. Other reports indicate that it is intended to have a capacity to hold 1,500 women.

“What has been done to this young woman is horrific but her experience is not an isolated case,” says Levi Browde, Executive Director of the Falun Dafa Information Center. “For the past decade, Chinese security agents have been sexually abusing Falun Gong practitioners in custody, not as a wayward tactic of an individual guard, but as a systemic tool of ‘transformation.’”

“It is the responsibility of the global community to investigate Ms. Hu’s case and use whatever channels necessary to bring such atrocities to an immediate end, not only for her sake, but for all women held at detention facilities across China.”

Sexual abuse of both male and female Falun Gong practitioners has been regularly used by the Chinese the authorities over the past 11 years to force adherents to renounce their faith, punish them for who they are, and compel them to reveal information about other practitioners. Former detainees report being violated with broomsticks and electric batons. Some have been raped by guards or other security personnel. Victims range across all age groups, including young women (more background).

“The immoral acts that shocked my soul the most were the lewd yet routine practice of attacking women’s genitals by 6-10 Office staff and the police,” wrote prominent attorney Gao Zhisheng in a 2005 open letter to China’s leaders documenting his investigation into the torture of Falun Gong practitioners in Northeast China and calling for an end to the persecution. “Almost every woman’s genitals and breasts or every man’s genitals have been sexually assaulted in the most vulgar fashion.”

Gao later goes on to relay the case of a male practitioner, Mr. Liu Haibo, who died on the spot while being sodomized with an electric baton (letter).

The Falun Dafa Information Center calls on human rights groups, foreign officials, and concerned world citizens to:

1. Call the labor camp to condemn Ms. Hu’s abuse and urge her immediate release and the release of other Falun Gong practitioners held at the camp. Direct, immediate pressure on those responsible for camps where such atrocities occur has proven effective in the past.

2. Use whatever channels possible to investigate and punish the use of rape and sexual abuse as a tool in the Communist Party’s “war” against Falun Gong, both at this camp and throughout China.

Additional details:

• Telephone of labor camp director Zhou Zhanquan: 86-311-83939188
• Telephone for deputy director of the labor camp Feng Kezhuang (in charge of Units 1 and 4, known for holding Falun Gong practitioners): 86-311-83939177
• Camp location: Tongye Town, southwest of Xiliangxiang Village, Luquan County, Shijiazhuang, Hebei