Statement by Ms. Zhang Lianying, March 2011

My name is Zhang Lianying, and I am a Falun Gong practitioner from Beijing, China. 

My husband, Niu Jinping, met with Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott, Vice President of the European Parliament, in May 2006 in Beijing and discussed together abuses being perpetrated against practitioners of Falun Gong. Both my husband and I are practitioners. We later became special targets for suppression, it turned out, since we had dared to speak with a foreign official about these “state secrets.” The regime desperately wants to keep such information from the free world.

On April 20, 2008, shortly before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was worried we might speak out again. On that day, as my family was preparing to celebrate my birthday, my husband and I were forcibly taken into custody, like many other Falun Gong practitioners [during that period]. My husband and I each received an extrajudicial sentence of two and a half years of forced labor. My husband was held in the Tuanhe and Xin’an Labor Camps in Beijing. I was sent to Masanjia Labor Camp in Liaoning province. There, in captivity, we experienced extremely brutal torture, which I will detail below.

We were released only after our two-and-a-half-year terms of forced labor were up. My husband, Jinping, was released on October 19, 2010. I was released on November 3, 2010. Today, I write from the safety of the United States, where we escaped to at the end of January 2011.

Electric Baton Torture Session Suffered by My Husband 

After being arrested, Jinping was transferred from the Beijing Dongcheng Detention Center to the labor camp dispatch center on May 13, 2008. When he arrived at the dispatch center, the officers ordered him to squat down while holding his head in his hands, but he refused. He said, “I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m a good person.” The police then had two members of the security section take him away to a big room. There, a group of policemen told him, “We’ve known about you for a long time. You’ve been quite active out there, seeing this guy and then that guy, even a Vice President of the European Union. You have caused a great deal of trouble for the government.”

Right after that, one of the policemen, a man with the badge number 153064 who seemed to be in charge, said, “Go!” Immediately, more than a dozen policemen and four inmates swarmed him. The four inmates stripped Jinping down to his underwear and pinned him down, putting his limbs in a spread-eagle stance. Ten policemen, each wielding an electric baton, then started shocking him simultaneously on his back, his buttocks, the back of his hands, his fingers, the soles of his feet, his anus, his head, behind his ears, and anywhere else they could reach. In addition to shocking him, they used the batons as clubs to beat him. 

The policeman with badge number 153064 then shouted, “Flip him over!” The inmates turned Jinping over onto his back. He started shouting, “Falun Dafa is good!” The policemen then shocked and poked him in the penis, heart, face, ribs, head, and on the soles of his feet. One of them shouted, “Stuff it into his mouth!” One of the policemen then rammed the baton into his mouth and swiveled it back and forth for a long time. Jinping’s tongue, larynx, and the roof of his mouth were badly blistered by the shocks and the prodding from the batons. They knocked out two of his teeth and all of his lower teeth became loose. When the ten batons ran out of electricity, they switched to bigger batons that caused blisters almost immediately and rendered him unable to breathe when they shocked him in the mouth. 

Wherever Jinping was shocked with the bigger batons, blisters popped up and he felt tremendous pain. The policeman with badge number 153064 then shouted, “Flip him, flip him over again.” This time more than a dozen policemen rotated in and out with those ten batons, poking him, shocking him front to back, back to front, and then in the side, all the while also jabbing him hard with the batons. He started to go into convulsions, with his entire body jerking up and down. He finally went limp. He was charred and his body was a mess of flesh and pus. But when he lost consciousness, they just splashed him with cold water and then continued shocking him after he woke up. 

The air was filled with the scent of charred flesh. People could smell it even out in the courtyard. By the time they were done using the big batons, Jinping’s body was covered with blisters. Even his head was covered, especially his forehead, the back of his head, and behind his ears. Later, after the scabs from the blisters came off, the skin underneath was white, albino-like. It took more than a year for the color of his skin to return to normal. After being shocked, he vomited black blood for two days and had blood in his stool for a week. He felt excruciating pain in his chest and other internal organs. Whenever he coughed, his body was wracked with agonizing pain. For more than twelve days, he couldn’t turn over when he was trying to sleep. It took more than two weeks for him to start to recover. 

The day after the torture session, one policeman shouted at him, “You’ve been a busy bee out there, going from this government agency to that government agency. You made a lot of noise with your kid for the sake of your wife and even went to see the Vice President of the European Union. That’s going against the government, you do know that, right? If we don’t go after you, who would we go after, then?”

Experiencing and Witnessing a Living Hell at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp

After I was taken into custody in 2008, I tried to file a lawsuit in Beijing against the officers who illegally arrested us, searched our home, and harmed our daughter. But the authorities refused to accept my case. Instead, they transferred me to the most notorious labor camp in China—Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Liaoning Province. Masanjia is a living hell, constructed by the CCP with much thought and deliberation. 

Unlike at other detention facilities, like Beijing Women’s Labor Camp, where I had been held several years earlier and where guards ordered other inmates to beat me, at Masanjia, uniformed labor camp guards carried out the torture themselves. Among the staff of the Strict Supervision Division and the Special Supervision Division of this women’s labor camp were several male thugs, including Peng Tao, Zhang Liang, and Yi Wei. Other uniformed male guards and officials in the Security Section (headed by Mr. Liu Yong) and Management Section (headed by Mr. Ma Jishan) also took part in beating me and other detainees. These male thugs were actively involved in torture that occurred just prior to the Beijing Olympics, as well as at the end of each year.

Labor camp guards from across China have been sent to Masanjia for training to learn from the viciousness and cruelty of the camp’s personnel because of its high “transformation” rate [Editor’s note: “transformation” is a euphemism for forcing practitioners to renounce Falun Gong and pledge allegiance to the Communist Party and typically involves various forms of physical and psychological torture]. The authorities have produced falsified videotapes to showcase the so-called “gentle touches like a spring breeze” that supposedly facilitate “transformation” at the camp. When I was being held there, agents from the 6-10 Office [a special extralegal, anti-Falun Gong police task force] in Beijing came up to the camp to film one former Falun Gong student, also from Beijing, whose name was Huang Li and who had been “transformed” at Masanjia. In the video, they filmed her claiming there was no torture going on and that labor camp guards relied on education to win people over. 

In fact, at the camp, there is not even the façade of being civilized. There is not even the most minimal degree of human morality. Even after practitioners sign the documents renouncing Falun Gong, they are not left alone or released. Instead, they are forced to participate in persecuting other practitioners. When I was there, the camp personnel assigned “transformed” former Falun Gong students to keep an eye on practitioners that remained steadfast in their beliefs, to prevent them from doing the Falun Gong exercises, and to force practitioners to put on inmates’ uniforms and beat them if they refused. These “transformed” former practitioners covered my mouth to prevent me from talking, wrapped my head in tape, and dragged me out of my cell for abuse. When one “transformed” Falun Gong student was assigned to keep an eye on steadfast practitioners, Zhang Huan, deputy head of the No. 3 Division, yelled at her for not cursing at or beating the practitioners. Afterwards the “transformed” student bit a practitioner when putting on her clothes. Zhang Huan said, “Good job—bite them to death!” This is how thugs were trained by the guards, who themselves were trained and urged by higher-up leaders [to torture practitioners], which went all the way to the very top of the regime. 

Arrival at the camp

I was transported to Masanjia on July 14, 2008. On the way there, I asked where I was being taken. Officers from the Beijing Dispatch Center said, “You will know when you get there.” The trip took over 10 hours. During the ride, I was forced to wear a thick cotton hat, my body was wrapped in black elastic bands, my mouth was gagged, and my hands were handcuffed. The windows of the car had curtains pulled down. Only when I started getting nauseous and was about to throw up did they remove the gag.

When we arrived, the officers pushed me out of the car. I saw a huge crowd of fully equipped, armed police officers lined up in front of the labor camp buildings. As soon as I got out, I wriggled free from the officers who were holding me and shouted, “Falun Dafa is good!” A male officer immediately tried to cover my mouth. He dug his fingernails into my face. Then, he and several others dragged me into a building. In the hallway, a group of male officers and uniformed guards attacked me. Ms. Zhang Jun, head of the No. 3 Division, continued to cover my mouth as they took me up to the third floor. By this time, blood was dripping down my face because Zhang’s fingernails dug into my flesh. I was then lifted off the ground and handcuffed to the iron frame of a bunk bed. A male guard hit my face again and again with handcuffs and with his fists. They tried to pry open my mouth with a device they use for that purpose, but to no avail. Then they brought metal ladles and took turns smashing my mouth and teeth with it. Blood gushed out of my mouth. They continued beating me. Both male and female guards grabbed my hair and banged my head against the wall and a table. They smashed my mouth with metal ladles. Ignoring the blood that came out of my mouth, Ma Jishan, head of the Management Section, pulled a rope back and forth between my lips. By the end, my body was injured all over. For two days, I was completely unable to move and other people had to feed me and even lift the cup to my mouth when I wanted to drink water. 

Shortly after I had been put through this first torture session, Yu Wen, head of the Life and Health Section, and another male guard, whose name I did not know, poked me in the mouth with the tip of an umbrella and said to me, “Take a look at yourself, do you still even look like a human being?” A few days later, I had an opportunity to look at myself in the mirror. I was truly shocked. My face had turned a dark purple color. Both my eyes were swollen and the sockets had turned black. I had numerous scratches and torn skin across my face, marks left by being scratched with sharp fingernails. My faced looked downright scary. At that moment, I made up my mind: I wanted to get out of here alive. I wanted to tell the people of the world how the CCP carries out its persecution here, how the torture chambers are drenched in blood. 

There is a torture method called the “stretching torture” (also known as “five horses splitting a body”), which is often used at Masanjia. The torturers force a practitioner to lean over at the waist and then pull the practitioner’s arms across the top of a bunk bed and tie her hands such that the arms can’t stretch any further. Sometimes, other positions are used to tie practitioners in a manner that stretches their limbs. Between July 14 and the end of September 2008, I was subjected to the stretching torture 10 times, for between one day and up to three days and nights each time. I was also deprived of sleep day after day. Male thugs beat me and hit me with electric batons numerous times. As a result of this “stretching torture,” my fingers could not extend out fully for over a year. I had a hard time washing my face, using chopsticks, or buttoning my clothes. 

Continuous Torture

At the camp, because I wasn’t a criminal and believed that I shouldn’t be treated as one, I refused to sign a monthly timesheet, refused to put on an inmate uniform, refused to wear an inmate badge, refused to stand up to greet the labor camp guards, and refused to sing the songs they made us sing. To punish me, I endured numerous sessions of torture. Sometimes, over 20 people would take part in torturing me during a single day. They bent back my fingers and toes, ripped out my hair, twisted my nipples, pinched my inner thighs, pried open my mouth, and handcuffed my hands and feet in painful positions. As a result of the torture, I had to be sent to the hospital several times. On numerous occasions, when I started having difficulty breathing after being subjected to intense torture, the guards fed me Suxiaojiuxinwan, a pill that treats severe chest pain and lack of oxygen to the heart. After the pill took effect and I could breathe better, they would continue torturing me. Sometimes this happened multiple times in one day. One time, the hospital said that I was lacking oxygen to the heart, but when I was short of breath, officer Peng Tao still gagged me with a towel, not letting go until I was about to pass out. At other times, they forced unknown drugs down my throat after prying open my mouth. Chen Bing, who worked in the camp infirmary, threatened, “I’m going to turn you into a retard by the time you go home.” 

A special torture chamber was set up in the Special Monitoring Division. It was a tightly sealed room that had no windows, had a very thick door, and little ventilation. It was hard to breathe after being tortured there for an extended period of time. In September 2009, I was subjected to the “stretching torture” there and passed out twice. Due to the frequent torture in a bent over position, I was not able to stand up straight for a long time. 

Because I refused to be “transformed” and remained firm in my belief, I was put through severe sessions of the “stretching torture” over 20 times. Each time, the torture would last for several days in a row. Twice I was stripped naked before they stretched my limbs. During the times when I was dressed, my clothes became soaked in sweat. My hair fell to the ground. I was shocked with electric baton countless times while in the “stretching torture” position. I was hit with electric batons, wooden clubs, wooden planks, and handcuffs. I was hung up in various painful positions. On two occasions, my eyes were wrapped with a piece of black cloth, while the thugs applied electric shocks to my inner thighs, armpits, neck, face, fingers, and lower back. Scars left from the burns of the electric shocks stayed on my body for over a year. During the winter in both 2008 and 2009, the guards poked charged electric batons under my clothes to apply electric shocks. Even when it wasn’t an intensive “stretching” session, I was often kept tied and handcuffed, often in some uncomfortable position or another, up until the day I was released in November 2010.

During the summer in 2008 and 2009, I was laid on top of a gurney like the kind used in hospitals. They put me on it face up and twisted my arms behind me and down so they would be handcuffed to the wheels. The pain from being put in this position was excruciating. The doors and windows of my cell were left open for mosquitoes to bite me. When winter approached, I was laid on top of the gurney with very thin clothes on. Now, the windows were left open for the cold wind to blow in. Sometimes both my hands and feet were handcuffed to the cart. The handcuffs cut into my skin and flesh. At other times, the guards would put handcuffs on my ankles, which were very tight, then use the chain between the two cuffs to pull my legs up and down, so the handcuffs cut into my skin, causing even more pain. After they heard me moan in pain, they gloated, “This is an effective method” and deliberately continued to do it. For months I was tied to the gurney, which had been purchased by the labor camp officials specifically for torturing Falun Gong practitioners. I was handcuffed until the last day I was at Masanjia, which was extended beyond the original, illegal term I was given. When I went on hunger strikes, I was fed liquid food made of corn grits with chunks of lard, mixed with unknown drugs. The bowls and the nasal tubes that they used were not washed. Flies crawled all over them. The person conducting the forced feeding pulled my hair, and arbitrarily pinched and twisted various parts of my body. 

During my two and a half years at Masanjia, in total, I was handcuffed in a cell all by myself for a year and two months. I was kept handcuffed even when I was sleeping at night. I was handcuffed to the gurney for about nine months. I was not allowed to make any appeals regarding my sentencing or treatment, despite what is supposed to be allowed by Chinese law. I was also not allowed to write letters, make phone calls, or receive letters from home. In one instance, Wang Xiaofeng, head of the General Office of the women’s labor camp, tore up a letter from my family right in front of me. When I was held at the Special Monitoring Division from July to August 2009, all I was given to eat were rotten buns and leftover soup with vegetable leaves.

What I witnessed being done to others

Besides myself, on July 14, 2008, 50 people were transferred from Beijing to Masanjia, all of them Falun Gong practitioners. I later learned that there were a total of five groups brought up from Beijing that summer. Many of those transferred to Masanjia were Falun Gong practitioners who refused to be “transformed” in Beijing labor camps. Several were also held in Strict Monitoring Divisions or in small solitary confinement cells, including Ms. Zhang Yinying, Ms. Wang Lixin, Ms. Mao Guizhi, Ms. Lang Dongyue, Ms. Qiu Shuqin, and Ms. Su Wei. Among those who refused to be “transformed” were Ms. Wang Lijun and Ms. Tao Yuqin. Almost all of them were about to reach the end of their forced labor terms in Beijing. The authorities then arbitrarily extended their forced labor terms by half a year and took them to Masanjia for more severe torture. 

During July 2008, when we first arrived at Masanjia, Mr. Ma Jishan, head of the Management Section, and Mr. Liu Yong, head of the Security Section, led male thugs to beat these practitioners day and night. Every day I would hear shrieks and the sound of electric baton shocks burning a practitioner’s skin coming from the cells next to me, since we were all in the section of the camp where they put practitioners who remained steadfast in their faith. Many of these practitioners were not able to move their arms or legs after the torture sessions. Among the thugs, Mr. Li Jun, a deputy section head, and Mr. Wang Qi knew the best where to apply electric baton shocks in order to cause the victims the most possible pain.

On one occasion in November 2009, four elderly ladies were held at the Strict Monitoring Division of the No. 3 Division with me. They were Ms. Zhang Min, Ms. Sun Shujie, Ms. Liu Shiqin and Ms. Liu Yanqin. When they refused to put on inmate uniforms, the guards stripped them naked. For the next several days, they were forced to remain naked at all times, including when waiting in line to use the restroom, washing dishes, or having their meals. Ms. Sun Shujie is still being held at Masanjia. 

The perpetrators and personnel at Masanjia 

During my time at Masanjia, multiple individuals, both male and female, participated in torturing me.

• In September 2009, Ms. Pan Yanqiu, head of the Special Monitoring Division, pinched my nipples and beat me with wooden planks until I passed out. Pan also filmed me on video, while I was half-naked with my upper body exposed. She told me, “I’m taking video footage of you to post on the [overseas Falun Gong] Minghui website, so that they can all take a look.” In October 2009, I was lifted off the ground and hung from steel bars on the windows. My legs were split apart and tied to radiators. I had to relieve myself in my pants. Pan then used my bed sheets to wipe the urine off. 
• Ms. Zhang Jun, head of the No. 3 Division, kicked my private areas with leather shoes on. Zhang also clawed both sides of my mouth with sharp fingernails until my face bled badly. 
• On various occasions, Mr. Zhang Liang, a male thug, hit me with a mop handle, rammed my head against the wall causing dizziness and headaches, and spit phlegm into my mouth after it was pried open. 
• Ms. Wang Yanping, then head of the Supervision Section, was known for her ruthlessness. In October 2008, she rammed me with a 2-meter long wooden pole, while saying disdainfully, “You can go anywhere to file a complaint. But you have to get out of here alive first.” On another day during that same month, she asked me to recite the labor camp regulations and I refused. She punched me, kicked me with leather shoes on, and stomped on my foot. When an elderly practitioner in her sixties tried to get in between her and me to stop her, Wang pushed the elderly practitioner to the ground. When I wanted to file a complaint, she said, “You are not allowed.” I told her that was against the law. She said, “After you go out, you can go anywhere you like to file complaints. But not here.” She punched and kicked me. She also grabbed my hair and rammed my head against the wall and a table. Then she would shock me with electric batons while I was on the ground or handcuffed to a bed. She was later promoted to be head of the No. 2 Division in the women’s labor camp, which is the position she held when I left.
• Wang was not the only person rewarded after torturing practitioners at the camp. Later I learned that one of the female uniformed guards Ms. Shi Yu who had participated in torturing me the first day I arrived at Masanjia and who was deputy head of the No. 3 Division, was later promoted for her ruthlessness. By the time I left Masanjia, she had become the deputy director of the women’s labor camp. 
• Mr. Yang Jian, director of Masanjia Labor Camp, and Ms. Zhou Qin, one of the deputy directors of the women’s labor camp during the time I was held there, were often present when Falun Gong practitioners were tortured. Sometimes Yang and Zhou engaged in the beatings themselves. On one occasion in September 2009, Zhou shouted “Eagle’s Talon” and scratched her sharp fingernails into the acupuncture point on my upper lip and on my hand. Blood gushed out immediately.

In addition to the senior personnel at Masanijia, officials beyond the camp walls were also responsible for how I was treated. In July 2008, an official from the Beijing Forced Labor Department escorted the convoy that brought me to Masanjia because of the special importance attached to my case. She wanted the Masanjia guards to immediately inform authorities in Beijing when they succeeded in “transforming” me. This was so they could then take me back to Beijing and use me as an example to “transform” other practitioners. This goal contributed to the extreme torture I endured at Masanjia.

One labor camp guard told my husband that it was a deputy mayor of Beijing, who signed the paperwork that ordered our arrest on April 20, 2008. The guards also told me that if I died, it would officially be counted as a death due to illness. That way, it would not affect the camp’s performance assessment, where deaths due to accidents or abuse can lead to demerits. 

***

When the Chinese Communist Party first started the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, I went to peacefully appeal for them to stop, with the hope that the government would treat Falun Gong practitioners fairly. What awaited me was police custody. I have spent 7 of the last 11 years in custody. I often told the labor camp guards that Falun Gong is a good practice. I told them, “Do not lose your conscience and do things people should not do.” Some of them retorted, “Whoever gives me money, that’s who I will serve.” It is the CCP that has taken the hard-earned money of the Chinese people and given it to such scum who no longer have the slightest bit of human nature to ruthlessly suppress the Chinese people themselves.

Such is today’s China under the Communist Party’s control. It has reached such an absurd extent that even when lawyers like Gao Zhisheng and Li Heping try to hold the police accountable, it is the lawyers, rather than the perpetrators, who are arrested and punished. There is no recourse left for justice inside China, as it is the system itself that is carrying out the persecution I have described. We have thus documented what we have seen and experienced, and offer it to the outside world, so that those who wish to protect freedom and justice may better know what is happening and give hope to the people of China.

—

Appendix of the types of abuse I experienced in Masanjia

Physical Torture

1. I was beaten countless times with electric batons, wooden clubs, planks, and handcuffs.
2. Male and female officers grabbed my hair and rammed my head against the wall or a table.
3. Guards used a big ladle from the kitchen to hit my mouth, causing my mouth to bleed profusely. Ma Jishan, head of the Management Section at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, pulled a rope back and forth between my lips.
4. Ma Jishan and Chen Bing force-fed me unknown drugs. Ma kept asking if I was feeling numb or cold yet.
5. My hands and feet were handcuffed in painful positions many times, even when I was sleeping.
6. After being hung up, my eyes were covered with a black cloth. Several policemen then shocked me with electric batons under the armpit and on my inner thighs, neck, face, fingers and lower back, until pus came out.
7. For more than a month between September and October of 2009, every day I was tortured by at least fifteen people to the verge of death. When I couldn’t breathe, I would be force-fed emergency resuscitation medication, after which the torture would continue.
8. Sometimes my clothes were torn to shreds. I would then be hung up naked and shocked with electric batons. Officer Pan Yanqiu then hit me with a wooden plank and pulled on my nipples.
9. I was subjected to the “stretching torture” in a sealed torture room three times. I lost consciousness twice, and I was stretched while completely naked once.
10. Zhang Jun kicked me in the private areas while wearing leather shoes.
11. I was not allowed to use the restroom while undergoing the “stretching torture.” I had to relieve myself in my pants. They put a photo of Master Li [the founder of Falun Gong] under my feet [as a way of forcing me to disrespect him], and said an inordinate amount of insulting, humiliating things to me.
12. I was hung up more than twenty times for long periods. The longest stretch was for three days and three nights in mid-2008, during which time I was not allowed to eat, go to the bathroom, or fall asleep.
13. In late autumn 2009, I was hung up with my hands tied to metal bars on the window and both legs tied to heating pipes and spread apart. I had to urinate in my pants, and the urine was cleaned up with my bed sheets.
14. During summer nights in 2008 and 2009, I was tied to a gurney, with both arms secured to the wheels with handcuffs and both legs tied down. The pain was excruciating and the windows were left open to let the mosquitoes bite me while I was lying helpless in this position. I was not allowed to go to the restroom and had to urinate in my pants. During intensive sessions, I was also denied food and water. 
15. In mid-October 2009, when it got very cold at night in Shenyang, I was stripped down to very thin clothing and tied to the bed with the windows wide open in order to make me freeze. I was also not allowed to go to the restroom.
16. Policewomen Zhang Jun and Zhou Qin, as well as a male officer from the No. 1 Division scratched my face and hands with their fingernails, causing me to bleed profusely.
17. My hands and feet were handcuffed, with the cuffs cutting deep into my flesh. They then used the chain connecting the cuffs on my ankles to lift my legs up and down causing more pain as they cut into my flesh. 
18. While I was handcuffed to the gurney, guard Zhang Liang rammed my head against the wall, causing dizziness and headaches.
19. My mouth was forced open with a metal tool and then I was force-fed with drugs. They struck my mouth with a wooden plank until I was bleeding profusely. After prying my mouth open, policeman Zhang Liang spat phlegm into my mouth.
20. When I was short of breath from being tortured, police officer Peng Tao stuffed a towel into my mouth, nearly suffocating me.
21. I was forced to remain standing and motionless for long periods of time, the longest stint lasting three days and two nights. I was also forced to sit on a tiny stool for entire days at a time, while being watched by inmates constantly. If I did not follow directions to their satisfaction, they would report me to the guards, who would torture or physically punish me.
22. I was deprived of sleep for long periods of time. 
23. When I was held in the Special Supervision Division, I was only given moldy bread and leftover soup to eat.
24. When I went on hunger strike, they force-fed me with cornmeal gruel, mixed with pork lard and unknown drugs. The bowls and nasal tubes were not washed and with flies crawled all over them.
25. I was tied down to the small nurse’s cart, and forced to listen to tapes slandering Master Li [the founder of Falun Gong] and not allowed to sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes, a policeman would poke the bottoms of my feet or other parts of my body with a long stick.
26. In total, I was handcuffed in a cell by myself for a year and two months. I was kept handcuffed even when I was sleeping at night. I was handcuffed to a gurney for more than six months.
27. I was brutally force-fed drugs and money that my family sent was taken to pay for those drugs.
28. Dirty rags were stuffed into my mouth and my head and mouth were wrapped with tape.

Psychological abuse

1. I was not allowed to lodge any appeals. Writing letters, making phone calls, and receiving letters from home were generally not allowed. Wang Xiaofeng, head of the General Office of the women’s labor camp, tore up a letter from my family right in front of me.
2. I was stripped and handcuffed to a gurney. Pan Yanqiu filmed a video of me as I was in this position and half-naked, with my upper body exposed. She told me, “I’m taking video footage of you to post on the Minghui website, so that they can all take a look.”
3. When I didn’t cooperate with the guards’ demands, they would continually play tape recordings cursing and slandering Master Li. They also did this after hanging me up.
4. After my clothes were ripped to shreds, I was stripped naked and pushed outside of my cell, completely exposed to everyone there, including a male police officer named Yi Wei.