Former prisoners reveal horrific torture taking place in Chinese prisons

Australia spokeswoman Dr. Sophia Bryskine said the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners was still extensive, with many being locked up “with no legal proceedings.”

“In our recent research and communications we have focused predominantly on prisoners of conscience as the scale of abuse remains vast,” she told news.com.au.

Bryskine said China was committing state-sanctioned human rights atrocities on a mass level and that Australia, along with the other nations, needed to immediately act and condemn it.

China is Australia’s largest export market for both goods and services, accounting for nearly a third of total exports, and a growing source of foreign investment.

In 2015, Australia signed a landmark free trade agreement with China, with total trade worth almost $160 billion in 2013-14.

But how much does Australia really know about its largest trading partner?

“Sadly, the global awareness of this mass murder taking place in China is still very limited,” Bryskine said.

 

Since the Chinese government outlawed Falun Gong, it has detained thousands — most likely hundreds of thousands — of practitioners, according to a 2008 report by the Congressional Commission on China.

“One hundred and twenty-two Chinese government websites regularly report detentions of Falun Gong ‘criminal suspects’ and some provincial and local authorities offer rewards as high as 5,000 yuan ($732 US) to informants who report Falun Gong ‘escaped criminals,’” the report read.

In 2006, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Novak, concluded that 66 percent of all prisoners in China were Falun Gong practitioners.

A 2014 report by Human Rights Watch on police torture and ill treatment of suspects revealed that while China introduced laws to curb violence toward detainees, torture was still routine in Chinese jails, with police flouting regulations and courts ignoring rules designed to exclude evidence and confessions obtained by mistreatment.

In December 2015, the United Nations Committee Against Torture gave Beijing one year to report back on progress made in implementing key areas of the UN Convention Against Torture.

“The committee remains seriously concerned over consistent reports indicating that the practice of torture and ill treatment is still deeply entrenched in the criminal justice system, which overly relies on confessions as the basis for convictions,” the committee said.

At the two-day hearing to review China’s record on torture, held for the first time since 2008, China denied it held political prisoners and said torture was banned, to derision from dissidents.

According to witness accounts, it’s those persecuted for their beliefs who are the main targets of the most brutal torture, abuse and killings in China’s correctional facilities.

Some of those who escaped persecution and resettled in Australia after being granted refugee status have shared their shocking stories with news.com.au in a bid to expose the scale and severity of the human rights abuses in China and help bring them to an end.

Sleep deprivation and isolation

Liu had a promising career ahead of him in the field of chemical technology when he was robbed of his freedom and “taken away” to endure the worst years of his life. Life, for him, would never be the same again.

He was a student studying chemical technology at the China University of Petroleum who constantly produced top grades and was well liked by his peers. He was also well known as a Falun Gong practitioner.

Liu said some students who knew that he would graduate and easily secure a career were jealous and so reported him to authorities for practising Falun Gong.

He doesn’t speak English, but his deeply haunted eyes tell a story that transcends language.

“(Police) caught me without providing any reason, just by finding Falun Gong materials on my computer at the school,” Liu said through a translator.

After he was arrested, Liu was sent straight to a detention centre, where he stayed for one month.

“There was no due process, no interrogation, no procedure followed,” he said.

“When (my sentence) started, I was made to sit on a small stool, a plastic stool, for a long period without moving.

“I was forced to sit there all day and not use any toilet.“When they saw it was not working (to change my beliefs), they had me stand instead. Stand for a whole day, until my legs were swollen. When that didn’t work, they reduced the hours I slept.

“They woke me up by putting a needle into my nails. If you slept for three hours, it became two, then one, then no sleep at all. They would continue torturing you this way until you submit.”

Liu was eventually locked in an isolation cell for one year. He said it was the same belief that landed him in the labour camp that helped him through his darkest days.

“I was trying to stick to the principles of truth, compassion and tolerance and not act with any hatred or violence,” he said.

“At that time my major fear was that I couldn’t really withstand the torture and abuses and that I would give up.”

Liu said that in the end, he “couldn’t stand it anymore,” so agreed to sign a statement declaring he would stop practising Falun Gong.

“I didn’t really give up,” he said.

“The one thing that helped me get through without dying is that I wanted to expose such atrocities.”

Electric shock

Falun Gong practitioner Hongbin Lin, 43, was an officer in the Chinese navy who went from “heaven to hell” when he was persecuted for his spiritual beliefs.

He spent one-and-a-half years in a forced labour camp, despite not being charged or convicted of any crimes. Upon his release from detention, he wrote “Falun Gong is good” on a banner in 2002.