May 8, 2013
In China’s Masanja Labor Camp female prisoners are “tortured unto madness or death.”
Propaganda posters by Cheng Guoying (程国英), 1999. Left: ‘Firmly support the decision of the Central Committee to deal with the illegal organization of ‘Falun Gong” Right: ‘Uphold science, eradicate superstition.’ Photos: Sean Hoyland, chineseposters.net via Wikipedia.
In imperial China, when one dynasty was in decline, different rebellious peasants and heterodox religions working hand-in-hand threw society into turmoil. This happened especially during the last three dynasties, Yuan, Ming and Qing. One of these heterodox religions was the White Lotus Sect. Founded at the end of Mongol era in the 13th century, White Lotus attracted proletariats from urban and rural populations like a magnet when the political and social situation was in disorder. The emergence of the quasi-Buddhist religion alarmed the rulers, because they knew for whom the bell tolled.
Today, some people in China freely associate the White Lotus Sect with the religious movement known as Falun Gong. This connection was made on April 25, 1999, after more than ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners emerged out of nowhere and surrounded the power center of Zhongnanhai. The demonstration chilled the CCP, but with lightning speed party chief Jiang Zemin launched a campaign to strike hard against the “cult.” Consequently, the 610 Office was established to handle the Falun Gong movement.
It is said that the government’s policy in dealing with the Falun Gong is to “ruin their reputation, cut off their economic resources, [and] eliminate them physically.” Since such a policy was adopted, horror stories and pictures of its effects have been leaked to the public. According to the reports, Falun Gong followers have been tortured, thrown into re-education labor camps without trial, and their organs have been removed for medical transplants while they were still alive. If the gas chamber was the Nazis’ final solution to the Jews, one can say the labor camp is the Chinese government’s final solution to the Falun Gong. “To be or not to be” is still a searing question in today’s China.
Recently, the outside world learned about one of these re-education camps—the Masanja Labor Camp in Shenyang province—through a prison diary written by Liu Hua, a Falun Gong member. Luckily, when one of Liu’s fellow inmates, Mrs. Wang Guilan, left the camp in September 2011, security did not find the stuff she smuggled out—namely, Liu’s diary, which she hid in her vagina. This precious prison diary discloses the cruel reality of how female prisoners are tortured unto madness or death. They are also forced to work 15 hours a day, with the minimal compensation of 10 yuan ($1.60) a month.