User:Asdfg12345/Torture Methods

Alleged Torture Methods

Falun Gong related many websites, independent organisations monitoring the treatment of Falun Gong by the Chinese government, as well as human rights organisations and other NGOs, have published reports of alleged torture or mistreatment of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese government. Along with firsthand accounts of alleged torture or mistreatment, some publications contain compilations of the alleged torture methods used against Falun Gong practitioners. The United Nations Reports on China’s Persecution of Falun Gong (2004) lists 31 different forms of torture, with multiple variations on each type, while Falun Gong sources have suggested that up to 100 different forms of torture are in use. The main purpose of torture is to have suspected Falun Gong practitioners sign "repentance statements" or statements denouncing the practice, and to have them stop practicing Falun Gong. One variation of some of the torture methods reported as most common are listed below, with some of the similar methods being combined.

Shocking with electricity

The use of electric batons by police officers and prison guards is reported as the most widespread form of torture used against Falun Gong practitioners. The Falun Dafa Information Center claims that the batons carry voltages of up to 300 000 volts, and are used to shock the sensitive areas of practitioners' bodies, such as mouths, centers of the palms, bottoms of the feet, as well as breasts and genitals. Often more than one baton is applied at one time. Police are reported to use homemade versions of these devices, which are more powerful: “The skin will break open and bleed in every place that receives a shock from this device.”

Tan Yongjie reported being tied to a pillar, with one guard heating up a rusted iron rod on an electric burner until the rod turned red, then pressing it against his legs while asking: “Do you still want to practice Falun Gong?” Faluninfo.net says: “His legs shook and he cried out loudly. He was in so much pain that he lost control of his bowel functions. The guards then dragged him back to his small cell and locked him in. He could neither walk nor sleep because of the pain.”

Forced to stand, sit or squat for a long time

These are listed in the UN report as three different forms of torture, and each have their own variations. This form of torture is reported to last “for many days”, and is often accompanied by the deprivation of food, sleep, water and use of the toilet. Sometimes, convicted prisoners watch over practitioners during this type of torture. Failure to hold the positions is said to result in being beaten, shocked with electric batons, kicked or slapped. The sitting and squatting forms may result in necrosis in the buttocks, muscle spasms and nerve damage.

Burning

The Falun Dafa Information Center says they have received “numerous reports” of torture in the form of burning. Reported instruments include car lighters, irons, hot metal rods (see image) or cigarettes. The UN report states that the parts of the body targeted by this form of torture include the fingers, toes, faces, nipples and vagina. In some cases, this form of torture is reported to have been used to induce practitioners to state that they will stop practicing Falun Gong. In the case of Wang Huajun, Hubei Province, after being seized for speaking publicly about the Chinese government's alleged persecution of Falun Gong, she was "beaten viciously" by police, and later on the verge of death "...dragged outside of the city hall, drenched in gasoline, and set ablaze."

Force-Feeding

The Falun Dafa information center states that over 10% of all confirmed deaths of Falun Gong practitioners in custody are a result of force feeding torture, and provides a list of the purported confirmed deaths. The UN report claims that it is the number one cause of deaths. Both Faluninfo and the UN report contextualize this activity not as an attempt by police officers to nourish practitioners who have used hunger strikes as a form of protest, but as a form of either punishment or torture. The UN report states that the purpose is “…to punish practitioners and to cause so much pain that they will renounce Falun Gong practice. To that end, the police have used many different means to cause excruciating pain and injury…” Some examples given are: the insertion and withdrawing of feeding tubes in a violent way which leads to death through puncturing the lungs; leaving the feeding tubes in the stomach for prolonged periods; knocking out teeth to enable force-feeding, including use of pliers and crowbars, or boaring holes in the side of the mouth; force-feeding of either salt water, vinegar, straight alcohol, hot pepper oil, boiling water, or urine and feces.

Chinaview, an independent website focused on human rights abuses in China, states that in the Summer of 2003 the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp was the first to begin force-feeding Falun Gong practitioners with human urine and excrement, and that “…the Chinese government awarded them for this innovation, and sent labour camp staff from around the country to learn this procedure.”

Sexual Abuses

Amnesty International's "Falun Gong Persecution Factsheet" lists sexual abuses as one of the forms of torture Falun Gong practitioners are subject to. Further details are provided in the UN report and on Falun Gong related websites. One article on Clear Harmony, a Falun Gong website, states that in June 2000 "...eighteen Falun Gong women being held at the Masanjia Labour Camp in Liaoning province were stripped naked and thrown into prison cells with violent male criminals, who were encouraged to rape and abuse the women." The article later asserts that of the over 44,000 documented cases of torture and severe abuse of Falun Gong practitioners in China, many have involved sexual abuse or rape. Gao Zhisheng, a prominent Beijing-based human rights lawyer, in his third open letter to the Beijing leadership stated that:

“Among the true accounts of unbelievable brutality, among the records of the government's inhuman torture of its own people, 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. Almost every woman's genitals and breasts or every man's genitals have been sexually assaulted during the persecution in a most vulgar fashion. Almost all who have been persecuted, be they male or female, were first stripped naked before any torture. No language or words could describe or re-create our government's vulgarity and immorality in this respect. Who with a warm body could afford to stay silent when faced with such truths?”

The UN report provides a list of some of the alleged, female-specific, sexual violations, including rape and gang rape—sometimes by police officers directly, sometimes by throwing female Falun Gong practitioners into prison cells—forced abortion, pinching or biting off of nipples, sticking needles through the nipples, electric baton shock of nipples and vaginas, rape with bottles or batons, burning the vagina with a cigar, inserting and rotating brushes inside the vagina and inserting hot pepper paste into the vagina. The section concludes with the statement that “This torture has often inflicted permanent psychological and physical damage on the practitioners in question, and on more than one occasion the practitioners have later died under mysterious circumstances.”

Miscellaneous

Some of the other forms of reported torture mentioned in the UN report, human rights websites, or Falun Gong related websites employed to have Falun Gong practitioners renounce the practice, include: suffocation with plastic bags, buckets, or thick, soaked paper; ramming bamboo sticks through the fingernails; beating the buttocks with boards up to hundreds of times; exposure to hemp plants; being hand-cuffed and hung up for prolonged periods; being tied-up and hung up for prolonged periods; various forms of solitary confinement including being locked in a small cell or cage, tied to a board, or put in a water dungeon, all for prolonged periods of time; having icy or boiling water poured over the head (the UN report states this is a “routine” form of torture); forced to stay in extreme weather; various types of deprivation of physiological needs, as well as beatings.