“Bitter Winter” has reported previously on the dreadful situation of women prisoners of
conscience in the Heilongjiang Provincial Women’s Prison, nicknamed “the cemetery of Falun Gong ladies.” Two female Falun Gong practitioners were persecuted to death there this year.
Notwithstanding the international protests, the horror continues. Human rights organizations have now received the testimony of Liu Jinping, a 43-year-old female Falun Gong practitioner from Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang, who has become another inmate in the notorious jail.
Liu was arrested at home on May 14, 2021. She was tried by Xiangyang District Court on December 31, 2021, and was sentenced to 3 and a half years and fined 15,000 yuan on January 6, 2022. She appealed, and the Jiamusi Intermediate Court upheld the original verdict in April 2022. In late 2022, Liu was transferred to the Heilongjiang Provincial Women’s Prison.
As she reports, Liu was first imprisoned in Group 5 on the fifth floor of the intensive training area. Because she refused to sign the so-called “four statements,” renouncing and denouncing Falun Gong, eight prisoners, under the direction of the prison guards, beat and scolded her, forcing her to sit without cushions on a small bench until dawn, without being allowed to sleep. She also reported that “each Falun Gong practitioner in the prison is monitored by several inmates around the clock, even when they use the restroom. They are only allowed to urinate during the day and can only have bowel movements between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m. As a result, many practitioners have soiled their pants. They are also not allowed to get near each other, so there is no sharing of information among them, including the torture they have gone through.”
After she was tortured in Group 5 for some time, she was transferred to Group 6.
Again, the inmates in Group 6 forced her to sit on a small bench without moving for long hours. If she leaned slightly or bent down, she was badly beaten. Liu went on a hunger strike to protest, which only made the torture worse. Reportedly, “Liu’s buttocks developed sores and bled after long-term sitting on the small stool. Once, she was kicked her off the stool again, causing her wounds to bleed. Despite her condition, she was still forced to sit on the stool. When Liu had to use the restroom, she struggled to pull down her underwear as it had stuck to the open sores on her buttocks. [Inmate] Han yelled at her to hurry up and threatened to yank off her underwear. Such threats were commonplace. There was another practitioner, also forced to sit on the small stool for long hours, who had the flesh ripped off her buttocks when another guard forcibly pulled down her underwear.”
It seems that Liu is now back in Group 5, where the inmates incited by the guard continue to prevent her from sleeping. She has become extremely weak.
Although so far unsuccessful, international denunciations of the horrific situation in Heilongjiang Provincial Women’s Prison should continue. They may have some effect in the future, if the CCP will start perceiving the prison as a public relations liability. — Bitter Winter
