Masanjia (re-education camp)

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Masanjia ( Simplified Chinese : 马三家 劳教所, Traditional Chinese : 馬三家 勞教所; Pinyin : Mǎsānjiā Láojiào Suǒ) is a labor re-education camp in the Yuhong District, near Shenyang , in Liaoning Province , China. The facility is sometimes called the Liaoning Province Ideology Education School. Masanjia was first established in 1956 under the re-education-through-labor or Laojiao policy, and was expanded in 1999 to retain and "re-educate" followers of the spiritual practice of Falun Gong . According to former inmates, Falun Gong practitioners make up 50-80% of the inmates in the camp. Other inmates include petty criminals, prostitutes, drug addicts, supplicants, and members of other unapproved religious minorities such as underground Christians.

The women's department produces textiles. Several Falun Gong practitioners are reported to have been detained and mistreated here longer than expected. In 2007 there was a hunger strike. According to critics, the workshops manufacture products that contain toxic pollutants. Masanjia labor camp was mentioned in a report by a UN special rapporteur. It was also the subject of a documentary by Chinese journalist Du Bin , who was arrested as a result.

Followers of the spiritual Falun Gong practice have long tried to publicize the human rights violations taking place in the labor camp, which they consider to be among the most notorious in all of China. In addition to forced labor, the prisoners are said to be tortured with electric batons, force-fed, prolonged solitary confinement, and other ill-treatment. These allegations received international attention in 2013 when a Chinese magazine published an investigative report on Masanjia. It was quickly removed after the Chinese government issued a policy prohibiting the publication of any coverage of the story.

Establishment of the labor camp

The labor camp was established on March 9, 1956. In accordance with China's re-education-through-labor practices, people could be held in the labor camp without trial, often for petty crimes or political offenses. In July 1999, the Chinese party leader Jiang Zemin initiated a campaign to suppress and persecute Falun Gong , which the government said had 70 to 100 million followers. Those who refused to give up the practice were sent to forced labor camps for "transformation". To implement the campaign, Masanjia was expanded in October 1999 and the Second Women's Division was established, where inconvenient female Falun Gong practitioners were detained. This department was later merged with the 1st women's department .

The city of Masanjia itself does not have a bad reputation in China, only “the notorious labor camp outside the city. In China, Masanjia became the symbol of a gulag system from the Mao period, which was used to detain people for years without a court order. Former inmates reported severe abuse and torture to the ARD radio station in Beijing . Masanjia Forced Labor Camp is also not difficult to find, although it is almost never shown on the map, since everyone in Masanjia knows where it is ”.

Inmate population

According to a New York Times report published in June 2013, Falun Gong practitioners and members of underground Christian house churches were the bulk of the inmates. There were also prostitutes, drug addicts, and supplicants who were more persistent than the local authorities could bear. Former inmates said that uncomfortable Falun Gong practitioners had been subjected to more forced labor and more abuse.

Although the Chinese authorities did not disclose the exact number of Falun Gong practitioners held in the re-education-through-labor camps, they confirmed in January 2001 that at least 470 Falun Gong practitioners were detained in Masanjia. In August 2001, the official Chinese media reported that the labor camp had "transformed more than 90 percent of the 1,000 female Falun Gong practitioners housed there".

The Chinese website Civil Rights & Livelihood Watch reported that as of 2010 there were four teams in the camp, each with 200-300 prisoners. Witnesses in the camp reported that about 80% of the prisoners were Falun Gong, the rest were petitioners with general complaints against the government.

Torture allegations

There have been persistent reports of torture and other human rights abuses that have taken place in Masanjia. According to former inmates interviewed by the New York Times, Falun Gong practitioners were persistently and most severely ill-treated, but other groups were also subjected to abuse.

Yuan Ling, a Chinese reporter who interviewed five-year former Masanjia prisoners, said corporal punishment was common in the camp and some women were crippled as a result. A disclosure report by Yuan in Lens Magazine , China, described a variety of torture methods used in the camp. Detainees were shocked with electric batons in the face, hung by the arms, and beaten. Another method was the "tiger bench," where an inmate sits on a bench, tied at the waist and bent forward so that his hands and feet are immobilized and bricks are placed under his feet. The "death bed" torture method consisted of stretching a person's four limbs apart on a bed and remaining there for a long time. There was "maybe or not a hole on the bed for them to empty their bowels through," wrote the International Herald Tribune . Former female inmates described being held in solitary confinement for months, in cells with two square meters of floor space. In the cells, the women had no access to toilets, so they had to relieve themselves on the floors. Wang Chunying, who was detained in Masanjia in 2007, told the Japan Times that she was stretched out and handcuffed to two bunk beds for 16 hours, unable to eat, drink or sleep. Another former inmate mentioned that she had been handcuffed to a door in a standing position for two consecutive weeks.

Economic efficiency of the warehouse

According to a report made in 2013, the warehouse produced products, including military uniforms, for the domestic market, but also produced some items for export. Much of the work in the camp is involved in making clothes, such as uniforms for the police. Inmates said they also made Christmas wreaths for South Korea. Laborers for the camp were sometimes obtained by purchasing prisoners from local jurisdictions.

Inmates reported that Masanjia Camp officials simply bought petty criminals from other cities for 800 renminbi for six months of labor when there was a labor shortage. These included people like Zhang Ling, a 25-year-old from the eastern coastal city of Dalian. She mentioned that she was among a group of 50 young women who were rounded up by the police during a crackdown on illegal pyramid schemes and sold to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. She sewed buttons on military uniforms at the camp, but was released ten months early after her brother paid for her release.

Corinna-Barbara Francis, a China researcher with Amnesty International, told the New York Times that the abolition or substantial reform of the re-education-through-work system was frightening for those responsible. On the one hand, because it gives the police an easy way to deal with troublemakers, and on the other, because it can be lucrative for those who work within a system that consists of more than 300 camps. In addition to the profits the camp makes from the inmates' work, prison workers are demanding bribes from families of the inmates to allow early release or better treatment. "Given the considerable money that can be made in these places, the economic incentive to keep the system going is really powerful," concludes Francis.

Some products made in the labor camp

Among other things, products for Halloween were made in the warehouse, as well as Christmas wreaths, paper flowers, fabric flowers and silk flowers, decorative items such as circles, pagodas and hearts. Furthermore, coat lining that was filled with duck feathers and then given the label “Made in Italy”. Inmates were instructed by the guards to be particularly careful with handling items exported to the United States. Jia Yuhai, who now lives in New York after being imprisoned, said, "Whenever we had to make goods for export, they (the guards) would tell us to take special care."

Media coverage

On December 23, 2012, the Oregonian reported that an American woman named Julie Keith had found a handwritten note in a Halloween decoration she bought from Kmart. The letter was written alternately in Chinese and English. The letter, authenticated by CNN , said that the decoration was being assembled in Unit 8, Division 2 of Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. The letter described the forced labor conditions in the camp and mentioned that many of the prisoners were Falun Gong practitioners who were being held without trial. It is illegal under US law to import items that are manufactured using forced labor. US immigration and customs officials reportedly wanted to verify the letter's allegations. Kmart pointed out that they were unable to trace the product, plastic tombstones , back to the warehouse. In 2013, the alleged author of the letter appeared in Beijing. The man who gave his last name only as Zhang was a Falun Gong practitioner who was held in the camp. Zhang said he wrote about two dozen notes and wrapped them in products that were packaged with an English-language shipping destination.

In May 2016, Julie Keith managed to visit the author of the letter. After receiving the SOS note, she decided to help the clerk and handed the letter to a human rights organization. The author was a Chinese engineer named Sun Yi who was arrested by police in China in 2008 and detained in Masanjia Forced Labor Camp for practicing Falun Gong. Sun had written this cry for help, even though he knew that he might be tortured for it and risk his life. The story of his shocking experiences in the labor camp did not become known until after he was released. After Sun was released, he was so outwardly changed that his sister did not recognize him. He said that without his belief in Falun Gong, he probably would not have been able to endure the endless torment. Sun recovered after he could do the Falun Gong exercises again. In December 2016, Sun escaped from China and went to Indonesia . But he was deported back to China when his photo and name were mentioned in the media. In the summer of 2017, he decided to publish his story and wrote his will because he was afraid of being killed. Not long after, he was taken to a clinic and allegedly died of kidney failure. Sun's body was cremated without the consent of his family, which aroused suspicion among his family and friends.

Amelia Pang, an American writer, plans to publish a book that tells the shocking story of Sun. The torture Sun and other Falun Gong practitioners reportedly suffered the worst treatment in Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. Because the communist atheist regime wants to get prisoners of faith to give up their belief and mostly use brutal methods.

In April 2013, the Chinese magazine Lens of the Financial News Media Group ( 財 訊 傳媒 集團 , Cái xùn chuánméi jítuán ) published a 14-page disclosure report "Escape from Masanjia" ( 走出 「馬三家」 ) about abuse at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp . The 20,000-word investigation story was based on interviews with about 20 former inmates who recalled having been subjected to forced labor and a variety of torture methods. The article caused a sensation in China and revived calls for reform of the forced labor system. On April 8, just two days after the report was released, at least 420,000 people had participated in online discussions about the report. The next day, the Communist Party's Propaganda Department issued instructions banning news organizations from "reconstructing, reporting, or commenting on the Lens report."

Shortly after the Lens article was published, the filmmaker and former New York Times photographer Du Bin released a documentary about the Masanjia labor camp called "Women Above Ghost's Head." According to former prisoner Liu Hua, the title indicates that Masanjia was built in a cemetery. The film was banned in mainland China and Du Bin was arrested.

Web links

Coordinates: 41 ° 53 ′ 7.8 "  N , 123 ° 13 ′ 46.2"  E

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ China Torture Survivors at Risk of Abuse, Death after Escaping from Labor Camp , China View Word Press, October 28, 2008, accessed May 5, 2017.
  2. ↑ Secret Note Found in Kmart Holiday Decorations Reveals Labor Camp Horrors , The Falun Dafa Information Center, December 27, 2012, accessed May 5, 2017.
  3. ↑ a b Didi Kirsten Tatlow, Story of Women's Labor Camp Abuse Unnerves Even China , The New York Times, April 11, 2013, accessed May 5, 2017.
  4. ↑ a b Investigative Report on Masanjia Labor Camp , World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, April 23, 2013, accessed May 5, 2017.
  5. ↑ a b Ruth Kirchner, Serious Torture for Unwelcome Chinese , Deutschlandfunk, May 20, 2013, accessed on May 5, 2017.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Andrew Jacobs, Behind Cry for Help From China Labor Camp , The New York Times, June 11, 2013, accessed May 5, 2017.
  7. ↑ Veron Mei-ying Hung, Protection of Human Rights in the Context of Punishment of Minor Crimes in China ( Memento of March 3, 2004 in the Internet Archive ), United States Congressional Executive Commission on China, July 26, 2002, accessed on May 5 , 2004 . May 2017.
  8. ↑ Fang Xiao, Petitioners Reveal Brutalities in Masanjia Forced Labor Camp , The Epoch Times, June 26, 2010, accessed May 5, 2017.
  9. ↑ Shaun Tandon, Fleeing China, couple urge help for Falungong ( February 27, 2014 memento on the Internet Archive ), AFP, Washington, DC, April 23, 2011, accessed May 5, 2017.
  10. ↑ a b Spotlight shines on China's labor camps , The Japan Times, May 27, 2013, accessed May 5, 2017.
  11. ↑ Jing Gao, Torture methods at a Chinese gulag, or reeducation-through-labor camp ( Memento from June 30, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), are exposed by Chinese media, Ministry of Tofu, April 9, 2013, accessed on May 5 2017.
  12. ^ A b Magazine Exposé Reinvigorates Calls to End RTL , Dui Hua Human Rights Journal, April 11, 2013, accessed on May 5, 2017.
  13. ↑ a b Rachel Stark, Halloween decorations carry haunting message of forced labor , The Oregonian, December 23, 2012, accessed May 5, 2017.
  14. ↑ a b Chinese sender of hidden cry for help found in Halloween decorations , Epoch Times, June 13, 2013, accessed May 5, 2017.
  15. ↑ The SOS in my Halloween decorations'. BBC News, October 29, 2018, accessed October 29, 2018 .
  16. ↑ Steven Jiang, Chinese labor camp inmate tells of true horror of Halloween 'SOS' , CNN, November 7, 2013, accessed May 5, 2017.
  17. ↑ a b c d Call for help from Chinese labor camp: Woman finds shock message in Halloween kit , Epoch Times, December 22, 2017, accessed December 23, 2017.
  18. ↑ Women Above Ghost's Head: The Women of Masanjia Labor Camp , 60 minutes youtube.com, accessed May 5, 2017.
  19. ↑ Lee Tung, 'The Ghosts Walked the Earth, While We Lived in Hell' , Radio Free Asia, May 6, 2013, accessed May 5, 2017.
  20. ↑ Edward Wong, Journalist Held in Beijing, Friends Say , The New York Times, June 12, 2013, accessed May 5, 2017.