Torture, especially the sexual torture, of Falun Gong practitioners

China Strapped to the Tiger Bench: the
Degradation of a Nation Reflections on
the investigation with attorney Gao
Zhisheng of the torture, especially the
sexual torture, of Falun Gong
practitioners

By Jiao Guobiao Special to The Epoch
Times Dec 19, 2005

A group of Falun Gong practitioners
display some of the torture methods used
by the Chinese government on Falun Gong
practitioners in China. The woman in the
right is sitting on a tiger bench with
her hands and feet tied up. (The Epoch
Times) High-res image (600 x 398 px, 72
dpi)

Dr. Jiao Guobiao is a journalism
professor at Peking University, and was
recently fired for his outspoken views
on censorship. In an article posted on
the Web site of Voice of America, Dr.
Jiao describes China's censorship
methods as an "information pigsty"
surrounded by "stinking" stones that
separate China from the outside world,
and the Chinese news media from the
Chinese people. In this article, he
reflects on the investigation of torture
of Falun Gong practitioners that he and
lawyer Gao Zhisheng carried out. This
article contains graphic descriptions of
torture.

Tiger bench! Tiger bench! Still the
tiger bench!

In a civilized country, even if there
were just one incident of the government
using the tiger bench on its citizens,
this government would no longer be able
to hold power. But these days, we have
been talking on a daily basis with
people who have been tortured on tiger
benches. We have eaten from the same
table, and sometimes even slept in the
same bed. Many of them have experienced
tiger benches not just once, but many
times. Once Wang Yuhuan "lived" on the
tiger bench for three days and two
nights, going in and out of
consciousness. Those so-called "people's
policemen" twisted her arms every so
often. Her two shoulders felt as if they
are on wheels that turned all
directions, and her arms, being tied up,
were flung from the back to the front
over her head, while her head was
violently pushed forward in between her
legs; the iron rod tied to her front
almost cut her chest into two pieces.
Then, her tied-up arms would be flung
from the front to the back, while her
head was pushed all the way back, with
the back of her head crushing again the
outside of the backboard; her neck was
on the verge of being broken by the top
edge of the backboard. Those "people's
policemen" would also untie her, but
force her arms around her back so far
that her two hands would press upward
together miraculously as if they were
pressing together in the front.

While listening to the peaceful
narratives of their horrific experiences
by these people whose lives have been
extricated from cruel torture, I
sometimes fell into a momentary
illusion. Looking at these men and women
in front of me, speaking intently with
no hatred and resentment, I wondered
whether they were ghosts who had passed
away, or were they gods with eternal
life? Here we were together-was I in the
human world or in hell?

Tiger bench is another name for torture.
All kinds of cruel torture instruments
that we have heard from legends are
actually still alive in the world, and
these Falun Gong practitioners have
experienced all the torture methods that
Sister Jiang [1] suffered in the
concentration camp of Zhazi Cave. Even
those methods Sister Jiang did not
experience, such as electrocution of
internal organs wherein an electric
baton is inserted into the victim's anus
until he or she dies, have been
experienced by these truth-seeking Falun
Gong practitioners.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has
often said the Japanese should apologize
to the Chinese people. The torture Wang
Yuhuan experienced is no more civilized
or kind than those once inflicted by the
Japanese people on the Chinese. The
Chinese government should first
apologize to the Chinese people, before
it can request righteously that Japan
apologize to the Chinese people.
Recently an old wreck named Tang Jiaxuan
said human rights in China are better
than those in the U.S. The U.S.
policemen, however, cannot even imagine
what the tiger bench looks like, but it
is still used on the Chinese people. If
variety of "experience" can also count
as a kind of human rights, then the
American people clearly fall far behind
the Chinese people.

The "political issue" is the source of
all evil. The disasters suffered by the
Chinese people in the past few decades
have all come from the "political
issue." I would hope the People's
Congress would establish an item in the
legislation, forbidding the treatment of
national matters in the name of the
"political issue." The "political issue"
is a term that violates and obscures the
law. As soon as the "political issue" is
attached, nobody is allowed to
intercede, and all laws can be slipped
beneath the feet. The 6-10 Office , a
specialized organization, will be
recorded in the history of the suffering
by the Chinese nation in an image even
uglier than the Central Cultural
Revolution Group. Local 6-10 Offices not
only persecute Falun Gong, they also
exert pressure to break the families of
Falun Gong practitioners, and ask the
school principles to bar the children of
Falun Gong practitioners from attending
school. The CCP's Propaganda Department
disallows any reflection on the Cultural
Revolution, and thus the 6-10 Office
repeats the Cultural Revolution. The
Cultural Revolution, the CCP's
Propaganda Department, and the 6-10
Office will, in similarly notorious
images, all enter into the long history
of brutality in the Chinese nation.

In the history of this nation since the
CCP seized power, China has suffered
from large-scale persecution of
intellectuals; the CCP remembers this
and so it no longer persecutes
intellectuals on a large scale. China
has suffered from large-scale
persecution of veteran cadres; the CCP
remembers it and so it no longer
conducts revolution by kicking away
government. Until now, China has not
suffered from large-scale persecution of
people with spiritual beliefs, so CCP
held that it would be able to wipe out
Falun Gong practitioners like the autumn
wind wipes away the leaves.

The Roman Empire was not able to
eliminate Christianity in 400 years,
thus we now have the tradition of
religious tolerance and freedom of
belief in Europe and the USA. China has
no such a tradition, and from this
angle, Falun Gong practitioners are
suffering for our entire nation. They
are paying the cost for the Chinese
nation to become mature-they are paying
for all of us. Therefore, I, in my own
name, salute these men and women who
have come off tiger benches alive and
who are living between the worlds of
deities and ghosts!

I have to mention that during the entire
process of our investigation, we have
heard very frequently of sexual abuse
and sexual torture toward female Falun
Gong practitioners. Even the religious
persecution in the European history and
the Nazi's persecution of Jewish people
seemed to show more constrain than our
"people's police" and more respect for
women's rights. Wang Yuhuan, over 50
years old, said that those policemen of
a younger generation not only ripped off
all her clothing, but also ordered her
to urinate in front of seven or eight
policemen. This was not enough; these
young men took out their penises and
urinated on Wang Yuhuang, who was their
mother's age, saying, "You are not
married, right? Today we want you to
experience men." Those bastards-aren't
they afraid "dragons will snatch it
off?"

There are those policemen who showed
particular interest in women's vaginas,
shocking them with electric batons and
stabbing with brushes to scrub them. I
do not understand what is it that they
enjoy? Who does not have a private part-
your mothers, your wives, your sisters,
your daughters, all your female
ancestors and your female offspring? I
make a solemn suggestion to our
President Hu Jintao: Why don't you
organize a conference call and order
your subordinates not to show that much
interest in women's private parts?
Haven't we all come out of women's
vaginas? Can you ask the men in our
Chinese nation to show more respect for
women's private parts? What's the
difference between vaginas of other
women and those of our wives, mothers,
sisters, daughters and daughters-in-law?
Did they not treat you well? Were you
not born from there?


[1] Sister Jiang, or Jiang Zhuyun, was a
Communist Party member who was arrested
by the Kuomintang army in 1948 and
imprisoned in Zhazi Cave concentration
camp. There were questions about what
tortures she endured, but the Communist
literature, especially through a
historical novel called "Hong Yan," made
her into a legendary hero for the
tortures she suffered, including, tiger
bench. Sister Jiang has been a symbol of
torture sufferer in contemporary China.

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