http://www.boston.com/dailynews/143/world/China_gives_reporters_glimpse_:.shtml

China gives reporters glimpse of labor camp dubbed 'living hell' by critics

By John Leicester, Associated Press, 5/23/2001 05:10

MASANJIA RE-EDUCATION-THROUGH-LABOR CAMP, China (AP) China granted foreign reporters a controlled first glimpse into its widely criticized ''re-education-through-labor'' system, decried by the Falun Gong for torture and abuse.

But in closely monitored conversations Tuesday, inmates said they were not tortured and knew of no abuse.

The Falun Gong spiritual movement maintains that the black metal gates and gray walls of the Masanjia labor camp hide unspeakable crimes. The sect has called the camp ''a living hell,'' where guards shock female Falun Gong followers with electric batons and toss them naked into cells with male prisoners.

In an effort to dispute such claims, Chinese authorities took five foreign media organizations including The Associated Press on a three-hour tour Tuesday of parts of the camp, located amid rice paddies on the outskirts of Shenyang, in the northeastern province of Liaoning.

Reporters were shown a neatly kept exercise yard where inmates played basketball, a clean dining hall and kitchen where cooks used shovels to stir giant woks of food and rice, a visitation room and an office building. Reporters also were shown sections of a three-story detention center where Falun Gong practitioners, who wore blue and white track suits during the visit, sleep in dormitories with perfectly made bunk-beds and are forced to watch educational videos and attend classes aimed at breaking their allegiance to the group.

''Transformed'' followers said they now regard Falun Gong as a cult which is how the government views the group it banned in July 1999. But other practitioners in the camp said their faith in Falun Gong and Li Hongzhi, the movement's U.S.-based founder, was unshaken.

''I still think it's good,'' said Luo Xiujie, who said she has practiced Falun Gong for five years and was sent to the camp for protesting in Beijing. She said she intends to continue practicing when she is released. ''I've benefitted from it,'' she said.

In one room, a police officer and a follower who said she has recanted pressed an elderly inmate to do the same. The elderly woman, Wang Jinlan, said she had been in the camp since October but still follows ''Master Li.''

''She will come to a realization in the end,'' said Li Qi, the former follower. ''There is hope for everyone.''

Falun Gong attracted millions of followers in the 1990s with its slow-motion exercises and philosophies drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and Li's ideas. Followers say it promotes health, moral living and even supernatural powers.

The government banned the group as a threat to communist rule and public safety, and thousands have been detained in the crackdown. The government accuses Li of controlling followers for his own political and financial ends.

Masanjia is divided into nine camps, one of them for female practitioners of Falun Gong, said the facility's director, Zhang Chaoying. The complex, spread across 4,900 acres with fields and factories, was established 44 years ago and holds more than 3,000 inmates, he said.

He said 483 female practitioners are in the camp, although reporters saw only about a third that number.

Zhang refused to say how many Falun Gong practitioners the camp has held.

A Hong Kong-based human rights group has estimated that 10,000 practitioners have been detained in labor camps across China. Falun Gong has put the figure at 5,000. China's government-run Xinhua News Agency said in February that Masanjia alone has held 1,000 female practitioners and ''successfully re-educated'' more than 90 percent of them.

Su Jing, who heads the women's section, said inmates who violate camp rules can be placed in solitary confinement ''to make them think about what they have done.''

Falun Gong Web sites have labeled Su ''an extremely evil person.'' She was friendly during the visit, and denied inmates have been beaten, electrically shocked or forced to squat for hours in painful positions accusations leveled in postings on Falun Gong Web sites.

Su said she and her colleagues have received threatening letters and harassing phone calls from Falun Gong practitioners. She dismissed as ''groundless fabrication'' Falun Gong claims last year that guards stripped 18 practitioners and forced them into cells with men.

''My fellow police officers and I are very angry about this,'' she said. ''Every time we redeem a Falun Gong practitioner we are attacked.''

A Falun Gong spokeswoman based in New York, Gail Rachlin, dismissed the visit as propaganda and said China had months to hide any abuses.

''There have been women in that particular (camp) as well as in others who have been persecuted and tortured, including to death, and physically abused with electric batons. Some of them can't walk for weeks,'' said Rachlin.

China says some practitioners have committed suicide in custody but none have died from mistreatment.

China's decision to allow the reporters' visit comes as Beijing is seeking support in its battle with Toronto and Paris to play host to the 2008 Summer Olympics. The 2008 host city will be named on July 13.

China has long faced international criticism for its labor camp system. The top U.N. human rights official, Mary Robinson, has urged China to abolish the camps. Chinese critics say the system is illegal and lacks oversight.

Police can send detainees to labor camps for up to three years without trial. China says its nearly 300 re-education-through-labor camps last year held 300,000 people. The number appears to be increasing: they reportedly held 230,000 people in 1997.

Two organizers of the visit said they believed China had never before allowed foreign reporters inside a camp. It also was thought to be the first time China has let them interview followers who renounced Falun Gong.

Reporters were accompanied by officials throughout the visit and were told they could not talk to inmates playing basketball or in two classrooms receiving lessons on mental health and Chinese laws.

Reporters were allowed to freely question other inmates, but officials were generally within earshot.

''I hope that all those who haven't transformed come to Masanjia,'' said Li Fu, a 50-year-old university researcher serving a two-year sentence for distributing Falun Gong pamphlets. ''Banning Falun Gong was absolutely correct.''

-- Anonymous, May 23, 2001