[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 61 (Monday, April 3, 1995)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E758-E760]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


  TESTIMONY BEFORE SUBCOMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL OPERATIONS AND HUMAN 
                                 RIGHTS

                                 ______


                           HON. FRANK R. WOLF

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 3, 1995
  Mr. WOLF. Mr. Speaker, I just returned from one of the most moving 
hearings I have ever attended. Six survivors of the Chinese labor camp 
system, the Laogai, told their stories of life inside the prison. These 
are stories every Member of Congress and every American 
[[Page E759]] should read. I am submitting the first three accounts for 
the Record. The others will follow in coming days.
  I hope all my colleagues will take these powerful stories to heart. 
Our China policy does not take these brave people, and the many like 
them who are still suffering in China today, into account.
 Testimony of Tang Boiqiao, Laogai Survivor, before the U.S. House of 
  Representatives, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human 
                         Rights, April 3, 1995

       My name is Tang Boiqiao, and I am a former student of the 
     Hunan Teachers' College. In July of 1989, I was arrested by 
     the Communists because of my organizing and participating in 
     the Hunan students' movement. I was held until July of 1990 
     before finally being sentenced to three years detention. My 
     ``crime'' was called ``counter-revolutionary propagandizing 
     and incitement''. In October of that year, I was transferred 
     to the Hunan Province Longxi Prison for reform through labor. 
     In January 1991, I was unexpectedly released from prison.
       After my release, I was again arrested because of my 
     continued involvement in the popular movements and human 
     rights activities. Following the summer of 1991, I fled 
     China. In April of 1992, I entered the United States and 
     sought political asylum. My reason for coming here today is 
     to share with you my experiences while in the Laogai.
       I was first arrested in July of 1989 in Guangdong Province, 
     after which I was held in three different detention centers 
     where I was forced to labor with my fellow prisoners. While 
     at the Guangdong Number 1 Detention Center, I made toys which 
     had the words ``Made in China'' in English written on them. I 
     was allowed to eat only twice a day.
       Next, I was transferred to Changsha in Hunan and spent more 
     than a year at the Changsha Number 1 Detention Center. During 
     this time, I suffered through the darkest and most hopeless 
     of existences; for more than four months straight, I was 
     questioned about my case an average ten hours a day, in what 
     the Communists call ``exhaustive tactics''. This Laogai 
     forced its prisoners to produce matchboxes. There were no 
     labor rewards, but every month the cellmates which had the 
     highest production numbers were given one cheap cigarette a 
     day. The police forced the prisoners to work day and night so 
     that they could report increased production output and 
     receive cash incentives. We would work for at the least 
     twelve hours a day. The longest day was one when we worked 
     for 23 and a half hours, with a half-hour food break.
       Because I would refuse to work, the public security police 
     would often arrange for the other prisoners to abuse and beat 
     me. One day, I was beaten three different times by seven or 
     eight young prisoners, two of whom were convicted murderers. 
     The first time, because I was unwilling to be forced to 
     labor, they beat me until I bled from the eyes, ears, nose 
     and mouth; the second time, because I resisted when they 
     tried to force me to kneel down, they used anything they 
     could find in the cell to beat me, including a wooden stool, 
     heavy wooden sticks, and metal cups and bowls; the last time 
     they beat me while I couldn't move and lay on the floor 
     hunched over. At this, the public security police still were 
     not satisfied, so that evening they held a ``struggle 
     meeting'' and ordered every prisoner in the Laogai to 
     viciously beat me. That night, I developed
      a fever of 104 degrees, which persisted for more than a 
     week. I was unable even to sit upright.
       While there were many methods used in torturing people at 
     this Laogai, the most often used tools were the electric 
     police baton and shackles. There were more than ten types of 
     shackles, including thumb shackles, ``earth'' shackles, all 
     kinds of wrist shackles, chain shackles, chain link shackles, 
     door-frame shackles, heavy shackles, and others. The most 
     simple method was to conduct a political study class where 
     the prisoners needed to attend for long periods of time while 
     shackled. I personally experienced electric shocks and many 
     kinds of shackles.
       The Laogai prisons used different types of abuse and 
     control than those of the detention centers. After I was 
     transferred to the prison, when I was first assigned to a 
     prison brigade, we were shown the three unforgettable phrases 
     that were written on the wall at the prison entrance: ``Where 
     are you? What are you? What are you to do here?'' Later, in 
     the daily ``political study'' classes, we needed to follow 
     these questions with the responses, ``This is a prison. I am 
     a criminal. I am here to receive reform through labor.'' We 
     also had to sing three songs at the beginning of every 
     ``political study'' class. The songs were ``Socialism Is 
     Good'', ``Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New 
     China'', and ``Emulate Lei Feng'' (Lei Feng was a 1950's 
     Chinese Communist martyr).
       I still remember the songs. The words of ``Socialism Is 
     Good'' begin, ``Socialism is good/ Socialism is good/ 
     Everyone in a socialist society is improved''. The lyrics of 
     ``Without the Communist Party, There Would Be No New China'' 
     are ``Without the Communist Party, there would be no new 
     china/ the Communist Party is united for the people/ the 
     Communist Party is united to save China/ Its leaders go 
     forward towards the light/ It is the great leader of all the 
     people.'' The meaning of the last song is that we should all 
     be like the Communist hero Lei Feng; ``Loyal to the 
     revolution/ Loyal to the Party/ Standing in the field, erect 
     and unwaving/ Communist thinking emits knowledge''. I knew 
     that this was how they would force us to reform our thinking, 
     so I refused to sing the three songs. The police used many 
     methods of trying to intimidate and coerce me into 
     cooperating, and in the end I was sent to the ``prison of 
     prisons''--solitary confinement. Its length and height are 
     barely enough for a man's size, and it has solid walls with 
     only a tiny slot on the door. It very easily makes men think 
     like an animal in a cage. It can be said that being confined 
     in a small cage for a long period of time will certainly make 
     any man go insane.
       These are only some of the stories of my time in the 
     Laogai. Yet all of the mistreatment and abuse I suffered in 
     the Laogai is just a drop of water in a great river. When you 
     think of all of the abuses of the millions of Chinese 
     citizens still condemned to the Laogai, my story is just the 
     tip of the iceberg. Thank you for your time in listening to 
     my personal story of the terrors of the Laogai.
 Testimony of Catherine Ho, Laogai Survivor, Before the U.S. House of 
  Representatives, Subcommittee on International Operations and Human 
                         Rights, April 3, 1995
       My name is Catherine Ho, one of the goals of the Laogai 
     camps is to break the human spirit through torture of the 
     body. But even worse than the bodily abuses is the unceasing 
     assault on the prisoner's thoughts and individual will. This 
     is especially true of the suffering endured by the millions 
     of women condemned to the Laogai.
       I was born into a well-educated family in Shanghai. My 
     decent parents sent me to an excellent Catholic high school. 
     I became a Christian while there. I studied very hard, and 
     should have had a bright future. Instead, I was arrested and 
     imprisoned by the Communist government before I was even 18 
     years old. I was arrested on September 5, 1955, as was our 
     bishop in Shanghai, Cardinal Kung, who is now in the U.S. 
     receiving medical care.
       Between 1953 and 1955, the church-run schools and hospitals 
     in Shanghai were taken over by the Communists. The church's 
     other charitable institutions were simply closed. The foreign 
     missionaries has already been expelled as ``imperialists''. 
     The Chinese priests and bishops were all targets of the 
     Communists and were either killed or arrested one after 
     another. Most Christians were forced to go through 
     brainwashing. They faced losing their jobs or educational 
     opportunities, and they also faced being sent to the Laogai 
     camps or prison to suffer because of their faith. Religious 
     people were continuously persecuted by the Communists.
       We did not oppose the government. We only wanted to 
     practice our religion. But the Communists said it was a crime 
     against China. The sole reason I was put in jail was because 
     I was an active Christian. I was a member of the Legion of 
     Mary, which is a devout missionary organization. I did 
     missionary work. I refused to renounce our church and did not 
     want to be a part of the Communist controlled church.
       Because of my faith, they put me in jail. They isolated me 
     from the outside world. They tried to confuse me with all of 
     their propaganda. But I knew they told lies. I could not go 
     against my conscience. I could not deny the truth. I could 
     not give up my most precious gift, my faith. Many Christians 
     were willing to die before giving up their faith.
       At first, they sentenced me to seven years in the Laogai as 
     a ``counter-revolutionary''. I was not allowed legal 
     representation. I did not even have a trial. When they found 
     out that I had still not changed my mind after my seven 
     years, they wouldn't let me go. They kept me in the Laogai 
     camp for 21 years.
       The Chinese Communists cannot tolerate religion, especially 
     the Christian religion. They have a hatred for anything which 
     involves a belief in any God above or beyond human kind. To 
     this
      day, they are still persecuting and imprisoning religious 
     believers.
       I would like to now give you some examples of the 
     systematic abuse and persecution of the Laogai camps. These 
     Laogai camps are in no way like the prisons we know of in 
     this country. Words are not enough to convey the horrible, 
     day to day realities of prisoners in the Laogai.
       Physically, we were always hungry, tired, and filthy. The 
     women were forced to do heavy labor, like plowing the desert, 
     raising cattle, or running a tea farm. They physical tortures 
     on our bodies were so extreme that menstruation ceased in 
     many of the women. This puts great strain on both a woman's 
     body and her mind. There were never any medical treatments of 
     this or other sicknesses.
       Despite these exhaustive and grueling conditions, we were 
     forced to produce high level products. For example, I was in 
     a Laogai camp tea farm for about ten years. The women 
     prisoners were forced to plant trees, take care of the 
     plants, and then process the tea leaves into red or green 
     tea. I spent another four years weaving silk and cloth in a 
     Laogai factory. On the surface, it was a textile factory in 
     Hangzhou, but the workers were all women prisoners doing 
     forced labor. In the factory, there were two constant 
     pressures upon us: first was the physical fatigue, I was 
     forced to work very hard for fourteen hours a day. I had to 
     fight exhaustion just to keep from falling into the machines; 
     second was the constant supervision, since we were 
     [[Page E760]] told that the products we made were for export 
     to foreign countries, they watched our every move to be sure 
     we made no mistakes. If there were mistakes or someone did 
     not appear to be working hard, we were severely punished. 
     They used ankle fetters, handcuffs, solitary confinement, and 
     other means to punish us.
       Today, I often wonder if the tea I drink or the silk I 
     weave comes from a Laogai camp and is made by all those poor 
     Laogai slaves still suffering in China.
       Daily, we were assaulted mentally. We were continually 
     brainwashed. We were not allowed to say our prayers or to 
     read the Bible. I remember clearly my first day in the 
     detention center. I knelt down on the muddy ground, bowed my 
     head, and begged to the Lord to give me strength. A warden 
     immediately scolded me, ``Who told you to kneel down? Even at 
     the door of death, you keep up your superstitions. This is a 
     counter-revolutionary activity.'' In the Laogai, we were not 
     allowed to hear and read anything but Communist propaganda. 
     We had to spend two hours every day reading Mao's book and 
     reciting the prison regulations. I remember one sixty-year-
     old Sister who made a set of small rosary beads out of a 
     thread so it would not be discovered and be confiscated by 
     the guards. This continuous brainwashing helped destroy all 
     human love and was a denial of all basic human rights.
       Spiritually, it was a constant struggle. We faced constant 
     despair, and always heard the discouraging and threatening 
     comments of the authorities. A prisoner had to confess her 
     crime everyday, which meant scolding oneself and accusing 
     oneself of being guilty of the greatest crimes against the 
     people and government. Every prisoner was degraded. They 
     minimized their own value of being human. They were separated 
     from their families and society. They were tortured in a dark 
     hell that had no foreseeable end. They fought the despair and 
     hopelessness of thinking that they were to spend the rest of 
     their lives as slaves in the Laogai.
       One woman refused to work on Sundays. She would say prayers 
     instead of singing revolutionary songs in front of Mao's 
     portrait. One day, she was dragged out to the field where we 
     were working and beaten to death in front of all of us.
       I said the Communists aim was to torture the body and break 
     the human spirit in every possible way and at every possible 
     opportunity. When the warden told me my lovely sister had 
     died, he simply said, ``The People's Government acted 
     humanely . . . it is all over now . . . you should not cry 
     because that's against the rules and it would have a bad 
     effect on the feelings of the others about thought reform''. 
     They succeeded to the point where to many it looked like 
     there was no future and no hope. The prisoners in the Laogai 
     camp were always in a deep depression. I myself prayed to God 
     to let me die. I wanted to die more than I wanted to live 
     because the circumstances were too horrible. Even if you 
     didn't want to continue living under those circumstances, 
     they wouldn't let you die. There was a constant suicide 
     watch.
       God sustained us nonetheless. My faith preserved me. God's 
     Grace helped me live through this nightmarish journey. 
     Finally, my prayers were answered. After my parents had 
     written many, many letters to the government from Hong Kong, 
     my husband, my son, and I were allowed to leave the Laogai in 
     December 1978.
       Today, I sit before you to take this opportunity to tell 
     you the truth. To tell you the facts as I have myself 
     experienced. But I speak not for myself, but for the 
     thousands of brothers and sisters who are still living this 
     terrible existence. Thank you for listening to my story. I 
     hope that you may better understand the realities of the 
     Laogai through my account of it.
  Testimony of Father Cai Zhongxian, Laogai Survivor, Before the U.S. 
House of Representatives, Subcommittee on International Operations and 
                      Human Rights, April 3, 1995

       My name is Cai Zhongxian. I am a Catholic priest.
       I was ordained in 1940. I was arrested and charged as a 
     counter-revolutionary in 1953 because of my refusal to 
     cooperate with the Communist authorities and denounce the 
     Roman Catholic Church. I was unexpectedly released without 
     explanation in 1956. It turned out that the Communists hoped 
     that the leniency showed to me would convince me to 
     collaborate with the Party to persuade other Catholics to 
     become members of the officially sanctioned ``Patriotic 
     Catholic Church''. This ``Patriotic Catholic Church'' is 
     nothing more than a Communist puppet organization. When I 
     refused to cooperate, I was once again arrested. I was 
     detained twice for a total of seven years at the Shanghai 
     Detention Center, without charge or trial, until I was 
     finally sentenced to a fifteen-year term in 1960.
       I was then sent to a Laogai camp in Jiangxi Province which 
     served as a brick factory. I avoided dying of starvation 
     mostly because I supplemented the rationed food by eating 
     frogs, snakes, and rats.
       In 1962, five other priests and I were confined in a six-
     by-twelve foot windowless room that was filled with four 
     inches of standing water. Despite this ill-treatment and 
     other inhumane conditions, I continued my services as a 
     Catholic clergy. I even successfully converted some of the 
     guards who were charged to watch us to Catholicism.
       At the completion of my sentence, I was 62 years old. I was 
     not fully released at that time. The government forced me to 
     accept ``forced-job-placement'' in the Laogai camp because I 
     was originally charged with a ``counter-revolutionary 
     crime''. I knew that a ``forced-job-placement'' assignment 
     meant a life sentence laboring at the Laogai. I labored at 
     the Nanchang Number 4 Prison for eleven years as a ``forced-
     job-placement'' worker.
       In 1981, at the age of 74, I was again arrested for my 
     continued activities as a Catholic priest. I was sentenced to 
     serve another ten-year term as a Laogai slave. In 1988, I was 
     released fully as a token of good will towards Filipino 
     Bishop Sinhemai. I was 81 years old at the time of my 
     release.
       I served a total of thirty-three years in the Laogai. I 
     can't begin to tell you how many people disappear completely 
     for every one that survives. Thank you for inviting me here. 
     I hope I have helped you gain an understanding of the 
     Communist government's willingness to use the Laogai to 
     destroy its citizens lives.
     

                          ____________________