Force-Feeding
(Falun Gong)
Force-feeding is a torture method that labour camp staff often use on Falun Gong practitioners, particularly on those who have staged hunger strikes to protest their unlawful detention. However, it is certainly not an attempt to nourish or feed; rather, it is a brutal procedure that has resulted in at least 100 deaths. The force-feeding is most often carried out by labour camp staff with no medical training, or by criminal inmates who are coerced to assist. Firm, unsanitized tubes are forced into a practitioner's nose and into the stomach, often rupturing or damaging tissues; sometimes the tube enters the lungs instead. The tubes are sometimes left in a practitioner's stomach for days or weeks, causing severe infections, or pulled out and reinserted repeatedly. The practitioners are often fed irritants such as highly concentrated salt water, hot pepper oil, boiling water, or detergent.
In the summer of 2003, the Gaoyang Forced Labour Camp began force-feeding Falun Gong practitioners with human urine and excrement; the government awarded them for this innovation, and sent labour camp staff from around the country to learn this procedure.