[citation needed] Other prisoners include petty criminals, prostitutes, drug addicts, petitioners, and members of other unapproved religious minorities, such as underground Christians.
Followers of the Falun Gong spiritual practice have long sought to publicize human rights abuses committed in the labor camp, which they describe as being among the most notorious in China.
[2] In addition to performing forced labor, prisoners are allegedly tortured using electric batons, force-feeding, prolonged solitary confinement, and other forms of abuse.
In July 1999, Chinese leader Jiang Zemin initiated a campaign to suppress the Falun Gong spiritual group[citation needed], which was estimated to have tens of millions of adherents.
According to a New York Times report published in June 2013, Falun Gong and members of underground Christian churches made up the bulk of the inmates; there were also prostitutes, drug addicts, and petitioners who had been more persistent than was tolerable to local authorities.
[5] Yuan Ling, a Chinese reporter who spent five years interviewing former prisoners of Masanjia, said that physical punishment in the camp is common, and some women are left crippled.
An exposé by Yuan in China's Lens Magazine described a variety of torture methods used at the camp, where detainees were reportedly shocked in the face with electric prods, suspended by the arms, and beaten.
Wang Chunying, who was detained at Masanjia in 2007, told the Japan Times that she was stretched and handcuffed to two bunk beds for 16 hours, unable to eat, drink or sleep.
[5] On 23 December 2012, The Oregonian reported that an American woman named Julie Keith found a letter, written in alternating Chinese and English, stuffed into a Halloween decoration set she had purchased at a Kmart.
[10] Shortly after the Lens article was published, filmmaker and former New York Times photographer Du Bin released a documentary about the Masanjia labor camp, titled "Women Above Ghost's Head".