Qincheng Prison

Political prisoners have been incarcerated in Qincheng,[4][5][self-published source] among them participants in the Chinese democracy movement and Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Other inmates included many communist cadres who struggled during the Cultural Revolution,[8] such as Bo Yibo,[9] Peng Zhen, Liu Xiaobo, Israel Epstein, Sidney Rittenberg[10] and David Crook.

The plain is where Qincheng Farm (Chinese: 秦城农场; pinyin: Qínchéng Nóngchǎng) is located, which is part of the prison.

[13] The prison is built in accordance with the 1954 Reform Through Labor Regulations,[citation needed] so it is divided into three sections.

Mao had further enhanced this on April 24, 1964, in his reaction to a case by claiming that "People can be reformed, if the correct policy and methods are adopted."

[2] The original prison include four three-story brick buildings with sloped roof, each is named after celestial stems instead of numbers or alphabets: Jia (甲), Yi (乙), Bing (丙), Ding (丁).

The area in front of each building is fenced with brick wall for prisoners to exercise, forming its own independent yard.

[2] The wooden door of each cell is sandwiched between two iron plates, and there are two peepholes: one at the level of the toilet, while the other is above it.

The only furniture inside each cell is a bed that was around a foot from the ground and when a prisoner needs to write a confession or other materials, a desk similar to those in elementary schools would be provided.

[2] In 1967, six more buildings were added, also named after celestial stem, continuing as Wu (戊), Ji (己), Geng (庚), Xin (辛), Ren (壬), Gui (癸).

For prisoners, they would be first led to a small one-story building, where they would leave behind most of their belongings deemed to be unsuitable to be carried into cells, including shoelaces.

Qincheng Prison has been under the administration of the 13th Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security[15] most of the time since its establishment.

Beginning in late October 1967, it came under the control of the People's Liberation Army which at this point had been put in charge of the 13th Bureau by the Central Cultural Revolution Group and Zhou Enlai.

The administration of Qincheng Prison now became the responsibility of a "Military Control Commission of Qincheng Prison" which reported to the Beijing municipal Bureau of Public Security Military Control Commission and not to the Ministry of Public Security.

The Ministry of Public Security reasserted control over the prison in early 1973, after a decision to this effect had been taken by Premier Zhou Enlai on 8 January of that year.

The largest increase of prisoners occurred during Cultural Revolution, with extra buildings had to be built.

Prison employees are also prohibited from referring to each other by name, instead, they are called according to their job title, such as manager, warden, and director.

Dai Qing, a famous Chinese human rights activist jailed at Qincheng Prison recalls that there is another type of interrogation room in which the stool is replaced by a chair and there is carpet on the floor.

Low-ranking prisoners keep utensils themselves, and meals are delivered through the rectangular opening on the door about one foot (thirty centimeters) above the ground.

A vegetarian dish cooked with vegetables and a bowl of thin soup is also served with lunch and dinner.

Officially, these prisoners are allowed to walk and exercise in the courtyards for a minimum of 20 minutes and a maximum of an hour.

During prolonged solitary confinement during the Cultural Revolution, calcium deficiencies would result from the lack of exposure to sunlight.

Most reading materials were originally donated by former Nationalist political prisoners, and consist mostly of works by Mao Zedong, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Joseph Stalin.

[citation needed] Wei Jingsheng had published under his name in March 1979 an essay denouncing the inhumane conditions of the Chinese Qincheng Prison where he was imprisoned the 10th Panchen Lama and that drove the latter to a suicide attempt.

[17] It is clear that a major part of this essay was written by other anonymous authors with accurate information about Qincheng.

In addition to treating prisoners for ordinary illness, semi-annual physical checks are also performed.

For example, in the autumn of 1969 during Cultural Revolution, under Kang Sheng's order, an important high-ranking prisoner, Shi Zhe (师哲), the former personal secretary and personal Russian translator of Mao Zedong was jailed in Qincheng prison.

The prison section is located on the 2nd Floor of one of the hospital buildings and it is completely segregated from the rest of the facility.

For example, during the Cultural Revolution, former Minister of Public Security and the head of Mao Zedong's personal bodyguards, Senior General Luo Ruiqing (罗瑞卿) was jailed at Qincheng Prison.

[citation needed] When he suffered a fracture to his left leg, he was first denied medical treatment, then subjected to an amputation which was to be the eventual cause of his death.