Page 184 - Communist Chinas Policy of Oppression in East Turkestan

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Examples of Mao-style To rture

T he name of Mao Tse Tung is re- meted out to university professors de-
membered today for cruelty and
tained during the days of Mao:
brutality. He had unimaginable
with rocks. I saw the principal: the pail
tortures inflicted on, not just the Hanging from their necks were pails filled
people of East Turkestan, but on his own around his neck was so heavy that the
people as well. The actions of the Red wire had cut deep into his neck and he
Guards under Mao's instructions during was staggering. All were barefoot, hit-
the barbaric period known as the Cultural ting broken gongs or pots as they walked
Revolution in particular, were crimes around the field crying out: "I am black
against humanity. The following are just gangster so-and-so." Finally, they all
a few of them: knelt down, burned incense, and begged
To put those special handcuffs tightly on Mao Zedong to "pardon their crimes."…
the wrists of a prisoner was a form of tor- A few girls nearly fainted. Beatings and
ture commonly used in Maoist China's torture followed. I had never seen such
prison system. Sometimes additional tortures before: eating nightsoil and in-
chains were put around the ankles of the sects, being subjected to electric shocks,
prisoners. At other times a prisoner might being forced to kneel on broken glass,
be manacled and then have his handcuffs being hanged "like an airplane" by the
tied to a bar on the window so that he arms and legs. 3
could not move away from the window The same book also mentions the prisons:
to eat, drink, or go to the toilet. The pur- The most varied and sadistic tortures
pose was to degrade a man in order to were quite common, such as hanging by
destroy his morale… Since the People's the wrists or thumbs…. The most brutish
Government claimed to have abolished people were allowed to operate with im-
all forms of torture, the officials simply punity. One camp commander assassi-
called such methods "punishment"' or nated or buried alive 1,320 people in one
"persuasion." 1 year, in addition to carrying out numer-
The whole people were invited to public ous rapes. 4
trials of "counterrevolutionaries," who al-
most invariably were condemned to
1. Nien Cheng, Life and Death in Shanghai,
death… Everyone participated in the exe- Macdonald, London, 1986, pp.224-226, cited
cutions, shouting out "kill, kill" to the Red in The Black Book of Communism, Harvard
Guards whose task it was to cut victims University Press, Cambridge, 1999, p.509.
(emphasis added)
into pieces. Sometimes the pieces were
2. Ibid., p.470-471. (emphasis added)
cooked and eaten, or force-fed to mem- 3. Ken Ling, Miriam London and Lee Tai-
bers of the victim's family who were still Ling, Red Guard: From Schoolboy to "Little
alive and looking on. 2 General" in Mao's China, Macdonald,
London, 1972, pp. 18-21. cited in The Black
In The Black Book of Communism an ob- Book of Communism, p. 525. (emphasis added)
server described the inhuman treatment 4. Ibid, p.482. (emphasis added)

Communist China’s Policy
of Oppression in East Turkestan