Beyond using a vast arsenal of torture implements to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, the CCP also employs corporal punishment that pushes the human body to its very limits, all in an effort to force practitioners to give up their belief -- to “transform.” Among the most common such methods is deliberate starvation.
To force Falun Gong practitioners to “transform,” CCP detention facilities employ all manner of inhuman methods. At Jiazhou Prison in Sichuan, for instance, the slogan used to “transform” Falun Gong practitioners is: “Haggard in three days, broken within a week, bedridden with illness in half a month, and meeting hell within a month” -- “wear down and destroy you physically, torment you mentally, and starve you in daily life.”
Starvation, too, takes many different forms -- whatever method most severely tortures Falun Gong practitioners, that is the method the perpetrators use. At Jiazhou Prison, for example, the practice of “eating by the second” forces practitioners to finish eating in no more than 20 seconds, allowing them only a few swallows before the meal is taken away. Before long, victims grow emaciated; over time they waste away entirely, becoming unrecognizably thin, and some have died from this persecution.
Prison guards and “escorts” -- criminal inmates assigned specifically to monitor Falun Gong practitioners -- also use hunger as a means of humiliation and abuse, forcing practitioners to eat like animals, dumping their food into trash bins or even into cesspools, taunting and mocking them, inflicting enormous physical and psychological damage.
Here are just a few examples that illustrate the sheer cruelty of this form of corporal punishment.
Starved to the Breaking Point, Forced to Fish Food Out of Excrement to Eat
Fan Wenfang, now in her seventies, is from Fuyang City, Anhui Province, and once worked as an obstetrics and gynecology doctor at the Yingzhou District Wenfeng Community Hospital in Fuyang. Since the CCP began its persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, she has refused to give up her practice and has, as a result, been sentenced to forced labor or prison terms totaling 20 years.
In July 2022, Fan Wenfang was abducted by police on the street and wrongfully sentenced to five years -- her third prison term -- and was again taken to Anhui Women's Prison in Hefei.
Her refusal to “transform” brought brutal persecution down upon her. In the eleventh division, she insisted on calling out “Falun Dafa is good.” Whenever the cell boss heard her, she would sing revolutionary songs to drown her out, and often withheld her meals altogether.
The division head, Huang Ling, went further, ordering that Fan be denied food entirely, and at times had her meals dumped into a latrine pit. Starved to the breaking point, Fan Wenfang fished her food out of the excrement to eat it, drawing mockery and laughter from guards and inmates alike.
Three Months of “Eating by the Second,” Chengdu's Cheng Huaigen Tortured to Death
“Eating by the second” is a cruel, slow form of torture used at Jiazhou Prison in Leshan, Sichuan, to force Falun Gong practitioners to “transform.” Guards allow inmates only about 20 seconds to eat. According to those who have experienced this “second-eating,” the fastest eaters simply swallow the rice whole without chewing, managing about four mouthfuls; slower eaters manage only two or three. Within days, a person grows visibly thinner, and over time becomes nothing but skin and bones.
At Wumaping Prison, the predecessor of Jiazhou Prison, food bowls were placed on the ground, and Falun Gong practitioners were forbidden from lifting them; they were made to sit cross-legged on the floor and bow their heads low, eating like animals with no shred of dignity. A guard would count aloud from one to twenty -- roughly 20 seconds -- and the moment the count ended, eating had to stop immediately. Slower eaters might not even finish a mouthful or two of rice, let alone hope for a bite of pickled vegetables.
In June 2016, Cheng Huaigen, a Falun Gong practitioner from Tianfu New Area in Chengdu, was abducted and illegally sentenced to four years, then taken to the ninth division of Jiazhou Prison and placed in the “rectification unit” for “second-eating.” Ordinary inmates were typically held there for 3, 7, or 15 days, and Falun Gong practitioners for 15 days -- but Cheng Huaigen was held there for more than three months.
There, the total food served across all three daily meals amounted to less than one liang (about 50 grams) of rice, with no possibility of eating anything else the rest of the time. Most people grew noticeably emaciated within ten days. By the time Cheng Huaigen finished his stint of “second-eating,” he was skin and bones; he was then assigned to workshop labor, and three days later, on May 29, 2017, he died from the persecution.
Refusing to Admit Being a “Criminal” Meant Getting Only a Mouthful or Two of Food
Beijiang Prison in Guangdong Province combines brutality, viciousness, and cunning in equal measure, subjecting Falun Gong practitioners to physical exhaustion and psychological destruction by any means, at any time. One method of violent brainwashing is starvation: practitioners who refuse to acknowledge themselves as “criminals” are given only minimal food, wearing down their bodies.
In the autumn of 2021, Falun Gong practitioner Li Qiaosong was illegally sentenced to six years by the Haizhu District Court and taken to Beijiang Prison in Guangdong, where he suffered starvation-based persecution.
A guard surnamed Ye, assigned as Li Qiaosong's designated overseer, ordered that he not be given enough to eat. On one occasion, an “escort” inmate surnamed Cao reported to guard Ye that Li Qiaosong had been eating his fill lately, sounding confident and full of energy -- implying that having eaten enough gave him the strength to argue back against efforts to “transform” him. Ye replied, “Then just don't let him eat his fill.” Cao said, “Understood.”
One day at lunchtime, after Li Qiaosong had picked up his meal and was waiting for permission to eat, the “escort” Cao handed his meal tray to another escort inmate, who took away most of the food, leaving him only two or three mouthfuls. Sometimes he was given no breakfast at all; other times he received only a single mouthful of noodles.
When Li Qiaosong reported this to the guards, he was told: “Food is for criminals to eat. Admit that you're a criminal, and you'll get fed.”
Li Qiaosong refused to give in. Eventually he grew so weak from hunger that he could barely walk steadily, and the torment left him extremely emaciated.
Choked to Death After Swallowing a Steamed Bun Whole in Extreme Hunger
Niu Xuedong, a Falun Gong practitioner from Tongchuan, Shaanxi Province, was held around 2020 at Weinan Prison. For refusing to “transform,” he was dragged out into the snow during the coldest days of winter and beaten more than a hundred times with a club by inmate enforcer Wang Kai. At the time he was wearing only a thin autumn undershirt; afterward he lost consciousness, no longer recognized people, and soiled himself without even realizing it.
The cell boss refused to give Niu Xuedong any food, and forbade others from feeding him as well, leaving him in a prolonged state of starvation. Around noon on February 26, 2022, someone gave him two hot steamed buns; by this point his mind had already been broken by the persecution, and in his extreme hunger he swallowed the buns whole, choking so badly he could not breathe.
No one came to his aid at the scene, and Niu Xuedong suffocated to death amid agonizing struggle.
Food Withheld Until She Was Desperately Hungry, Then Laced With Poison
Yang Chaoqun, a 72-year-old woman and a doctor at the Tongren City Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine, began practicing Falun Gong more than a decade ago, and has repeatedly had her home illegally raided and been detained.
On the afternoon of December 25, 2021, Yang Chaoqun returned home from grocery shopping to find seven or eight people ransacking her home. Leading the group was Long Qizhen, deputy head of the Bijiang District domestic security squad, who had harassed her family many times before; also present were personnel from the “610 Office” -- the extralegal agency dedicated to persecuting Falun Gong -- along with local police and neighborhood committee staff. They confiscated her Falun Gong books, computer, phone SIM card, and other personal belongings.
On the 26th, Long Qizhen forcibly blindfolded Yang Chaoqun and took her to an undisclosed location for further persecution. They did not deliver her meals on time, waiting until she was desperately hungry before finally bringing food -- food that had been laced with poison. After eating it she felt sick all over, could not sleep at night, and suffered agonizing headaches and dizziness.
On December 30, medical staff were brought in to check her blood pressure, which registered 200 over 100. Fearing something might go seriously wrong, they had her family bring her home the following day.
Given Only Three Small Spoonfuls of Rice, Too Hungry to Sleep Past Midnight
The ground floor of the eighth division at the (First) Jilin Women's Prison holds only Falun Gong practitioners. Of the ten cells on that floor, those who refuse to “transform” are held in Cell 07, which has no bed at all -- only a small stool where Falun Gong practitioners are made to sit as punishment.
Dai Yu, the cell boss and prison bully of the eighth division, is a convicted fraudster serving a 12-year sentence. To earn a reduced sentence, there is no cruelty she will not inflict on Falun Gong practitioners. In the depths of winter, while she herself washes with hot water, she forces the practitioners to wash their hair, feet, and clothes in cold water, leaving their hands so frozen they become deformed.
From January 2 to 12, 2026, she allowed Falun Gong practitioners only a tiny portion of food each day -- three small spoonfuls of rice -- forcing them to fill up mainly on pickled mustard greens; eating too much of the pickled greens gave them stomach pain, and they went hungry, unable to sleep past midnight.
Someone reported the problem of not getting enough to eat to the division head. On the third day, Dai Yu suddenly gave each cell an unusually large amount of food, saying: “Give them extra food -- stuff them until they burst, so they can't complain about not having enough. If they leave food uneaten and throw it away, the group won't be approved to order supplies next month.”
After giving them only one week of full meals, she went right back to starving them again. This was entirely deliberate on Dai Yu's part. According to Falun Gong practitioners serving long, wrongful sentences, not getting enough to eat is simply the norm.
Tianjin Teacher Zhang Yulan Was Allowed Only Three Minutes to Eat
Zhang Yulan was a history teacher at Tianjin's Nankai District No. 63 Middle School. Illegally sentenced to eight years in 2002, she was sent to Tianjin Women's Prison, where she endured torture that brought her repeatedly to the brink of death. The persecution left her paralyzed and blind in both eyes.
In prison, she was given only a single small steamed bun morning and night, with no pickled vegetables at all. After other Falun Gong practitioners repeatedly went to the division head to report this, she was finally allowed to eat her fill -- but the guards then came up with a new way to torment her instead. They allowed her only three minutes to eat, and whatever she had not finished was snatched away.
Every time she ate, one “escort” inmate held a clock while another watched closely, ready to grab her bowl and bun; the instant time was up, her food was seized and thrown into the trash bin beside her.
One day, Wu Chunhuan, a guard from the fourth division responsible for persecuting Falun Gong, came to “transform” her. Zhang Yulan told her that the escorts only gave her three minutes to eat. Wu responded, “They're giving you far too much time to eat. I'm setting your eating time at two minutes.”
Zhang Yulan resolved that she would survive and get out of prison alive, and would not let them starve her to death. She clenched her steamed bun tightly in her hand; when they snatched it away, she grabbed it back and kept eating. She then learned to swallow food whole -- soaking things in water, crushing them, and gulping them down in one go. Later she was able to swallow things down even without crushing them first.
In prison, driven by hunger, she once ate fruit peels pulled from the trash, and drank water meant for bathing.