'You start to go crazy': The story of the Australian who survived five years in a Chinese prison

Sharing a filthy cell with a number of other prisoners, constant sleep deprivation, cell lights on 24 hours a day; poor hygiene and forced labor.

These are some of the things prisoners in Chinese prisons are subjected to, according to Australian citizen Matthew Radalj, who spent five years in Beijing's No. 2 Prison - a facility used for international prisoners, foreign media write, reports Telegraph.

Radalj, who now lives outside of China, has decided to speak publicly about his experience and described experiencing and witnessing severe physical punishment, forced labor, food deprivation, and psychological torture.

The BBC says it has been able to corroborate Radalj's testimony with several former prisoners who were behind bars at the same time as he was.

Many requested anonymity because they feared reprisals against loved ones still living within the country.

Others said they simply wanted to try to forget the experience and move on.

A "wild" entrance

"I was in a very bad state when I arrived. They beat me for two days straight at the first police station I was in. I hadn't slept, eaten or drunk water for 48 hours and then I was forced to sign a large number of documents," Radalj said of his entry into prison in China, which began with his arrest on January 2, 2020, according to the Telegraph.

The former Beijing resident claims he was unfairly convicted after a fight with vendors at a market following a dispute over the agreed price to fix a mobile phone screen.

He says he ended up signing a false confession to robbery after being told it would be futile to try to defend his innocence in a system with a nearly 100% criminal conviction rate and in the hope that it would reduce his prison time.

Court documents show that this worked at least to some extent, giving him a four-year sentence.

After entering prison, he said he first had to spend many months in a special detention center where he was subjected to a more brutal "transition phase."

During this time, prisoners had to follow extremely strict rules in what he described as horrific conditions.

"We were forbidden to shower or clean ourselves, sometimes for months. Even the toilets could only be used at certain times, and they were filthy – 'waste' from the toilets above constantly dripped onto us."

Eventually he was admitted to the "normal" prison where prisoners had to stay together in crowded cells and where the lights never went out.

According to Radalj, African and Pakistani prisoners made up the largest groups at the facility, but there were also men held from Afghanistan, Britain, the US, Latin America, North Korea and Taiwan.

Most of them had been convicted of drug trafficking offenses.

'Good behavior' points system

Radalj said prisoners were regularly subjected to forms of what he described as psychological torture.

One of these was the “good behavior points system,” which was a way – at least in theory – to reduce your sentence.

Prisoners could receive a maximum of 100 good behavior points per month for doing things like studying Communist Party literature, working in the prison factory, or spying on other prisoners.

Once 4,200 points were accumulated, they could in theory be used to reduce prison time.

But Radalj shows that in reality this was used as a tool of torture and psychological manipulation.

He claims that guards would deliberately wait until a prisoner had almost reached this goal and then penalize him for any of a long list of possible infractions that would cancel out points at the crucial time.

Food as control

But the most common daily punishment involved reducing food.

Many former prisoners have told the BBC that meals at Beijing No. 2 Prison consisted mainly of cabbage in dirty water, which sometimes had pieces of carrot and, if they were lucky, even small pieces of meat, reports the Telegraph.

They were also given a simple northern Chinese bread. Most of the prisoners were malnourished, Radalj added.

Another prisoner described how prisoners ate a lot of such bread, as they were always hungry.

He said their diets were so poor in nutrients that they had bloated bellies from consuming so much of such bread.

Prisoners were given the opportunity to supplement their diet by purchasing meager additional rations if money from relatives was deposited into what was called their “account”: essentially a prison register of funds given to buy supplies like soap or toothpaste.

They could also use this to buy items like instant pasta or powdered milk. But even this “privilege” could be taken away.

Radalj further revealed that he was forbidden from making any additional purchases for 14 months because he refused to work in the prison factory, where prisoners were expected to assemble basic goods for companies or compile propaganda leaflets for the ruling Communist Party.

To make matters worse, they were forced to work on a "farm", where they managed to grow many vegetables, but were never allowed to eat them.

Radalj described a battle between African and Taiwanese groups in Beijing's No. 2 Prison over food issues.

Nigerian prisoners worked in the kitchen and "received small benefits, like a bag of apples once a month or some yogurt or a few bananas," he said.

Then the Taiwanese prisoners who spoke Mandarin managed to convince the guards to let them take control, giving them control of precious extra food items.

This led to a large brawl, and Radalj said he was caught in the middle of it.

He was sent to solitary confinement for 194 days after hitting another prisoner.

His meager food ration was also halved. There was no reading material and no one to talk to as he was held in an empty 1.2 by 1.8 meter room for half a year.

"You start to go crazy,… and that's what the solitary room is designed for… So you have to decide very quickly whether your room is really, really small or really, really big."

"After four months, you just start talking to yourself all the time. The guards would come and ask, 'Hey, are you okay?' And you'd say, 'Why?' They'd say, 'Because you're laughing.'"

Another feature of life in Chinese prisons, according to Radalji, were the fake “propaganda” moments that officials would organize for Chinese media or visiting officials to present rosy pictures of conditions there.

And when he was ready to leave on October 5, 2024, he was given his old clothes which had been torn five years earlier in the fight for his initial arrest. /Telegraph/