Exercise
Prisoners cannot earn the right to exercise immediately after entering the prison; they are only given the right later on. The frequency of exercise permitted for each prisoner may vary from once a day, to once a week. Officially, these prisoners are allowed to walk and exercise in the courtyards for a minimum of 20 minutes and a maximum of an hour. The actual times vary depending on the weather, the number of prisoners, and other factors.
Because of the special status of prisoners in Qincheng Prison, each prisoner is only allowed to exercise alone. Prisoners cannot see any other prisoners due to the high walls, and they are not allowed to see any other prisoners while they are in the jail house. If two prisoners are released from their cells to exercise and they meet each other, one is ordered to back to his or her cell to wait until the other prisoner is gone.
During prolonged solitary confinement during the Cultural Revolution, calcium deficiencies would result from the lack of exposure to sunlight. Many prisoners would lose their hair and teeth, and developed many other health problems. Prisoners jailed during the Cultural Revolution often had permanent disabilities after their release.
Read more about this topic: Qincheng Prison
Famous quotes containing the word exercise:
“A state that denies its citizens their basic rights becomes a danger to its neighbors as well: internal arbitrary rule will be reflected in arbitrary external relations. The suppression of public opinion, the abolition of public competition for power and its public exercise opens the way for the state power to arm itself in any way it sees fit.... A state that does not hesitate to lie to its own people will not hesitate to lie to other states.”
—Václav Havel (b. 1936)
“The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“I can’t stand to sing the same song the same way two nights in succession, let alone two years or ten years. If you can, then it ain’t music, it’s close-order drill or exercise or yodeling or something, not music.”
—Billie Holiday (1915–1959)