After Meeting with European Parliament VP, Niu Jinping Is Being Monitored, His Wife Zhang Lianying is in Critical Condition (Photos)

On May 21st, 2006 Beijing Falun Dafa practitioners Niu Jinping and Cao Dong broke through many obstacles to meet with Mr. Edward McMillan-Scott, the Vice President of the European Parliament who visited Beijing to review China’s human rights situation. The practitioners told him about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), especially the organ harvesting from living practitioners for profit. Three days later on May 24th, local police, the head of the Gestapo like 610 Office¹ and the staff of the Residential Committee harassed Niu Jinping at his home.

Zhang Lianying with her daughter before the arrest. She is now disfigured from the persecution.	Niu Jinping and his daughter

Upon entering the room, the police officers questioned him, "Where have you been during the last two days? Who did you see? Did you meet any foreigners?" Niu Jinping answered, "I tell everyone I meet that Falun Dafa is good whether they are Chinese or not, and I tell them about the injustice of the persecution." They continued to push for an answer, "How did you get in touch with him (Mr McMillan-Scott)?" "Where did you meet?" Niu Jinping resisted the interrogation with righteous thoughts. A week later, the local police returned and asked Niu Jinping to sign their interrogation notes. Niu Jinping told them, "You are the ones murdering people, and you are asking me to sign something?" He refused to sign. Although he is still at home, the police have him under tight surveillance.

On April 20th, 2006 the police secretly transferred Mr. Niu's wife, Zhang Lianying, to the Beijing Women’s Forced Labour Camp without notifying him. The authorities at the labour camp wouldn’t allow her any contact with the other Falun Gong practitioners there, and immediately placed her in isolated confinement for severe persecution. A year ago Zhang Lianying, who was busy raising their younger daughter, was arrested again. She has been on a hunger strike for more than a year and she is in critical condition. She is no longer at the Beijing Women’s Forced Labour Camp and her current whereabouts are unknown.

Niu Jinping lost his job and has no other income, so he had to sell off his property to pay for living expenses. Meanwhile, labour camp officials spent all the money he deposited for his wife’s use while she was in the labour camp, and there was only 17 yuan² left. The police call Niu Jinping every month and demand money, extorting large amounts each time for "expenses." Their excuse is that since Zhang Lianying is on a hunger strike, they need to buy nutritional injections to maintain her health, but they never provide receipts or let him and their younger daughter see her.

Niu Jinping, his wife Zhang Lianying and their elder daughter Niu Dan are all Falun Dafa practitioners. Since July 20th, 1999, simply because they believe in "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance" and tell people the facts about Falun Dafa, their whole family has suffered the CCP’s inhuman persecution for more than seven years.

Niu Jinping is 52 years old. He lives at Liufangnanli, Xiangheyuan in the Chaoyang District of Beijing. He used to work for a Beijing-based steel company. In October 1999, the Beijing police sent him to a mental hospital, where he was forcibly injected with an unknown drug. With the help of a doctor who didn’t believe he was mentally ill, he was finally released. Since that time he has been arrested, detained and his home has been ransacked many times.

In June 2000, Niu Jinping was arrested by local police and sentenced to two years of forced labour for associating with Falun Dafa practitioners in Jiamusi, Heilongjiang Province. While he was imprisoned in the Jiamusi Forced Labour Camp, Niu Jinping refused to renounce his beliefs and conducted a long-term hunger strike until he became very emaciated. His body still carries scars from the burns he received while being tortured with electric batons in the labour camp.

When Niu Jinping’s two-year forced labour sentence was completed, instead of releasing him, officers of the Xiangheyuan Police Station secretly took Niu Jinping to a brainwashing centre in Beijing without notifying his family. At the brainwashing centre, Niu Jinping was again subjected to torture, including sleep deprivation. During Niu Jinping’s lengthy imprisonment, his elderly mother, who is more than 70 years old, waited anxiously every day for him to return and often mistook strangers on the street for her son in her distress.

Niu Jinping’s elder daughter Niu Dan was also arrested many times. She was detained in 2000 when she was still a teenager at the Beijing Women’s Forced Labour Camp for a year, and then she was sent to a brainwashing centre for further persecution.

Niu Jinping’s 46-year-old wife Zhang Lianying was a division official at the China Guangda Group and a certified accountant. Since 1999 she has been arrested seven or eight times, and she was able to escape each time previously. In 2001, Zhang Lianying was sentenced to two years at forced labour and was brutally tortured at the Jiamusi Women’s Forced Labour Camp in Heilongjiang Province. She conducted a long-term hunger strike. When she was near death after 80 days on hunger strike, the police sent her back to Beijing, left her at a local police station and walked away. In 2002 she was arrested by National Security Bureau agents and sent to the Tongzhou Brainwashing Centre in Beijing, then to the Daxing Legal Training Centre in Beijing and finally to the Beijing Police Hospital, where she was subjected to physical and mental abuse. After her release, officers from the "610 Office", the police and the Residential Committee followed her and continued to harass her whole family.

At 8:30 a.m. on June 14th, 2005 Wang Jing, the director of the Xiangheyuan Police Station, led more than ten police officers to Zhang Lianying’s home, which they forcibly ransacked. Though they had no evidence and ignoring the cries of her baby who was still nursing, they forced Zhang Lianying into a police car and held her at the Chaoyang Detention Centre. On June 30th, 2005, Zhang Lianying was unlawfully sentenced to thirty months of forced labour and sent to the Tuanhe Dispatch Division in Beijing. Zhang Lianying firmly refused to give up Falun Gong or cooperate with the orders and commands of her persecutors; she began a hunger strike at the detention centre that she continued at the dispatch division.

Zhang Lianying suffered ten months of terrible abuse at the Beijing Forced Labour Dispatch Division. Officer Zhang Dongmei ordered eight prisoners to whip Zhang Lianying with flyswatters continuously for more than ten hours a day. During that period they never allowed her to wash herself or use the toilet, so she had no choice but to relieve herself in her trousers, even during her period. Her persecutors subjected her to sleep deprivation, hung her up by her neck for long periods of time with her toes barely touching the floor, and twisted her body and tied her to a wooden bench for many hours. She suffered torture around the clock. Her whole body was covered with scars and injuries; her head and face bore many scars of about 3 centimetres in length; her eye was bleeding; she went deaf; and her face was disfigured to the extent that she was barely recognisable. Any kind of movement caused her pain, she became absentminded, and her life was in danger.

Niu Jinping once visited Zhang Lianying at the dispatch division, carrying their young daughter in swaddling clothes. When he saw that his wife had been disfigured and was critically ill, he went everywhere making appeals, calling for his wife’s rescue. However, no department dared to accept his appeal. Once staff members learned that the case concerned Falun Gong, they refused to go any further. Even so, everywhere he went to appeal, he clarified the truth and gained understanding and support from many people. Some of them were from the CCP’s local government, the judiciary department, other organisations that directly persecute Falun Gong, human rights lawyers and journalists, and others. Some people stepped forward to help him with his efforts to secure his wife's release.

While Zhang Lianying was detained at the dispatch division Niu Jinping occasionally received phone calls and letters from her, and he was allowed to visit her twice. During a four-month period, he spent only ten minutes with his wife. Sometimes he wasn’t told he could see his wife until after the meeting day had already passed. Since the Chinese New Year of 2006, he has not been allowed to see his wife once or received her letters or phone calls.

To date, Zhang Lianying has been on hunger strike for more than a year. She hasn’t eaten voluntarily since a few days before she was transferred from the dispatch division to the forced labour camp. She has continued her hunger strike since she entered the detention centre, and there is no recent news of her current condition.

Niu Jinping’s family’s bitter experience is typical of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners and their families. Among the practitioners that Niu Jinping knows, more than 30 have been killed in the persecution. Some were beaten to death by the police and died very tragically.

We urgently call on the international community, government officials and all people everywhere to pay close attention to Niu Jinping’s family’s plight, specifically concerning the critically ill Zhang Lianying, and to use every means necessary to secure her release. We call for an international coalition to send investigators to the Beijing Women’s Forced Labour Camp as soon as possible to find out Zhang Lianying’s current situation. The CCP is responsible for Zhang Lianying's plight and must ensure her safety. We call for her immediate release.

Wang Jing, Xiangheyuan Police Station Manager: 86-10-64660050
Beijing Chaoyang District 610: 86-10-6589-2288 ext. 320, 322
Officer Bai, 610 Office: 86-13601255959 (cell)
Beijing Tuanhe Dispatch Division: 86-10-61291199

Li Jirong, Manager, and Zhu Xiaoli, Assistant Manager, Beijing Women’s Forced Labour Camp: 86-10-60278899

Daxing District Women's Forced Labour Camp, Daxing County, Beijing City
Postcode: 102609

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

2. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/8/11/135343.html