Mr. Zhao Chunhua, 43, from Qianan City, Hebei Province, worked in a steel mill at the Capital Steel Company. On the morning of January 18th, 2005, some people reported him to the police for distributing Falun Gong materials. Officers of the Qianan City Police Department arrested him and took him to the station, where they beat him and shocked him with electric batons.
At around 5:00 a.m., the police handcuffed Mr. Zhao, took him to his home, and ransacked it. They seized his computer, and over a thousand yuan1 in cash. One officer even took away firecrackers for the New Year celebration. The items they seized filled two police cars, and they did not issue a receipt. At around 9:00 a.m., the police returned to ransack Mr. Zhao's home a second time, seizing additional property and scattering his belongings all over the floor.
Mr. Zhao's family tried to find out where he was held. One police officer offered them a lift with him and said that he would take them there. The distance from the police station to the detention centre was only about two miles and might have cost about ten yuan by taxi. But the officer drove his own car to the gas station and asked the family to pay a hundred yuan for gas.
The police tortured Mr. Zhao in many ways. After several days, they took him to the Hehuakeng Forced Labour Camp in Tangshan City to serve a one-year term. At the camp, the police set up a so-called "task force" to brainwash practitioners and try to force them to give up their belief. They forced Mr. Zhao to write statements to renounce Falun Gong made him stand for extended periods of time, and deprived him of sleep. They forced him to do over ten hours of forced labour every day, and he sometimes needed to stay up past midnight to finish his quota of work.
When the camp supervisors would come to do inspections, the guards would say that the practitioners worked only six hours a day. As a result, other inmates were appointed as supervisors for the practitioners. These inmates watched practitioners, would not let them talk, and followed them everywhere, even into the toilet. For no reason, practitioners were forbidden to leave their rooms while the other inmates moved freely. At the camp, they didn't provide enough food at each meal. After a while, all the practitioners began to starve, and they suffered from malnutrition.
As a result of the torture he endured at the forced labour camp, Mr. Zhao was unable to straighten his back, but his workload was not reduced. When he was released at the end of his one-year term, the Capital Steel Company fired him.
On August 20th, 2008, the police arrested Mr. Zhao again and sentenced him to two additional years of forced labour at a camp in Shijiazhuang City. Although his family tried very hard, they were unable to locate him. They were finally notified of his additional two-year sentence after the Olympics were over in late September.
Forced Labour Camp: 86-311-87754007
Note
1. "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/2009/7/5/203990.html
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