After Being Sent to Forced Labour Twice Before, Mr. Zhang Jingzhou Now Sentenced to Five-and-a-Half Years

Name: Zhang Jingzhou
Gender: Male
Age: 52
Address: Jingzhou City, Hubei Province
Occupation: Formerly employed by the Wugang Corporation in the transportation department
Date of Most Recent Arrest: December 13th, 2010
Most Recent Place of Detention: Unknown
City: Wuhan
Province: Hubei
Persecution Suffered: Forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, imprisonment, fired from his job

Mr. Zhang Jingzhou has already been sentenced to forced labour camps twice before. During mid June 2011, he was again sentenced to five and a half years of imprisonment by a Hongshan District Court in Wuhan City.

Mr. Zhang Jingzhou was born in 1959 and is a resident of Jingzhou City, Hubei Province. He was previously employed in the transportation department of the Wugang Corporation. During the 12 years since the Communist regime launched its brutal suppression of Falun Gong and since Zhang refused to give up the practice, he was seized and detained and his house ransacked countless times. Mr. Zhang was sentenced to a total of three and a half years of forced labour twice and subjected to brainwashing. His wife divorced him because she was unable to bear the persecution.

During the early hours of December 13th, 2010, Mr. Zhang was taken away by plainclothes policemen while placing a Falun Gong message on the wall of the Dongxihu District Court in Wuhan City.

He was subsequently hung up and beaten by the police for several days and nights. He was also prohibited from sleeping.

During his detention, his mother, who is in her 80s, braved the snow and travelled several hundred miles from Jingzhou to visit him in Wuhan on January 20th, 2011. However, she was not allowed to see him.

His family was not notified when he was put on trial on May 31st. Consequently, he had no lawyer to defend him. In court, Mr. Zhang revealed that the “evidence” produced was the result of several days and nights of beatings by the Dongxihu District police, but the judge still sentenced him to five and a half years.

Several months have passed since the trial and his family has yet to receive any legal documents regarding the sentence. At present, his family has no news of his whereabouts or where he is being detained.

Other practitioners were tried at the same time as Mr. Zhang Jingzhou. Liu Shehong from Xianning City was sentenced to four years, and Ouyang Haiwen and Peng Liang from the Wuchang District were sentenced to four years and three years respectively.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/8/5/244956.html