Mr. Zhou Jiafu Brutally Beaten at Hulan Prison, Family Visits Denied

Zhou Jiafu, a 42-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Hegang, Heilongjiang Province was arrested at his home by officers from the Dongshan District Police Substation in September 2012.

He was sentenced to four years in prison at a secret trial held by Dongshan District Court in March 2013, and was taken to Jiamusi Prison. That August he was transferred to Hulan Prison.

His family members went to visit him on December 24th, 2013, but were denied their right to see him. The reason given by the prison was that Mr. Zhou used someone's mobile phone to call home and was therefore placed in solitary confinement as punishment. His family learned that he was also badly beaten.

Mr. Zhou's family went to see section heads, Wang Xiaochen and Liu, as well as the prison head to ask permission to see him, but their request was rejected. The prison officials also denied that Mr. Zhou was ever beaten.

His family once again went to Hulan Prison to visit Mr. Zhou on January 6th, 2014, but they were refused again by Wang Xiaochen and prison zone head Zhang Xinxin.

Section head Wang Xiaochen, smelling strongly of liquor and shouted, “You won't be allowed to see him for a whole year!” When Mr. Zhou's family tried to see the prison head, he stopped them too. Having nowhere to turn, Mr. Zhou's relatives went to report the incident to the inspection office, but officers from the Procuratorate Office were very cold to them, saying they had no evidence, and threw them out.

To date, Hulan Prison still refuses to allow Mr. Zhou's family to visit him.

Arrested and Sentenced to Four Years in Prison

Mr. Zhou was home alone printing some Falun Gong informational materials on September 20th, 2012, when he heard someone knocking at the door. He couldn't see anyone outside through the peephole. Thinking it must be his daughter playing hide and seek with him, he opened the door. Two police officers barged in and started searching his home.

Soon, more than a dozen police officers swarmed in and took him to the local police station. His house was searched and ransacked. They took away a desktop computer, notebook computer, three printers, two paper-cutters, a bag of CDs, over 15,000 yuan in cash¹ (10,000 yuan was returned later), seven mobile phones, over 40 phone cards and other personal belongings.

While the police were ransacking the couple's home, Mr. Zhou's wife Bai Guixia, was on her way to Yuejin Primary School to pick up their daughter. She was also arrested by police. When their daughter got home, she saw the house was filled with police officers and in a big mess.

When the police saw her, two officers forcibly grabbed her and took her to the neighbour's house opposite theirs, where she was kept until after 8:00 p.m. The police twisted her arm so hard that it was bruised.

The 11-year-old girl was left with no one to care for her, so she had to stay with her relatives. She was very worried about her parents and cried every night.

When she went to the Dongshan Police Station with her relatives to ask for the release of her parents, the police even tried to send her to an orphanage, but they failed to do so thanks to her relatives' resistance.

Mr. Zhou and his wife were taken to the Hegang No. 2 Detention Centre and interrogated by torture. His wife was released three months later after the police extorted 8,000 yuan from her.

Mr. Zhou was later transferred to the Hegang No.1 Detention Centre. Because he refused to sign the court documents, the police scolded him, put him in shackles and forced him to sit on the cold concrete floor.

On the afternoon of March 4th, 2013, Dongshan District Court opened a secret trial session without notifying his family. Later his family learned that he had been sentenced to four years in prison.

Mr. Zhou Repeatedly Persecuted for Speaking Out

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999. In February 2000, Mr. Zhou went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. He was taken back and detained in a local detention cente for six months.

During a meeting held at the police department to slander Falun Gong, Mr. Zhou spoke up to protest the persecution. Zhang Chunqing, deputy head of the police department abused him and he was also hit and kicked by police. They also beat him with a thick rubber tube before taking him back to a cell. They put him in handcuffs and shackles and secured his feet to an iron bar placed between his legs to intensify the pain. They then linked the three torture devices together with a chain and secured it to a ring in the floor. For weeks, he was forced to remain in this awkward position in which he could not lie down properly. He could barely move and couldn't take care of himself.

His head, ears and hands became swollen. The police freed one of his hands three days later, and it was not until the seventh day that they took the handcuff off his other hand. He was kept chained in this position for 23 days before they took off the shackles and the iron bar. Usually, an iron bar would not be used longer than seven days on a criminal, but they used it on Mr. Zhou for 23 days, causing him enormous physical and mental injuries.

A mass-arrest campaign was carried out on April 20th, 2002, led by Zhang Xingfu, the CCP secretary of Hegang City, which resulted in the incarceration of more than 500 practitioners. Mr. Zhou was sentenced to two years of forced labour at the Hegang Forced Labour Camp, where he suffered all kinds of humiliation and persecution.

His wife Bai Guixia was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison in January 2003, by Dongshan District Court. Their daughter was only two years old at that time and she had to be taken care of by her grandmother.

The child suddenly lost both parents. Whenever she saw a young woman, she would call her “mummy.” Her grandmother was overwhelmed with grief and worry. She passed way soon after Mr. Zhou was released from the labour camp.

Regaining His Health After Learning Falun Gong

Mr. Zhou used to work at the Chengji Hydropower Heating Power Co., Ltd. in Hegang. He was rather weak and sickly as a child and suffered severe insomnia in his teens. Later he contracted tuberculosis and often vomited blood.

When his life was in grave danger he was introduced to Falun Gong. He began practising in June 1999, and within one month, he fully recovered from his illnesses and enjoyed good health.

Note

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