In Memory of Fellow Practitioner Mr. Zhang Jianxun

Mr. Zhang Jianxun was a 64-year-old resident of Houliuying Village, Anping County, Hebei Province. He was a retired employee from the county Civil Affairs Bureau. After he started to practice Falun Gong, he became very healthy and was very energetic. Having benefited from Falun Gong, he told everyone he met how Falun Gong helped him.

On August 9, 2000, Mr. Zhang went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. He submitted an appeal letter to the Central Appeal Office. However, he was arrested right on the spot. He had never thought that he would be arrested while exercising his right to appeal as a citizen. He was taken back to Anping County and was detained in the county detention centre for over 20 days. While in detention, he was also forced to do hard labour. Later the political section chief, Hou Dajian from the county police department extorted 2,000 Yuan (1) from his family before finally setting him free. In fact, Hou was a relative of Zhang and he thought he had done Zhang a favour by pressuring him to give up Falun Dafa.

On February 4, 2001, Mr. Zhang was arrested again and forced to go through brainwashing. He was detained for over half a month before he was released. A couple of days later, on February 21, Wang Quanzheng and Zhao Jiyong from the Civil Affairs Bureau took him away from home and sent him to the county detention centre. The bureau had cut off his salary for nearly two years, yet they still colluded with the police to persecute him. Later Zhang was sentenced to one year of forced labour.

While jailed at the Shijiazhuang City Labour Camp, Mr. Zhang was first put in the "Strictly Disciplined Class," where he was forced to keep his head down when walking; otherwise he would receive brutal beatings. Every day he had to get up at 6:00 o'clock in the morning and then was forced to squat facing the wall. He was also forced to work nearly 20 hours a day. Several days later, he could no longer endure the hard labour. He often stumbled and he could not easily get up. Seeing he could no longer work, the police then transferred him to a different unit. In the new unit, because he refused to write the guarantee letter, the police did not allow him to sleep and tortured him around the clock. By the third day in the new unit, he suddenly lost his memory and could not speak. The doctors diagnosed that he had suffered a stroke. A healthy 64-year-old man was tortured to such an extent in just one month. He could no longer take care of himself.

In order to shirk responsibility, the labour camp authorities informed his family to pick him up, releasing him on medical parole. At the same time, they also extorted 240 Yuan from his family. After he returned home, his family found that his fingernails had come off due to the torture. His condition deteriorated rapidly and he never recovered his ability to speak. He wasn't able to tell his family, fellow practitioners or the world's people how he was tortured in the labour camp. On June 13, 2002, he passed away in the hospital despite emergency treatment.

(1) Yuan is the unit of currency in China, where the average monthly salary of an urban worker is 500 Yuan.