Public Statement of Nanhua University Lecturer Zhang Peng After Receiving an Unlawful Ten-Year Prison Sentence

My name is Zhang Peng. I am a 29 years old, male, living in Hengyang City, Hunan Province and I was a lecturer in the Electric Engineering Department, Nanhua University in Hengyang City. Through independent studies I obtained an Attorney's Certificate and worked as a lawyer in Hengyang City and in Guangzhou City.

Since the beginning of 1999 when I started to practise Falun Gong, I have come to realize the miracles of Dafa. In July of 1999, Jiang Zemin started the persecution against Falun Gong and in October of 1999 I was illegally arrested for going to Beijing to appeal according to my constitutional rights. I was held in Hengyang City's Baishazhou Detention Centre (also named the Drug Rehabilitation Centre). Two weeks after I was released, they abducted and detained me again. This was repeated three times.

During detention I was held among the drug addicts who were under a forced programme to give up drug use. The centre personnel incited the drug addicts to physically punish and otherwise torture me, including stripping my clothes off during snowy days and pouring cold water all over my body in the snow. At the same time, Nanhua University's Zhongnan Engineering Institute removed my personnel files from the university against my will and deprived me of my right to work. In January of 2000, when my family bailed me out of the detention centre, I had wounds and scars covering my body, and I had no job and no source of income. Anytime, I could be abducted and be unlawfully detained again. To avoid being further persecuted, I became homeless and moved from place to place.

In February of 2001 I was abducted in Changsha City. I was tortured, coerced and framed. A gang from the Political and Security Section from the Hengyang City Police Department, led by Zhou Zhuwen and Zhong Zhihua, were responsible. I was first detained in the Hengyang City Police Department guest house, then at the 1st Detention Centre in Hengyang City, followed by the detention centre of the Provincial Police Department in Changsha City, and finally the 2nd Detention Centre in Hengyang City, up until now.

On November 2, 2001, they convened a "court session" for Ding Shikun, Li Xuexian and me, during which the three of us solemnly told the jury, "We are innocent. The so called 'evidence' has been fabricated and concocted by some of the police who have handled the case, after they tried their torturing, coercing and deceiving methods. These frame-ups are used as excuses to persecute Dafa practitioners. There is nothing wrong with wanting to cultivate and there is nothing incorrect about telling people that we are being persecuted. We demand to have our innocent reputations and good names restored!"

On the 9th, a so-called "court verdict" sentenced me to ten years; Ding Shikun was given a nine- year sentence and Li Xuexian was given seven years. We refused to sign the "verdict" document, so as to show our resistance. To tell the truth about Falun Dafa to more people, to expose the despicable means the evildoers had used and are still using to persecute Dafa and Dafa practitioners, and to ask for the return of the good reputation and the "innocent" designation for Dafa and the practitioners appealing to the Hengyang City Middle Level People's Court and filed charges against those guilty parties, is our most basic right. At the same time we called on all of society for attention and support.

On December 24, the Middle Level People's Court convened a session for this case. Even though the court announced beforehand that this court session was open to the public, the court-affiliated police vehicle brought the three of us in the morning into the court through an alley, avoiding the main entrance. Furthermore, a basement room was chosen as the courtroom. During the court session I faced the jury with kind thoughts and compassion. At the same time, with dignity and an aura of justice that I had acquired through cultivating Dafa, I exposed one by one the evil and unjust nature of the "verdicts" the district court had rendered. I pointed out that in the verdicts the so-called "believed facts" were fake and the so-called "believed evidence" was illegal, and that the way the law had been used was totally wrong. To clarify the truth about this case, the three of us requested the court to call in the witnesses and those police officers mentioned in the verdicts who had dealt with the case. We further requested to call in the personnel and detainees of the detention centres who had seen us suffering the cruel torture and various other, unlawful torments and to examine the scars and wounds on our bodies during the court session.

We solemnly declare: "Truth is not afraid of being debated and examined and facts can be open to the public; every one with kind thoughts can tell the righteous from evil. We expect that everything about this case will be impartially made public without any distortion." The court took it under deliberation, saying that they would consider our request.

Falun Dafa is the law of the universe; all the evildoers that persecute Dafa and Dafa practitioners will end ignominiously.

Zhang Peng

December 25, 2001

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On January 22, 2002, the ruling "maintain the original court decision" arrived from the city's Middle Level People's Court. On the 25th, Ding Shikun was sent to the Changsha Women's Prison; soon after that, Zhang Peng and Li Xuexian were sent to the Chishan Prison in Yuanjiang City, Hunan Province (The 1st Prison of Hunan Province). In Chishan Prison, Zhang Peng refused to be so called "reformed"; he kept on firmly cultivating in Dafa, opposing the persecution and clarifying the truth. He went on several hunger strikes to protest the persecution of Dafa and Dafa practitioners.

Zhang Peng: 86-734-8123471£¨Home£©

Zhou Zhuwen, policeman for the Political and Security Section, Hengyang City Police Department: 86-734-8225884, ext.2514

Luo, the head of the 2nd Detention Centre in Hengyang City: 86-13807347547(mobile)

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/6/9/76685.html