Further Information on the Murder of Dafa Practitioner Ms Zhang Zhibin at the Kaiping Forced Labour Camp

Zhang Zhibin was a practitioner living in Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province. She was murdered on December 18, 2000 at the Kaiping Forced Labour Camp in Tangshan City. The guards falsely claimed the cause of her death to be suicide, and coerced her family to go along with it.

Ms. Zhang Zhibin, 32, worked at the Bureau of Commerce in Qinglong County. She started practising Falun Gong in 1998. After the Jiang regime started persecuting Falun Gong practitioners on July 20, 1999, she went to Beijing to appeal against the persecution, righteously clarifying the truth. She was abducted and taken to the Qinglong County Detention Centre four times. She was then transferred to the Kaiping Labour Camp without any due process of law. She died on December 18, 2000 after being subjected to repeated torture in the labour camp.

During her abduction, her two children were taken care of by her mother. Zhang's murder severely impaired her mother's ability to take care of the two children. Zhang's parents-in-law came over to Zhang's home in Qinglong County to take care of her children.

During her incarceration, she was brutally tortured by guards and inmates alike because she refused to give up her faith in "Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance." They tortured her by constraining her with handcuffs and leg shackles. "Tao Shang" is a torture that uses handcuffs and leg shackles together to confine a person. The torture instruments vary in size. Some of them could weigh as much as 30 pounds. It is done by handcuffing the hands behind the legs to the shackles around the ankles. Under such constriction a person could not stand up or sit down, let alone eat or relieve themselves without help.

"Gua Gan" was a form of torture by handcuffing both arms to a high place such that they can barely touch the ground with the tip of the toe or one foot only. "Pa Bing" was a form of torture done during winter; the guards would pour water onto concrete floor in the courtyard of the prison until it froze over. Then they would force Dafa practitioners to lie on their stomachs on the ice, with both arms stretched out. Then the guards would demand other inmates to step on the practitioner's arms until the body heat melted down the ice to form a human figure, which the guards found quite funny. Some male Dafa practitioners would have their pants stripped off while being tortured this way, so that the guards could lash their buttocks with a leather belt.

Once Zhang Zhibin and 20 other fellow practitioners were forced to "Pa Bing," and their fingers were frozen solid. Later, the damaged flesh turned into a blackened hard shell, and finally fell off together with their fingernails. Another time, Zhibin and three other fellow practitioners were handcuffed and leg shackled. The guards then forced them to march around the flowerbed. They could only do so by inching forward in a half-kneeling position.

Once the guards brought a group of newly arrested practitioners to the cell where Zhang Zhibin was detained. Zhang Zhibin led the 10 other practitioners in the same cell to recite teachings of Falun Dafa to encourage the newly arrested fellow practitioners. Guards then took her away to the large vegetable patch on the east side. She was not seen until after more than a month. The large vegetable patch was quite some distance away from the detention quarters. When the guards tortured Dafa practitioners over there, they would hang practitioners from the tree to savagely beat them and electrically shock them. If practitioners were only moderately injured after the torture, two inmates would carry them back. Those who were severely wounded would be directly put into a solitary confinement cell so that nobody would see them. Because of her unwavering faith in practising Dafa and her protest of the abduction by hunger strike, Zhang Zhibin was subjected to "Gua Gan" many times.

On December 21, 2000, Zhibin's sister received a phone call, notifying her of Zhibin's "death by suicide." Zhibin's relatives had to strongly protest before they were allowed to pay last respects to her body and visit the site of her murder. They observed that there were no signs of suicide by hanging as the authorities claimed, but Zhibin's chest showed very large patches of dark colour. Similar large dark colour patches were observed on one of her arms. There were also two needle marks around her waist. There were very thin and light marks ringing her neck. The site of her death was the solitary confinement cell. There was only one small section of steel wire high on the ceiling where one can attach a rope, but this piece of steel wire did not appear to be useful or to be part of the ceiling. On the wooden bed, four blankets were stacked together, along with Zhibin's cotton padded trousers with a yellow ribbon. The ribbon appeared to be brand new and showed no sign of usage. Zhibin's relatives questioned the guards; "Zhibin did not bring anything with her when she was abducted, so this must have been brought over by the police. She had been detained in this place for quite some time, so where did the yellow ribbon come from? How do you explain the dark colour patches on her body and the needle marks?" The labour camp officials explained that the dark colour patches and needle marks were left by emergency rescue operations, but gave no explanation to the other questions. Relatives then demanded to see whether other inmates in solitary confinement also had four blankets. The camp officials looked at each other sheepishly without answers. Finally the camp officials promised to settle the death with 50,000 Yuan RMB. Zhibin's relatives did not agree and demanded to know the true cause of her death.

Labour camp officials then called up the Qinglong Public Security Bureau for help. The Political Security section head Li Changxing and two deputies from other law enforcement agencies went to the labour camp with guns. They held all of her relatives in one room. Neither mobile phones nor pagers were allowed. They told the relatives, "Now, our government has classified Falun Gong as a cult. Its practice is not allowed. It is no use to appeal or file charges regardless of where you apply them." Each relative was individually summoned outside the room to coerce them. They told Zhibin's brother in law who worked at the government, "If you insist on this matter, you will be fired from your job." They told another relative who worked at the police station (2nd uncle of Zhibin's children), "If you try to mess around with us, you better not expect that you will still have a job!" They told other relatives who were not government employees, "If you insist on finding out more, we will sentence you to labour re-education right here, right now! You won't be going back home." Relatives demanded to go back to the murder site, and noticed that the yellow ribbon had disappeared; instead, two pieces of a torn bed sheet were left there. They did not dare to say anything further. Seeing that the coercion worked, the labour camp gave 30,000 Yuan RMB to the relatives the next day (December 27, 2000) and cremated the body. Qinglong police then escorted the relatives back with the ashes in an urn. The police did not allow her relatives to set up a memorial at home, afraid that other Dafa practitioners might go there to hold a memorial service. So the urn was placed at the Qinglong crematory. After getting home, her relatives told each other, "We better stay low. Otherwise we would also be abducted to the labour camp and never come home again."

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/9/29/85354.html