Mr. Zhao Guoan From Henan Province, Is Killed in Detention; His Wife's Testimony

The Plaintiff: Zhang Guirong, female, 53 years old, from Wuyang County, Henan Province.

The Victim: Zhao Guoan, male, 54 years old, Zhang Guirong's husband. Officers from the Xuchang City Third Forced Labour Camp tortured Mr. Zhao to death on December 29, 2003.

The Accused:

Yan Zhenye, former director of the Xuchang City Third Forced Labour Camp.

Shi Baolong, former captain of the Xuchang City Third Forced Labour Camp.

Ma Huating, former education staff member of the Xuchang City Third Forced Labour Camp.

Jia Zhigang, former secondary captain of the Xuchang City Third Forced Labour Camp.

The Crime: My husband, Zhao Guoan, was a driver and worked in Guangzhou City. He had numerous illnesses resulting from the stress and fatigue caused by his work. He started to practise Falun Gong in October 1998, and his illnesses soon disappeared. Every day he lived by the principles of "Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance" as taught in the book "Zhuan Falun" [the main text in Falun Dafa] and tried to be a good person who was considerate of others in every respect. After July 20, 1999, Jiang Zemin's regime started to slander, frame and persecute Falun Gong and deceived many people who did not really understand the truth about Falun Gong. My husband and I were illegally arrested on May 23, 2003, because we clarified the truth about Falun Gong to people. We were imprisoned in the Wuyang Prison. My husband went on a hunger strike in the prison to protest the persecution and for this reason he was sent to the Xuchang City Third Forced Labour Camp, on August 7, 2003. There the persecution was intensified. I was released on August 14. On September 5, I went to visit my husband in the forced labour camp, accompanied by my brother, my son and my daughter-in-law. Each of us had to pay 10 yuan to get a visitor's pass. There were three gates in the forced labour camp. After we passed the first two gates and reached the third one, we were required to make derogatory statements about Falun Dafa and Teacher Li in order to pass. I refused to do so and they forced me to leave. On October 5, my brother and I tried again to visit Zhao Guoan, but once again they wouldn't let me in. When I saw my husband's thin face in the distance, I could not help bursting into tears.

On November 27, the "610 Office" abducted me and took me to a Brainwashing Centre. Later, in mid-December, I heard that the labour camp had sent for my son and daughter-in-law to go and see my husband. They stayed there for a few hours. Before they left, my son left his phone number and asked officials at the labor camp to call him if anything happened to his father.

On December 30, 2003, around 10 o'clock in the morning, the labour camp sent someone to my son's workplace to tell him that his father had suffered an acute heart attack and died after emergency treatment. He died during the night of December 29, 2003. The labour camp arranged for us to stay in a hotel, and they sent three members of the labour camp's clinical staff, Ma, Zhao, and Zhang, to meet us. Zhao said that my husband would not listen to camp personnel and was shouting, "Falun Dafa is good!" in the workroom. For this my husband was tied to a chair and locked up for three days. I asked them if they let my husband eat, but they wouldn't answer me. When I asked them if they tried to save my husband from the heart attack, they told me they had called for an ambulance, but it never came. When I asked them if he was injured, they said he only had a little scratch, which he got when they tried to treat his heart attack. It was late and they wanted to show us his body, but we didn't go.

On December 31, more than ten members of my family and I went to the Xuchang Third Hospital. My husband's body was in a big room on the third floor with a locked door, and we were told that no one was allowed to enter it without permission from the police. After we entered the room, we found that my husband's body had already been cleaned and dressed. There were strips of cloth tying up the ends of his sleeves. I opened up his clothes and saw that the skin and flesh on his chin and neck was all gone, and the area looked bloody and red. There was an area on his chest the size of a fist that had no flesh. The bloody groove of rope burn about the width of a finger marked the front of his shoulders. His lower abdomen was all bruised. I untied the strips wrapped around the ends of his sleeves and found that his hands were badly swollen. His ankles had purple marks roughly the width of a belt around them, and his feet and legs were swollen. I pushed on his forehead and it sank in. It also had unhealed wounds on it. I pulled him into a sitting position and found he had a very wide rope burn all the way from his ear to his lower back, and it was all bruised.

I cried and yelled, "How could he have such external injuries from having an acute heart attack?" No one from the labour camp answered me. The hospital staff, instead of showing sympathy for me, accused me of being too loud and dragged me from the room. In the afternoon, two men came from the Xuchang Procuratorate, saying that they had gone to the forced labour camp and conducted an investigation. However, they were not clear about the facts. One minute they said they found him dead at 5 o'clock, the next minute they said it was 7 o'clock. When we tried to look at their investigation book, they immediately snatched it away, saying that the investigation didn't count and they would not be involved in our case. Zhao from the labour camp said that since the procurators had dropped their investigation of the case, the labour camp would do the same. My son-in-law said something and they called the police station, threatening to investigate him. They also warned us that if anyone said anything more, any evidence they had given would not be included in the case. They blackmailed my son and other relatives, telling them that unless they signed some documents, the case would end immediately. For us, we were threatened, and as I had no money for funeral expenses, I took the 7,000 yuan from the forced labour camp.

My husband was a strong man when he was arrested. It took only four months in the Xuchang Third Forced Labour Camp for the police there to brutally torture him to death. He had injuries all over his body at the time of his death, as witnessed by all of our relatives who had gone with me to the hospital. Anybody who was released from the Xuchang Third Forced Labour Camp could testify to the fact that prisoners there are subjected to torture. Even the people who work in the labour camp would have to admit it.

The law requires that all murderers be severely punished. My husband, Zhao Guoan, violated no law, yet he was tortured to death by police, and for over a year now the murderers have not been brought to justice. This should not happen and does not make sense. I strongly urge the procuratorate to thoroughly investigate this murder and uncover the truth about how my husband was killed and ensure that the murderers are punished according to the law.

Plaintiff: Zhang Guirong

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/11/25/89976.html