Entire Family Persecuted, Ms. Zhang Shuchun Injured While Avoiding Arrest in Changchun

Ms. Zhang Shuchun is a practitioner in Beitaishang Village of Xinzhuang Town, Zhaoyuan City of Shandong Province. While avoiding arrest in Changchun City, Jilin Province, she fell from a building, causing a splinter fracture in her wrist, broken ribs, internal organ damage and paralysis. The thugs who were pursuing her abandoned her where she fell in a rural area. Fortunately, she was helped by kind people and survived. However, because of the police, she is now forced to stay away from home. The persecution has brought Ms. Zhang's family much tremendous suffering.

Since July 20th, 1999, Ms. Zhang and her mother, brother and sister have been arrested and tortured several times for practising Falun Gong. Zhaoyuan City Police Department, Luofeng Road Police Station, Xinzhuang Police Station, as well as different brainwashing centres, are all responsible for persecuting this family. Ms. Zhang's elder sister, a Dafa practitioner, was arrested by officers from the Changchun City Police Department on February 7th, 2001. She was sentenced to 10 years, and is still detained in Changchun City's Heizuizi Prison. During these several years, she has been brutally tortured. Ms. Zhang's sister-in-law, also a practitioner, was sentenced to 5 years, and is still detained in Weifang Prison. Ms. Zhang's father, despite suffering his children's mistreatment, was also arrested, taken to a brainwashing centre and persecuted there. Finally, he could no longer withstand the inhuman torture and passed away in January 2005. When Ms. Zhang's father-in-law was severely ill in 2004, her mother-in-law and other family members all hoped he could at least see Ms. Zhang once, but he passed away in June 2004.

Below is more detailed information exposing the persecution of Ms. Zhang's family:

On July 20th, 1999, Ms. Zhang and her elder sister Zhang Shuqin went to Beijing to appeal against the persecution of Falun Dafa. Police from the Zhaoyuan Police Department illegally arrested¹ and detained them in the Luofeng Road Police Station in Zhaoyuan City. Political Security Director Cao Hongguang interrogated them for an entire day.

On August 22nd, 1999, Ms. Zhang and her elder sister were charged with so-called "disturbing social order" and detained for 15 days. Because they refused to write statements giving up the practice, they were continually detained, and later sent to the brainwashing centre, where they suffered all kinds of humiliation. The police would not allow them to go to the toilet and humiliated them. Xinzhuang Town Political Judicial Bureau Party Secretary Li Shumin, along with other police often swore at them. Ms. Zhang and her sister had to appeal by going on a hunger strike. They were not released until January 10th, 2000. At that time, Ms. Zhang and her sister were detained for more than 4 months. Meanwhile, practitioners Chen Shihuan and Liu Dianjun were tied tightly, forced to kneel down, and were treated as criminals.

Around January 20th, 2000, Ms. Zhang went to Beijing to appeal together with her brother, elder sister, younger sister, and brother-in-law. She and her brother, as well as her elder sister, were detained by the Zhaoyuan City Police Station. The detention centre guards beat practitioners brutally, often asking practitioners to extend their heads out of the cell and then kicking them. They also pulled practitioners' arms out of the cell, stretched and handcuffed them. It did not take long before the practitioners' hands were severely swollen. Sometimes, they hung up practitioners at midnight and beat them. During the interrogation of practitioners, electric batons were frequently used, and some practitioners' hands were severely burned due to the electric shocks. Several times the police guards lit firecrackers and threw them into the cell. Practitioners' lives are in constant danger while in detention. Sometimes, practitioners were handcuffed for several consecutive days. Even while sleeping at night, practitioners were still handcuffed together.

The police guard primarily responsible for persecuting practitioners is Sui Songna.

After the illegal one-month detention term finished, the three practitioners, (Ms. Zhang and her two siblings), were sent back to Xinzhuang Police Station. They were detained in small cells, and were unable to stand due to the limited space. Several days later, they were told to write statements to give up the practice. They refused, and were sent back to the detention centre. In this way, they were detained 6 times back and forth, totalling 7 months.

Later, these three practitioners were sent to the Xinzhuang Town Retirement Home Brainwashing Centre. They were separately detained in isolated cells. Ms. Zhang was detained in a room which was used for corpses. Several other practitioners were also detained with her. Practitioners had to sleep on the cement floor, which was often wet. They were not allowed to eat lunch, and breakfast and dinner consisted of only about 100 grams (about 3 oz) of food each meal. After being detained for more than one month, the police extorted 5,000 yuan² from Ms. Zhang's husband and forced him to sign a document saying that the money would be returned as long as his wife did not go to Beijing (the money has not been returned). This time, Ms. Zhang was detained for more than 8 months.

After Ms. Zhang returned home, the police sent people to stay around her house and monitor her. They also arrested Ms. Zhang and her elder sister now and then, claiming it was necessary to do on the Communist Party's so-called "sensitive days." Ms. Zhang's parents-in-law were elderly, and they were nervous every day, worrying that Ms. Zhang would be arrested. After staying at home for less than one month, Ms. Zhang and her sister were forced to leave home. Zhaoyuan City 610 Office³ officials did not give up and went to Changchun City several times to look for Ms. Zhang.

On March 11th, 2002, Ms. Zhang, her younger sister, together with another practitioner, went to visit practitioner Liu Haibo. However, there were police guards waiting there, and they arrested Ms. Zhang's sister and the other practitioner. The police ran after Ms. Zhang, who was forced to run to the edge of the building, where she fell down. At that time, Ms. Zhang was in great pain. The police went to where she had fallen and lied to the surrounding people, "The husband and wife were arguing over a divorce, and she jumped from the building." In this way, they carried Ms. Zhang to the van and went to Changchun City Police Department. Ms. Zhang lay on the floor. Her wrist was fractured, her ribs were broken, she had internal organ damage and was paralysed from the waist down. Still, they wanted to interrogate Ms. Zhang. Because of the enormous pain, whenever they moved her, Ms. Zhang could not help but cry out due to the pain. They took off her coat and covered her head. Finally, they sent her to the hospital for examination, and said, "If your pain is faked, we will hang you up and torture you tonight."

After taking x-rays and examining her in the hospital, the doctor told the police, "Her injuries are too severe to be treated in this hospital." Seeing Ms. Zhang's condition, they decided to abandon her in the countryside. A police officer told her, "You will die for sure if you don't go to the hospital for treatment." Fortunately, some kind people helped her, and Ms. Zhang survived. As recently as late 2005, the thugs still went to Changchun City to look for Ms. Zhang in her siblings' homes. As of now, Ms. Zhang Shuchun still stays away from home to avoid further persecution and cannot return.

Note

1. Illegally arrested: Contrary to what former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin, who initiated the persecution, and the Chinese Communist Party would like the world to believe, practising Falun Gong is NOT illegal in China. Although the Public Security Department issued an unconstitutional set of restraints on the practice at the onset of the persecution in 1999, no laws have been passed by the only legislative body in China, the People's Congress, banning Falun Gong or granting the police the authority to arrest Falun Gong practitioners for practising the exercises or distributing flyers. For a more complete discussion of the illegality of the persecution of Falun Gong, please refer to the article "The Ban on Falun Gong—A Dictator's Whim, Not the Rule of Law". (Variation: "illegally sentenced")

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

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/5/13/127506.html