Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp Denies Family Visits for Ms. Zhang Lianying for Three Months; Unknown If She Is Alive

Falun Dafa practitioner Ms. Zhang Lianying of Beijing was persecuted and detained in Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp. To protest, she started a hunger strike and refused to wear the labour camp uniform. Ever since April 2006, when Zhang Lianying was detained in the camp, the perpetrators in Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp exhausted all vicious methods to torture Zhang Lianying. Later, they transferred Ms. Zhang out of the Sixth Team and put her into the Collective Team. They isolated Ms. Zhang from other practitioners and subjected her to more severe persecution.

On January 10th, 2007, Zhang Lianying's husband Niu Jinping went to the camp's administration section to ask to visit his wife. Zhang Lianying's youngest daughter cried outside the camp, "Mum, I miss you! I want to see my mum!" However, the labour administration head refused their reasonable request, saying, "Zhang Lianying refused to wear the camp uniform and has been a bad influence."

Zhang Lianying's family and young children were deprived of their rights to visit, to have their mail forwarded to her and to make phone calls to her. The family has so far endured three months without making contact with Ms. Zhang. What kind of persecution Zhang Lianying is enduring now, and how she is doing physically, are things that her family members don't know, and her family is now quite anxious!

Background Information

On June 14th, 2005, when Zhang Lianying was nursing her daughter at home, dozen of agents from the Xiangheyuan Police Station intruded and arrested her. On June 30th, 2005, they sentenced Ms. Zhang to two years and six months of forced labour.From August 2005 to mid-October, while detained in the Ninth Team of the Tuanhe Dispatch Division in Beijing, the perpetrators there never stopped verbally abusing and humiliating Ms. Zhang. Later in October 2005, she suffered from brutal beatings at the Dispatch Division. The beatings injured her face in several places, leading to one 3-centimetre long scar (1.2 in.). Her face was disfigured, and she had difficulty walking. Ms. Zhang was absent-minded and her life was in danger. In spite of her absent-mindedness, Zhang Lianying proposed to sue the persecutors for their mistreatment of her, but officials from the Beijing Labour Camp Bureau, from the Dispatch Division, and from the Procuratorate simply ignored her charges. The abusers still have not been punished.

In February 2006, eight prisoners savagely beat Zhang Lianying at the No. 10 Team of the Beijing Forced Labour Dispatch Division. She was again severely injured, hospitalised and closely monitored for 50 days beginning February 27th, 2006. The reason for her being beaten resulted from her shouting, "Falun Dafa is good" and refusing to wear the camp uniform. Ms. Zhang's face was badly bruised from being beaten. Her feet were poked by sharp objects and had some black points. She could not move her lower back and could not turn around. Her left leg was very swollen. When Zhang Lianying exposed those who had instigated this abuse from behind the scenes, and mentioned this to the Tuanhe Procuratorate representative who came to the labour camp to investigate her case, that representative repeatedly emphasised, "This kind of matter... whoever committed the deed should take the responsibility." Obviously, he was trying to absolve the Dispatch Division police of their responsibility.

Zhang Lianying's husband Niu Jinping, as well as their youngest daughter, then almost three years old, had no visiting privileges, no phone calls and no mail for their loved one for over seven months, since the Dispatch Division denied all attempts to see her beginning on February 17th, 2006. The Dispatch Division and camp officials intended to hide the criminal acts of the persecution of Zhang Lianying from her family and the outside world. On May 21st, 2006, Ms. Zhang's husband intervened on her behalf. He appealed to the international community during a visit of the Vice President of the European Parliament and exposed what happened to his wife. In late September 2006, due to outside pressure, the labour camp resumed family visits, mail and phone calls for Ms. Zhang.

From the time when Ms. Zhang Lianying was transferred to the Women's Labour Camp on April 20th, 2006, to the time when she stopped her hunger strike in September 2006, the officials at the labour camp extorted several hundred yuan each month from her husband Niu Jinping, amounting to 4,000 yuan¹ in total.

Mr. Niu Jinping, carrying his daughter, petitioned dozens of bureaus in the Beijing judicial system. He got a cold reception or ignorance, and time after time threats from the Chinese Communist Party police, agents from the 610 Office, and the Street Committee. He recently went to the Beijing Intermediate Court, the Labour Camp Bureau, Tuanhe Supervision Section, and other official bureaus to expose, try to prosecute the perpetrators and to submit appeals. The authorities said they would investigate and told him to go home and wait. Whether this is another dodging act on the part of the authorities, or even an aggravated persecution in disguised form, Dafa practitioners and righteous people around the world are watching!

Attachment: Appeal Letter

Ms. Zhang Lianying, 46 years old, from Beijing, a former Guangda Group Division Level officer and registered accountant, lived in Apt. 203 of the 2nd Unit of the 7th Building, Liufang Nanli, Chaoyang District, Beijing. In February 2006, she was brutally beaten by eight prisoners at the Beijing Forced Labour Dispatch Division. She was injured and sent to the hospital on February 27th, 2006, and stayed for 50 days. The reason Zhang Lianying was brutal beaten was only because she persisted in her belief in "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." She shouted, "Falun Dafa is good," and refused to wear the camp uniform. The beating heaped new wounds on the old ones. The heaviest beating happened after the 2006 lunar New Year, two days before she was hospitalised. At that time her whole face turned black from being beaten. Her feet were poked with some sharp objects and showed some black wounds. She could not move her lower back and could not turn around. Her left leg was swollen. The abusers also humiliated her by saying her face looked like someone who came from Africa. Those who participated in Zhang Lianying's beating include Yao Xiaoqing, Yu Fengde and Liu Xiaoli. These three persons had been transferred to the detention centre charged with "crimes of intentional injury" and were facing legal prosecution.

The team leaders of the Tenth Team knew that Zhang Lianying had been attacked, because right after the beating Ms. Zhang reported this to the deputy head of the Tenth Team, Cheng Yuanzheng. However, Cheng not only did not stop them and punish them according to the law, but insulted Zhang Lianying, accusing her of "violation of regulations." The criminals were fearless because the guards and team leaders encouraged their actions and escalated the persecution of Zhang Lianying, to the extent that she was mentally and physically devastated.

It is common knowledge that in places such as the Dispatch Division, those under supervision dare not beat others at will without instigation or tolerance from the guards. In fact, those eight prisoners didn't want to hit others, but the guards forced them. Before and after the beating, some of them felt so mentally uncomfortable that they cried several times. Some of them told Ms. Zhang many times that the team leaders ordered them to beat her after the holiday. Two of them who didn't want to beat her were scolded by their cell leader Yao Xiaoqing and cried several times. Some also told Zhang Lianying after beating her that she didn't want to do it and felt so sorry, but she "had to protect herself." In other words, if she didn't cooperate with the evildoers, she would be punished.

It is worth pointing out that from the time Ms. Zhang Lianying's husband Niu Jinping visited her with their daughter at the Dispatch Division on February 17th, 2006, until the third week of September 2006, to hide and cover the truth that Zhang Lianying had been beaten and injured, the Tuanhe Dispatch Division and Women's Labour Camp had deprived their visiting rights, and even mail and phone call rights, for more than seven months. It made her family members very anxious about Ms. Zhang's status. Only in the second half of September 2006, after Niu Jianping exposed his family's suffering through the Vice President of the European Parliament to the International world, did they regain the visiting rights.

Zhang Lianying's almost three-year-old youngest daughter has not seen her mother for a long time and was deprived of the rights of being cared for and raised by her mother. The girl has suffered severely from this persecution.

From April 20th, 2006 -- when Zhang Lianying was transferred to the Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp, to September 2006 -- when she stopped the hunger strike, the camp guards extorted several hundred yuan from her husband each month in the name of force-feeding. They also spent all of the 1,000 yuan that Zhang Lianying's family had deposited in her private camp account. In just several months, the Labour Camp extorted up to 4,000 yuan from her family without explaining where the money went. No rational explanation was given and no receipts were provided.

In summary, Zhang Lianying suffered the following mistreatment at Beijing Labour Camp Dispatch Division and the Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp: (1) Beatings and injuries; (2) being tied up and deprived of sleep and of use of the toilet for long time periods including prohibited toilet use during her period; (3) mental insults and scolding; (4) Deprived of family communication for seven months; (5) Extortion of money from her family members, totalling 4,000 yuan.

According to the Criminal Law Code of the People's Republic of China and China's Law of Criminal Procedure, Cheng Yuanzheng and others have committed a number of crimes in the persecution of Ms. Zhang Lianying, including: instigating crime (Article 29 in "Criminal Law"), the crime of intentional injury (Article 234 in "Criminal Law"), the crime of insult and libel (Article 246 in "Criminal law"), and the crime of maltreatment of a supervised person (Article 248 in "Criminal law").

Zhang Lianying entrusts her legal representative to hereby submit the following requests:

1. Investigate the detailed incidents of Zhang Lianying's suffering at the Tuanhe Dispatch Division. Thoroughly investigate the criminal responsibility of Cheng Yuanzheng and others who enforce the law at their convenience but break the law themselves.
2. Investigate the facts that the Beijing Women's Forced Labour Camp deprived Zhang Lianying of her mailing rights, family visiting rights, and extorted money from her. The persons responsible should be punished. We request compensation for economic losses and for mental suffering in the amount of 5,000 yuan.
3. We demand Zhang Lianying's immediate release on the grounds that she at all times conducted herself according the standards of a kind person, did nothing to hurt anyone, and by reason of her declining health, which is a result of physical atrocities she was subjected to for a long time, and by reason of her young daughter needing her mother's care. This request for immediate release is coupled with the demand to immediately return Zhang Lianying's personal rights and freedom.

Zhang Lianying's entrusted legal representative for prosecution:

Niu Jinping

Note

1. "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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/1/15/146855.html