The Plight of Ms. Zhang Yan and Her Family

Ms. Zhang Yan, 33, lived in Gaoxin District, Mianyang City, Sichuan Province. She was a music teacher at the Tanxun Middle School. Ms. Zhang and her whole family in Mianyang City practise Falun Gong and have suffered greatly from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) persecution over the past eight years.

On January 23rd, 2006, Ms. Zhang's brother Zhang Chunbao and his wife were imprisoned in Deyang Prison for explaining the facts about Falun Gong. Their families were not allowed to visit them. On December 6th, 2007, Ms. Zhang Yan was arrested when she and her parents went to the prison to visit her brother. Yan Zhang is currently locked in the Beichuan County Detention Centre in Mianyang.

In 2000, Ms. Zhang and her family were arrested when they went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. Ms. Zhang and her mother and brother were taken to the Mianyang City Detention Centre. Ms. Zhang was fined 8,000 yuan¹ and fired from her job. In October 2000, Ms. Zhang and her brother were sent to forced labour camps to serve one-year sentences.

When Zhang Yan was in the Sichuan Women's Forced Labour Camp, she and other practitioners were persecuted by being forced to stand facing a wall for 18 hours a day every day. They were not allowed to shower, change clothes, or even brush their teeth. They were locked in their rooms all the time and each of them was allowed to use the toilet in their rooms only twice a day. The toilets in their rooms were dirty and uncovered. Eventually, Ms. Zhang became covered in scabies. In summer, the rooms were steaming hot, and still the guards forced them to sit on plastic stools facing the wall for 16 hours a day. The guards didn't allow the practitioners to have family visits, make phone calls, or send letters. The practitioners had to do hard labour and were made to attend brainwashing sessions. While Zhang Yan was in prison, her parents were taken to a brainwashing centre in Gaoxin District. Altogether, their lost wages while detained added up to tens of thousands of yuan.

Ms. Zhang and her brother didn't give up practising Falun Dafa while they were in the labour camps. The CCP officials in Mianyang City saw them as a serious problem. Liu Shijie, captain of the domestic security division in Gaoxin District, and head of the security division of the Puming Airport followed Zhang Yan's family constantly and broke into their house many times to search for Falun Dafa materials.

One day, Ms. Zhang's family went out to celebrate an occasion. The police in Mianyang City mobilised a lot of officers and special agents to search bus stations, train stations and hotels to find them. Some officers even went to Beijing. Under this type of relentless harassment, Ms. Zhang's family was forced to abandon their home to avoid further persecution. The police visited relatives of the Zhang family in Zhongjiang County many times and harassed them as they tried to find where the family was living

Mr. Zhang Chunbao, 35, Ms. Zhang's older brother, worked at the Puming Airport in Mianyang City. He was fired from his job because he practised Falun Gong and was also sentenced to a year of forced labour.

In the evening on April 28th, 2005, Mr. Zhang and his wife, practitioners Yin Huajie, Feng Wei, Yue Bin, and Gao Yancheng went to Qiang Autonomous Region in northern Sichuan to deliver Falun Gong informational literature. The local police officers arrested them and locked them up in a post office guest house in Beichuan County. Pu Jianguo, Captain of the Beichuan County Domestic Security Brigade, and other officers tortured these practitioners to try to force them to confess to a crime they didn't commit. Officers slapped Mr. Zhang and kicked him.

On January 23rd, 2006, the Beichuan County Court secretly tried these practitioners without informing their families. The "trial"was not open to the public. During the trial, the court police wouldn't allow the practitioners to defend themselves. An officer would hit the practitioner on the back or shoulders if they tried to talk. Feng Wei tried to tell the judge that the police officers tortured them during the interrogations, but Judge Zhu Jihong said, "You are guilty and you deserve to be punished!"

The police and procurators made up evidence, and the court's verdict was a foregone conclusion. In the end, all six practitioners were sentenced to prison: Zhang Chunbao, Yin Huajie, and Gao Yan were each sentenced to eight years, Feng Wei was sentenced to seven-and-a-half years, Mingzhu was sentenced to five years, and Yue Bin was sentenced to three years. The police confiscated Yue's car, home computer, company laptop, and other personal belongings.

After the arrest of Ms. Zhang Yan's sister-in-law was exposed on the Minghui website [Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net], police in Mianyang City suspected that it was Ms. Zhang who had provided the details and thus wanted to arrest her. Ms. Zhang was forced to leave home to avoid further persecution.

Mr. Zhang Chunbao has been locked in the Deyang Prison since 2006. He has refused to cooperate with the police. Since March 2007, the police have twice locked him up in solitary confinement and denied him family visits. Mr. Zhang's health has deteriorated, as his limbs are swollen and he has no energy. He demanded to see a physician for a health check, but the police concealed the results and still forced him to do hard labour and denied his family visits.

At 2 p.m. on December 6th, 2007, Ms. Zhang Yan and her parents went to the prison to visit Mr. Zhang Chunbao, but their request was denied. As Ms. Zhang walked out of the Deyang Prison, several plain-clothes officers dragged her into a police vehicle parked near the prison gate. Director Chen of the Deyang Prison and a dozen officers surrounded Ms. Zhang's parents so that they couldn't stop their daughter's arrest. As the police car drove Ms. Zhang away, Director Chen said that they had nothing to do with it and Ms. Zhang's parents needed to go to the Mianyang Police Station to see Ms. Zhang.

The Deyang Prison in Sichuan Province: 86-838-3820115,86-838-3820224
Head of the prison: Liu Yuanhang
Deputy head of the prison: Shi Jinhua
The prison administration division: 86-838-3820225

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://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/12/17/168531.html