Ms. Zhang Deping Cruelly Tortured in Sichuan Province

Name: Zhang Deping
Gender: Female
Age: 40
Address: Sichuan, Guanghan City, Sanshui Town, Changle Village, Group No. 7
Occupation: Former employee of Yuhan Steel Pipe Company in Guanghan City

Date of Most Recent Release: May 19th, 2009
Most Recent Place of Detention: Nanmusi Women Forced Labour Camp
City: Zizhong
Province: Sichuan
Persecution Keywords: Forced labour, beatings, expelled from workplace, administration of unknown drugs, solitary confinement, confiscation of personal belongings, and more.

Ms. Zhang Deping was captured on May 6th, 2008, and two months later forced to undergo "re-education" through forced labour. While Ms. Zhang was jailed, prison guards subjected her to many kinds of brutal tortures. Ms. Zhang resisted her imprisonment and was released from the forced labour camp after one year.

During the last ten years, Ms. Zhang and her parents' family were often harassed by persons from the Sanshui Town government and local police station. Usually, more than a dozen people and several cars showed up each time.

At around 8:00 p.m. on December 23rd, 2001, when Ms. Zhang was working at the water reservoir, police officers Liu Guangjian, Liu Guangyong, Qing Sanjiang, Liao Xianyong, Huang Yong, and others from the Sanshui Town Police Station, suddenly appeared and ransacked Ms. Zhang's office, without showing any ID or documents. They even threatened the company's president, saying, "How dare you hire a Falun Gong practitioner to work for you? Don't you want to keep your plant?" Then they went to Ms. Zhang's home, confiscated her Dafa books, and took her to the Sanshui Police Station, where she was tortured for two days. Ms. Zhang was released, but she lost her job.

During the Spring Festival in 2002, Ms. Zhang and another practitioner were arrested and taken to the police station. She was put in handcuffs with her arms wrapped around a big tree for more than 24 hours. That happened on February 9th, 2002, just two days before the new Chinese lunar year.

In 2008, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) intensified the persecution of practitioners due to the Beijing Olympic Games. On the morning of May 6th, 2008, Wang Yong, head of the Armed Forces Department in Sanshui Town, led police officers Qing Sanjiang, Chen Quanwei, Tang Binbin, Liu Guangyong, Liu Guangjian and others, from the National Security Division Police Station, to Ms. Zhang's home to confiscated her property again. They also took her Falun Gong books and related materials, her telephone, a TV, a motorcycle, a bicycle, over 200 yuan¹ in cash, and other items. They also smashed all of her windows, and door, as well as her neighbour's door.

Ms. Zhang was later taken to the detention centre of Guanhan City, where she protested her unjust detainment by refusing to sign a document of the forced labour camp. On July 31st, 2008, she was transferred to the notorious Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp, in Zizhong City, Sichuan Province.

In that forced labour camp, practitioners were pressured to "transform²." They were prohibited from using the toilet, were not allowed to sleep or talk, had to stand against a wall for an extended time, and sit on a stool for a long time without moving. They were given no water and when someone asked for water, the person had to apply for it by writing a self-humiliating report, or be cruelly beaten.

When practitioners first came to the labour camp, some unknown drugs were added into their food, which caused most of them to suffer severe constipation, the female practitioners' periods to stop, and their feet to swell. Because Ms. Zhang resisted the persecution, she was locked up alone, and two drug addicts were assigned to bully her. Within a few days she was beaten until she suffered from internal injury, traumatic wounds, and her body was covered with cuts and bruises. Her big toe and second toe of her right foot were tortured to deformity. Though she was unable to squat down, she was forced to squat and could not stand up afterwards. During the night Ms. Zhang could not sleep, because when she tried to lie down it caused her excruciating pain. After one to two hours she fell asleep for a few moments, but the vile inmates woke her up. She then went through another long time of excruciating pain.

On August 5th, 2008, Ms. Zhang felt that she could not endure the tortures any longer. She thought about it a lot and then strengthened her firm belief in Falun Gong, and thus felt much calmer.

During the times when Ms. Zhang was tortured, she never cooperated with the prison officials. She did not answer their questions, and they could not find even a word to use as a pretext to further mistreat practitioners. After 22 days of torment, Ms. Zhang's condition was very poor. The police temporary stopped torturing her and locked her up together with another practitioner. Later they tried to force her to work for the camp, and she said to other practitioners, "We should not do the work for the prison, we should not cooperate with the immoral Chinese Communist Party." Therefore, no matter what kinds of abuse the police exerted on her, such as beatings, cursing, denying use of the toilet, etc., she remained steadfast. Someone once beat her and she shouted, "It violates the law to beat people!" Finally, the police no longer knew how to treat her.

Ms. Zhang refused to give up the practice of Falun Gong and refused to work. The prison officials threatened her with an increase of her prison term (adding 13 days per month) and other ways. But she was not affected and sat down to meditate and recite the teachings of Falun Gong.

On October 7th, 2008, Ms. Zhang's family members and some fellow practitioners went to visit her and bring her some clothes and cash, but the guards did not allow them to see her. The next day, an official talked to her and intended to use her feelings for her relatives and some enticements to get her to agree to renounce Falun Gong. While chatting about the Beijing Olympic Games, the police official said that the success of the Games showed the power of China, etc. Ms. Zhang replied, "This period of the Olympic Games is a humiliation in Olympic history. I am the victim of it." The official asked her, "Then, what do you want?" Ms. Zhang replied, "Falun Gong has been persecuted for nine years. Falun Gong has done nothing wrong. Practitioners have done nothing wrong. All of them should be released unconditionally." The official said, "It's impossible. It is the decision of the central committee of the CCP." Since then, no police official ever talked to Ms. Zhang again.

On the morning of April 9th, 2009, four heads of the prison, Ren Fengming, Bai Lu, Jin Aijun and Fu Qing, ordered drug addict Chen Wei to force Ms. Zhang to sign and make a fingerprint on her release document, but she refused. The heads then instructed four more inmates to coerce her into doing that, but still failed. The inmates later started beating Ms. Zhang brutally, and they snatched her thumb and forcibly made the fingerprint. Ms. Zhang spoke to them with the force of justice, "This is what the CCP does, they use all of you to do bad things." With that, she received more brutal tortures. The inmates even claimed that Ms. Zhang voluntarily gave her fingerprint.

On the afternoon of May 19th, 2009, Ms. Zhang did not sign any documents and nobly left the Nanmusi Women's Forced Labour Camp. On the way back home, Ms. Zhang was told that her father had died due to long-time harassment by the police. He had passed away on March 20th, 2009. Her brother had called and asked officials at the forced labour camp to release her, but they did not even inform her of his death.

After Ms. Zhang Deping was released from the camp, she became homeless. She went to the Sanshui Police Station to ask that they return her belongings, which they had confiscated during the ransacking of her home. The station did not return anything to her, and even asked her to report every month, and to apply for permission whenever she wanted to leave the city. They also confiscated her IDs, so Ms. Zhang had to lead a vagrant life.

Persecutors:
Sanshui Town Police Station (Tel: 86-838-5850002)
Heads Zeng Xuejun and Xu Yi
Police officers: Liu Guangyong, Liu Guangjian, Wang Mingqiang, Tang Binbin, Luo Yunhuan, Chen Yuwei

Sanshui Town, Guanghan City:
Ren Jianping, deputy head of the Town government
Wang Yong, head of the Armed Forces Department of Sanshui Town

Nanmusi Women Forced Labor Camp:
Heads: Zhang Xiaoying, Ren Fengming, Jiang Nan, Duan Yuanyuan, Fu Meiqing, Ao Jingjing, Yang Yijing, Chen Hua, Yang Sha, Luo Chunhua, Bai Lu, Jiang Li, Liu Lan, Shang Jing

Note

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

2. "Reform or Transform" Implementation of brainwashing and torture in order to force a practitioner to renounce Falun Gong. (Variations: "reform", "transform", "reformed", "reforming", "transformed", "transforming", and "transformation")

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/8/23/206895.html