Older Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Zhang Yuhua Dies under Persecution

Name: Zhang Yuhua
Gender: Female
Age: 63
Address: 27 Suizhounan Street, Apt. 16, Suining City, Sichuan Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Death: August 13th, 2009
Date of Most Recent Arrest: 2003
Most Recent Place of Detention: Suining City Detention Centre
City: Suining
Province: Sichuan
Persecution Keywords: Solitary Confinement, Torture, Beatings, Extortion, Home Ransacked, Interrogation, Detention

Ms. Zhang had been detained four times, and she lost sight in her left eye while detained in 2003 as a result of the guards beating her.

Ms. Zhang had arthritis and heart disease about thirty years ago, which got worse, and she had to have an operation to replace her heart valves. Her symptoms recurred soon after the operation, causing her whole body to swell. She needed a lot of medication after that, which drained her family's savings.

In 1996, a kind person introduced Falun Gong to her and loaned the book to her. Ms. Zhang liked the book and tried to be a better person by improving her moral character and being kind to others. She also began doing the exercises. In one week, the swelling in her body was gone and she felt energetic. Her practice brought her family happiness.

Since the persecution began in 1999, Ms. Zhang was brutally mistreated multiple times. She was detained four times. The first time was in 2000, she was arrested and detained for 15 days because she was doing the exercises outdoors. The second time was in July 2000, when Ms. Zhang went to Beijing to appeal and was arrested on the train and detained for 22 days. The third time was in 2002 when Ms. Zhang went to Yongxing Town to distribute leaflets exposing the persecution of Falun Gong and was reported, arrested, and detained in the Lingquan Temple Detention Centre for nearly one month. To protect her family and employers from "guilt by association," she refused to reveal her name or address, so she was tortured by being cuffed to a metal fence with her limbs stretched apart.

At around 6 p.m. on August 14th, 2003, a group of Suining City police officers stormed into Ms. Zhang's home, ransacked the place, and tried to arrest her. Ms. Zhang resisted, so one officer beat her down to the floor, then two officers pulled her up to punch and kick her harder. Ms. Zhang passed out. She was forcibly taken to the Domestic Security Division office in the Suining City Police Department. They interrogated her for 24 hours with torture then detained her for 37 days. The police took her bank booklet to cash her retirement check. They had extorted 8000 yuan¹ from her in the previous three detention periods.

During her detention in 2003, the guards beat her violently, causing her eyes to bleed, tear, and suffer pain. The doctors checked her after she was released and found that she had already lost sight in her left eye, and there was no cure because it was too severely damaged. Her feet and legs were covered with bruises as a result of being kicked by guards, and these injuries caused a degenerative condition to develop in her knees.

Ms. Zhang wrote many appeal letters to the Suining City Government, the Police Department and the Sichuan Province Police Department. The answer that she finally received was "the guards never beat prisoners." She eventually died on August 13th, 2009, deeply grieved.

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.org/mh/articles/2009/9/5/207732.html