Mr. Zhang Chunqiu in Hunan Province Persecuted for Eight Years

Name: Zhang Chunqiu
Gender: Male
Age: 46
Address: Yiyang City, Hunan Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 19th, 2001
Most Recent Place of Detention: The First Section, Second Ward in Jinshi Prison in Hunan Province
City: Yiyang
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Electric Shock, Sleep Deprivation, Forced Labour, Brainwashing, Beatings, Hung Up, Imprisonment, Torture, Physical Restraint, Interrogation, Detention

Mr. Zhang Chunqiu, 46, a practitioner in Yiyang City, Hunan Province, has been persecuted and undergone all sorts of torture over the past eight years.

Mr. Zhang, and Mr. Gao Desi, an elderly professor, were arrested in Hunan College of Finance on April 19th, 2001. Mr. Zhang was detained in the Yiyang First Jail, while Professor Gao was detained in the Yiyang Second Jail. As soon as Mr. Zhang was taken to the jail, police officers Wang Tiejun told the lead inmate, "This guy is a stubborn Falun Gong practitioner. You can beat him to death if you want to." The Yiyang First Jail has a special "initiation" torture for newcomers: They force the victim to kneel on the floor facing the wall and pressing himself up against it with his hands up and straight. The torturer uses his knee to hit the centre of the person's back until blood gushing out of the person's mouth smears the wall. A person's screams from this torture are horrifying.

Mr. Zhang was put on trial after being held in the jail for about eight months. After the prosecutor had made his statement, Mr. Zhang raised objections. He said, "Cultivating in Falun Gong is a fundamental human right. It is freedom of belief." Then he asked the prosecutor, "What is the crime? Am I not a citizen? What did I do that was an obstruction of justice?" The prosecutor remained silent the entire time before the recess, despite the judge twice urging him to speak.

At the conclusion of the trail, the judge said, "The law of the nation is not completely clear. Now the Party wields its power and substitutes its will for the law to suppress Falun Gong. We have no choice but to carry out its order. Don't blame us."

In the end, Mr. Zhang was sentenced to eight years in prison and Professor Gao to seven.

From the jail to the detention centre to the prison, all of these so-called civilised institutions of justice, beautified with money extorted from its citizens by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), are in reality filled with violence and brutality. The meal in Yiyang City First Jail usually consists of mouldy rice and is limited to one ounce per meal. Also, the vegetables are cooked without any oil. Mr. Zhang suffered from malnutrition for 17 months of detention. Every day he had to perform hard labour. He was 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighed 141 pounds when he was taken to the jail. At his release, he only weighed a bit over 110 pounds. To intimidate prisoners and frighten them, the police personally used a steal leash to whip them. The police had all sorts of torture devices, and they could do whatever they wished. Knowledgeable sources said that Yiyang City Second Jail is a place that the communists use to showcase their civil treatment of inmates, while the First Jail is the place that they use to terrorise inmates.

On October 1st, Mr. Zhang was taken to the First Jail in Hunan Province. The police chief told Captain He, "He is a stubborn Falun Gong practitioner. You need to teach him a lesson." At about 2:00 p.m. the next day, the half-drunken He asked the lead inmate: "Did Zhang do the (Falun Gong) exercises?" Hearing the question, Mr. Zhang said, "I want to do the exercises." Captain He went up to Mr. Zhang and began beating him up. Mr. Zhang yelled, "It is a crime for you to hit people. You are a criminal. You are a bandit." The policeman yelled, "Watch it! My name would not be He if I didn't shock you to death today."

Two minutes later, He brought back three other policemen, each with two electric batons capable of generating tens of thousands of volts. They shocked Mr. Zhang all over his body at the same time, generating blue sparks. Mr. Zhang had already passed out when they began to shock his forehead. He was burned on his forehead, chest, genitals, thighs, and soles. There was a strong odour of burning flesh. When Mr. Zhang came to, he could not move his arms or legs.

The prison also persecuted people by frequently changing their environment. Mr. Zhang was moved inside of Changsha Prison from the Lufeng Ward to the Second Ward, and then to the Second Ward in Jinshi Prison in Hunan Province. Incidences of violence, horror, and brutality that Mr. Zhang experienced or witnessed numbered in the thousands. On May 17th, 2003, Captain Zhou Zhengwen ordered the squadron lead to force Mr. Zhang to get up at 4:00 a.m. to begin working and not let him rest until 11:00 p.m. Mr. Zhang firmly refused. Zhou then ordered the squadron lead to hang him up with his hands tied behind his back, and then they hung a 300 pound wooden block on his neck by a thin steel wire. Painted on the block are the words: "For being defiant to the police and refusing to change." This is the famous torture method called "rather die" that was widely used in the past in CCP prisons.

The way "rather die" works is by letting the weight of the block pull the wire against one's neck, which kills flesh, muscle, and nerve cells. The pain of the continued flesh decay eventually concentrates into the heart through the central nervous system. It feels like thousands of arrows piercing the heart and the pain increases by the second until the person truly would rather die than live. Mr. Zhang was tortured this way for as long as 13 hours.

On the night of March 19th, 2008, Captain Zhang Ming of the "transformation" [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] team in the Second Ward of Shangjin Prison ordered guard Zeng Wangjin to hit Mr. Zhang. After the initial beating, he began to hit his head. The first round lasted for ten minutes, causing Mr. Zhang's mouth and nose to bleed. The second round lasted for about nine minutes, leaving blood all over his face. When the third round began, Mr. Zhang sensed that the guards were going to kill him, so he yelled, "Who gave you the right to hit people?!" With his head badly traumatised and bruises all over his body, Mr. Zhang lay dazed in bed for four days, but he miraculously recovered quickly by doing the exercises and studying the Falun Gong teachings.

Aside from physical torture, the police also mentally tormented Mr. Zhang. They arranged for other inmates and the staff in departments of the ward to conduct nightly inspections to wake him up and disturb him. They also used him for pathology experiments. On March 26th, 2007, they put him in a room for those with tuberculosis with 14 ill patients. The experiment did not stop until May 1st, when the news leaked.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/10/30/211423.html