Mr. Zhou Xiangyang Arrested Again after Six Years of Imprisonment

Name: Zhou Xiangyang
Gender: Male
Age: 38
Address: Tangshan City, Hebei Province
Occupation: Cost Engineer at the Third Tianjin Railway Survey and Design Institute Group in Tianjin City
Date of Most Recent Arrest: March 5th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Gangbei Prison
City: Tianjin
Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, hung up, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, force-feedings, physical restraint, detention, denial of toilet use

Mr. Zhou Xiangyang was sentenced to nine years in prison on May 31st, 2003. He was tortured until he was in critical condition in Gangbei Prison in Tianjin. As a result, he was released early on July 28th, 2009. On the morning of March 5th, 2011, officers from Wenhualu Police Station in Tangshan City arrested Mr. Zhou and his wife, Ms. Li Shanshan, at their home. Mr. Zhou was taken to Gangbei Prison and Ms. Li to the Tanshan City Detention Centre.

Since the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, Mr. Zhou has been detained and tortured in various facilities in Tianjin: the Railway Detention Centre, Qingpowa Forced Labour Camp, Shuangkou Forced Labour Camp, Yushan Forced Labour Camp, Hexi Detention Centre, Liyuantou Prison, and Gangbei Prison. He was shocked with high-voltage electric batons, deprived of sleep for 30 consecutive days, locked in solitary confinement, tied up, beaten, and force-fed. He was in critical condition many times as a result of all the torture. Beginning in June 2008, he went on a hunger strike in Gangbei Prison for over a year. As a result, his weight dropped to 100 lbs, he was very weak, he was unable to walk, and he lost control of his bowels. He was was released on urgent medical bail on July 28th, 2009.

More information on Mr. Zhou Xiangyang can be found at

http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2009/8/10/109917.html

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/10/3/65504.html

The Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group presented Mr. Zhou's case to the UN Human Rights Council on July 17th, 2009. At the 13th session of the Human Rights Council in March 2010, UN Special Rapporteur Mr. Manfred Nowak included Mr. Zhou's case in his annual investigative report (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2009/8/6/109811.html).

On the day of his release, Mr. Zhou was taken to his parents' home in Changli County, Qinhuangdao City. On August 4th, 2009, the Minghui/Clearwisdom website published an article, “Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group: Zhou Xiangyang Case Has Been Submitted to the United Nations (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2009/8/6/109811.html).” That same day, the head of Gangbei Prison and six officers from Changli Police Station went to Mr. Zhou's parent's home and threatened him. They began to closely monitor and restrict his family's daily activities.

Officers from Wenhualu Police Station arrested Mr. Zhou and his wife, Ms. Li, at their apartment in Tangshan on March 5th, 2011. Mr. Zhou was taken to Gangbei Prison in Tianjin.

The following is a summary of what Mr. Zhou has suffered since the persecution of Falun Gong began.

1. In 1999, Mr. Zhou's employer fired him, stopped paying his salary, monitored him around the clock, and detained him twice.

2. Beaten, Shocked and Force-fed in Three Forced Labour Camps from 2000 to 2003

Mr. Zhou went to Tiananmen Square to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. While there, he also did the Falun Gong exercises. As a result, he was detained in the Railway Detention Centre in Tianjin for 15 days and then sentenced to a year and a half imprisonment on February 15th, 2000. He was first taken to Qingpowa Detention Centre before being transferred to Shuangkou Forced Labour Camp two days later. In Shuangkou, Mr. Zhou was shocked with high voltage electric batons 20 times and force-fed only small amounts of soy milk. As a result, his nose bled after the guards inserted a tube during the force-feeding, his internal organs were injured, and he vomited yellow mucus.

Once when Mr. Zhou refused to renounce Falun Gong, guards Wei Wei and Zhang (first name unknown) shocked him with electric batons causing his skin to tear and exposing the flesh. The wounds took six months to heal. Another time, guards Wang Lifang and Lu Lin beat and shocked him for five hours. Guard Du hit him on the chest and back with a baton, leaving bloody marks. Du then hit Mr. Zhou on the forehead causing him to bleed all over.

After a year and a half of imprisonment, Mr. Zhou's term was extended and he was transferred to Yushan Forced Labour Camp in Ji County. The Bureau of Forced Labour in Tianjin warned him that if he persisted in practising Falun Gong, they would detain him for another three years of forced labour with a year of extension. In other words, he would be in imprisoned for the rest of his life if he did not give up his belief. In Yushan, guard Wei Wei, who transferred from Shuangkou Forced Labour Camp, instigated criminal inmates to shock Mr. Zhou on the mouth, the back of his head, and his genitals. As a result, some areas of his body were burned, and Mr. Zhou lost consciousness. (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2005/10/3/65504.html).

Mr. Zhou then went on a hunger strike for nine months to protest the cruel torture. The authorities in Yushan brutally force-fed him. The guards pushed him down on the ground and stuffed a large piece of apple in his mouth and shocked him with electric batons. His lips swelled and he had bloody spots all over. The food that fell to the ground was stuffed back into Mr. Zhou's mouth. The guards then inserted a hose in his mouth and turned on the water, causing him to almost drown.

Mr. Zhou's weight dropped to 100 lbs after nine months of being on a hunger strike and tortured. After he served his sentence, his employer picked him up, but didn't allow him to go home. Mr. Zhou served a total of two and half years in Qingpowa, Shuangkou, and Yushan Forced Labour Camps.

3. Arrested, Interrogated, and Tortured Again in 2003

Mr. Zhou was taken to Hexi Police Bureau and locked in a cage for talking to people about the persecution of Falun Gong on May 31st, 2003. The police stripped him naked, tied him to an iron chair, and turned down the temperature in the room. With their thick coats on, the police poured water on Mr. Zhou around the clock to keep him wet, and physically and verbally abused him. They also poked his eyes and nose with sticks. Mr. Zhou was not allowed to use the toilet and was forced to soil himself. They played loud noises and did not give him anything to eat for three straight days (http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2009/4/7/106288.html).

4. Sentenced to Nine Years and Tortured from 2004 to 2009

Hexi Court in Tianjin sentenced Mr. Zhou to nine years and sent him to Gangbei Prison. Besides being beaten, put in solitary confinement, and forced to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong, Mr. Zhou was also forced to do slave labour.

The guards instigated prisoners to put Mr. Zhou in solitary confinement and torture him on December 8th, 2005. The room was 10 ft long, 3 ft wide, and 15 ft tall with no windows. The floor on one side of the room had wooden boards (6 ft long x 1 ft tall) and the other side had a concrete floor. Mr. Zhou laid on the wooden board with his hands cuffed in a V-shape. He was hung up in the air by his feet over the concrete floor. The guards put shackles on his ankles. One prisoner sat above Mr. Zhou's head (his head was between the prisoner's legs), while two others sat on the concrete floor near his feet. The prisoners read articles that slandered Falun Gong. They frequently kicked him or hit his genitals with a book, while the guards watched from outside the room.

Mr. Zhou was “anchored” this way 20 hours a day. This put enormous strain on his lower back and arms, and he had difficulty getting up to use the toilet or to eat. However, the inmates forced him to get up quickly so that he would experience severe pain. His muscles hurt badly. Mr. Zhou refused to eat to protest the torture. After he didn't eat or drink for seven days, he began to vomit blood and suffer spasms. His blood pressure was only 50/30 mmHg and his pulse was very weak.

After Mr. Zhou was taken out of solitary confinement in March 2006, he could no longer stand up straight. In December 2006, he was transferred to Tianjin Prison.

On June 20th, 2008, Mr. Zhou was again transferred to Gangbei Prison. As soon as he got there, four prisoners took him inside, shaved his head, put him on a stool and began beating him. Later, six prisoners held him on the ground and hit and kicked him. As a result, he had difficulty walking for the next two weeks.

To protest the persecution, Mr. Zhou went on a hunger strike. The prison authorities again put him in solitary confinement and “anchored” him on the ground 24 hours a day for almost a month.

This time, however, Mr. Zhou continued his hunger strike for over a year. During the year, he was not allowed to wear heavy clothes in the winter and was given dirty, foul-smelling blankets that had blood, urine, and pus stains. When he was not being cruelly force-fed, prisoner Wang Xiaodong would grab him by the neck and punch his lower back.

After a year on a hunger strike and being physically tortured, Mr. Zhou was in critical condition many times. On July 28th, 2009, he was released on medical bail before his term ended.

Mr. Zhou's wife, Ms. Li Shanshan, 33 years old, is from Tangshan. She was forced to drop out of college in 1999 because she refused to give up practising Falun Gong. When she was detained and tortured in Tangshan Detention Centre, she almost suffered a mental collapse. In order to rescue her husband, she worked odd jobs in Tianjin. She tried many times to visit Mr. Zhou in prison, but was never allowed to see him. The prison authorities didn't want her to see how her husband was being tortured. Ms. Li then waited outside the prison, sometimes in the snow, for a long time in hopes of seeing Mr. Zhou, but to no avail. When she tried to get help in rescuing Mr. Zhou, she was detained in a forced labour camp for a year and half. When she was released, her family could barely recognize her because she was so emaciated.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/3/8/237318.html