Mr. Zhang Peng Given Extended Term after Suffering Ten Years of Torture and Abuse at Wuling Prison in Hunan Province

Name: Zhang Peng
Gender: Male
Age: 38
Address: Hengyang City, Hunan Province
Occupation: Teacher

Date of Most Recent Arrest: February 2001
Most recent place of detention: Wuling Prison
City: Changde
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Detention, beatings, forced labour, solitary confinement, hung up, torture, fired from workplace

Mr. Zhang Peng from Hengyang was arrested in Changsha City, Hunan Province in February 2001. The court sentenced him to 10 years in prison. He was 28 years old at the time. The Wuling Prison has extended his term by 18 months, so Mr. Zhang is still being detained there.

Mr. Zhang Peng started practising Falun Gong at the beginning of 1999. He taught at the Nanhua University, formerly known as the Zhongnan Technology Institute, and applied his lawyer licence to serve business clients in Hengyang, Hunan Province, and Guangzhou, Guangdong Province.

In October 1999, Mr. Zhang was detained in the Baishazhou Detention Centre in Hengyang for going to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. He was arrested again two weeks after being released, and this pattern repeated three times in a row. During the detention, criminal detainees beat and tortured him. They ripped off his clothes and poured cold water on him in the frigid winter weather.

In January 2000, Mr. Zhang's relatives got him out of the detention centre on bail. Nanhua University deprived him of employment, and the police continued to harass him. He was forced to become homeless and destitute in an effort to avoid further persecution.

Mr. Zhang was arrested in Changsha in January 2001. Zhou Zhuwen, Zhong Zhihua and other policemen from the Hengyang Police Department tortured him and framed him. He was consecutively detained at the Hengyang Police Department, the Hengyang First Detention Centre, the Detention Centre of the Changsha Police Department and the Hengyang Second Detention Centre. He was subjected to forced labour for more than 10 hours every day, and he was frequently abused and beaten by criminal detainees.

On November 2nd, 2001, the Yanfeng District Court held a hearing for Mr. Zhang and two other Falun Gong practitioners, Mr. Ding Shikun and Mr. Li Xuexian. Mr. Zhang was sentenced to 10 years in prison and sent to the Chishan Prison (also called the Hunan First Prison) in Yuanjiang, Hunan Province. In prison, he went on hunger strikes many times to protest the persecution. He refused to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong].

Mr. Zhang was transferred to the Fifth Division of the Wuling Prison in Changde, Hunan Province, in October 2004. In November 2005, because he refused to wear a prison uniform, the guards tortured him by handcuffing him with his arms behind his back. They pulled one of his arms over the shoulder and his other arm from behind the back, and handcuffed the wrists together to form a straight line. Mr. Zhang's body was forced to bend over as if he was carrying a heavy object on his back. He was handcuffed this way for four to five hours. When the handcuffs were removed, he could not straighten his back. On that afternoon, he was confined in a small cell. Several days later, he was transferred to the “strictly regulated division” for further persecution.

Mr. Zhang was released from the “strictly regulated division” on December 31st, 2005. He asked the guards to stop the persecution of Mr. Zhou Zixian, who had been confined in a small cell for a long time. As a result, they hung him up by handcuffs for a whole morning.

On February 3rd, 2006, as Mr. Zhang walked toward the warden's office in order to speak with the officials about the persecution, several guards forced him into an office, stripped off his shirt and pants, beat him with bamboo sticks and then confined him in a small cell. The guards of the Fifth Division did not allow other practitioners to send him clothes. They intentionally tortured him by keeping him in the freezing cell in just his underwear. Later on, he was sent back to the “strictly regulated division” for over three months.

On April 6th, 2006, the Wuling Prison extended Mr. Zhang’s prison term by 18 months, claiming that he had tried to escape. Mr. Zhang's family hired an attorney to appeal, but the court upheld the decision.

Guards Tang Chunhui and Li Hui slapped Mr. Zhang in the face and hit him in the head at the prison workshop on September 21st, 2009. Guard Leng Jiashu also kicked him on September 27th, 2009.

This is a partial account of the persecution, mistreatment and torture that Mr. Zhang has suffered to date. His parents continue to worry about his condition. His mother is hospitalised in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province, and hopes to see her son soon.

Parties involved in the persecution:

Wuling Prison e-mail: [email protected]
Zhang Chengfa, warden and Party secretary: 86-736-7898188
Liu Jinxiu, commissar and deputy Party secretary: 86-736-7898277
Tang Guangming, deputy warden: 86-736-7898046

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/4/13/38981.html