Zhang Zhiming from Huaihua City, Hunan Province Dies Suddenly

Name: Zhang Zhiming
Gender: Male
Age: 48
Address: Yuanling Town, Yuanling County, Huaihua City, Hunan Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Death: April 24th, 2011
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 2010
Most recent place of detention: A brainwashing centre in Huaihua City
City: Huaihua
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Job suspension, brainwashing, drug administration

During the evening of April 24th, 2011, Mr. Zhang Zhiming, a worker from Yuanling Town, suddenly passed away in his home. In September 2010, he had been arrested and sent to a brainwashing centre. At the centre, he was forced to take unidentified drugs.

According to a witness, at the time of his death the left side of his face and left ear were swollen, and his neck had turned a purple colour. Officers from the Public Security Department did not investigate either the scene or his background. They just told his relatives to bring the corpse back to his old home in a farming village and bury him right away.

Zhang Zhiming previously had many illnesses, but after he started to practise Falun Gong in 1997, the illnesses went away.

After the Chinese Communist Party began the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, Mr. Zhang was subjected to various forms of harassment. He was fired by his company and was given only one hundred yuan per month for living expenses. After several requests, it was increased to four hundred yuan¹. Recently, the township government assigned him a security job and paid him one thousand yuan monthly.

Mr. Zhang was often harassed by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members from the local 610 Office. Yang Tao, a head of the local 610 Office, frequently came to threaten him.

In September 2010, the CCP established a brainwashing centre in Huaihua City. Mr. Zhang Zhiming was forcibly sent to the centre and brutally mistreated there. The workers told him that he had high blood pressure when he had never had any high blood pressure prior, and forced him to swallow an unidentified yellow pill. After that, his spine felt burning hot and he fainted.

After being released from the brainwashing centre, Mr. Zhang constantly had headaches. He felt numb in his mouth and didn't feel well physically. The various symptoms only began to occur after his detention in the brainwashing centre.

At around 7:00 a.m. on April 25th, 2011, a friend of Mr. Zhang Zhiming passed by his home and found that his door was half open. She thought it was strange, since Mr. Zhang normally would not open his door until 9:00 or 10:00 a.m. She yelled several times at the door, but no one replied. She immediately went to a neighbour and both of them went into his home and found Mr. Zhang on the couch, unconscious. The left side of his face was swollen and purple, and his hands were clenched into tight fists. They called the emergency number right away.

When Mr. Zhang Zhiming's relatives arrived at his home, the emergency workers had already left. Later some police officers arrived, but they neither investigated the scene nor the corpse. They just took the corpse to a hospital. After that, two workers from the township government were sent to handle his death with his relatives. They agreed to a claim of compensation for his death and told the relatives to bury his corpse right away.

The relatives believed that because Mr. Zhang was already dead, and because they were just farmers from a village, they could not do anything about the situation, even though they disagreed with the process. If they buried him, they could obtain some compensation. They ended up taking Mr. Zhang's corpse back to the village and buried him three days later.

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://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/5/8/240340.html