Facts of the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Zhang Ping from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province

Name: Zhang Ping
Gender: Female
Age: 40
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Formerly with the Security Department (now the Hualong Securities Department) of the Gansu Province Trust and Investment Company
Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 22nd, 2010
Most Recent Place of Detention: Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre
City: Lanzhou
Province: Gansu
Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, beatings, imprisonment, solitary confinement, torture, force-feedings, extortion, fired from workplace, physical restraint, interrogation, detention, denial of toilet use
Key Persecutors: Wei Dong, Li Wei, Fan Hede, Xu Tao, Yan Diou, Liu Zhijin, Xu Li, Li Yaqin, Meng Xianhui, Sun Liwei, Wang Fukun, Jing Yun, Wang Lei, and Gao Lina

Ms. Zhang Ping is a Falun Gong practitioner from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province. Due to practising Falun Gong, she was sentenced to five years of forced labour and lost her job at the Hualong Security Department of the Gansu Province Trust and Investment Company. Her son saw his academic performance decline due to lack of parental discipline at home. Her younger brother was also implicated.
After he graduated with a Master’s degree in 2001, a certain military medical school refused to offer him an instructor’s position on the grounds that his sister was a Falun Gong practitioner.

Arrested Numerous Times for Going to Beijing to Appeal for Falun Gong

Ms. Zhang went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in early July 2000 and was subsequently arrested and detained in Shunyi Detention Centre for nine days. When she reported to work at the end of July, her manager, Liu Xilan, called in officers from Laigongyuanxiang Police Station to arrest her. She was kept in custody in Taoshuping Detention Centre for 15 days, during which time she was forced to do hard labour under the scorching sun for more than ten hours every day, without being given any water to drink or clean herself. The staff also extorted 300 yuan¹ from her as a condition of release.

In November 2000, Ms. Zhang brought her then five-and-half-year-old son to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. Both of them were arrested and sent to Gansu Province’s Liaison Office in Beijing, where a staff member surnamed Lu and a police officer confiscated the over 600 yuan in cash she had with her. Two days later she managed to escape from the liaison office.

When Ms. Zhang went to Beijing again at the end of December 2000, she was arrested at Tiananmen Square and sent to Tiananmen Police Department. Not long after, she was transferred to Shijingshan District Detention Centre and incarcerated for 13 days. After her release, the police from Gansu Province’s Liaison Office in Beijing somehow tracked her down and arrested her. All the 400 yuan in cash she had in her purse was confiscated by the police. She eventually managed to break free from the detention centre.

Arrested and Brutally Beaten, Dislocating Her Jaw

In May 2002, Ms. Zhang explained the facts of Falun Gong to her son’s head teacher, Li Hulian, who subsequently reported her to the police. In order to avoid arrest, she had to leave her then seven-year-old son and move from place to place.

While walking down Baiyin Road in Lanzhou City on August 13th, 2002, Ms. Zhang was seized by Wei Dong and other officers from Lanzhou City Police Department. Wei snatched the more than 2,000 yuan in cash she carried with her. Because she shouted “Falun Gong is good,” Wei and another man beat her savagely, leaving her head covered with bumps and her mouth and nose oozing blood, which stained her clothes. Her left ear drum was broken and she suffered a minor concussion. Wei also made a rope by twisting a strip of cloth and gagged her mouth with it for four straight hours. When he finally decided to remove the rope, he couldn’t even untie it since it had cut into her flesh, and he had to use scissors to cut it off. As a result, her lower jaw as dislocated and even today it hasn’t returned to normal. Moreover, one incisor on her lower jaw was broken off and another one became very loose.

When night fell, Wei Dong and his staff drove Ms. Zhang to Team 14 of Xiguoyuan Detention Centre. Team Lead Li Wei immediately put a shackle weighing about 50 pounds on her and ordered criminal inmates to beat her and not allow her any sleep for the whole night. The second day Li summoned the clinic nurses to come and force feed her through a tube inserted into her nostril. She kept vomiting blood and was then sent to Lanzhou Labour Education Hospital. Lanzhou City Police Department turned her over to Hu County Political and Security Division in Shaanxi Province 40 days later.

Tortured in Lajiatan Rehabilitation Centre in Hu County, Shaanxi Province

At the beginning of October 2002, Fan Hede, Xu Tao, Yan Diou, and a few others from Hu County Political and Security Division transferred Ms. Zhang and another Lanzhou practitioner, Mr. Han Xu (sentenced to 10 years and still detained at Division 11 of Shaanxi Weinan Prison), to Lajiatan Rehabilitation Centre in Hu County, where Guard Liu Zhijin and seven officers including Fan Hede and Xu Tao brutally tortured more than 30 newly arrested practitioners, which eventually led to the death of Wang Dawei. One torture method was dubbed the tiger bench. The victim is made to sit on a bench with both legs straightened, back kept straight, and both arms tied up in a crisscross pattern behind his/her back. In just three days Ms. Zhang was put on the “tiger bench” six times. As a result, her arms turned black and purple. She was unable to hold anything in her hands for 20 days, and even 40 days later she still had no feeling in her hands. On December 8th, 2002, she managed to escape from Hu County Emergency Centre.

Seized and Brutalised Again

Agents from Lanzhou City Police Department seized Ms. Zhang on Lintao Street on May 19th, 2005, and handcuffed her to an iron chair for five straight days.

She was transferred to Hualinshan Second Detention Centre on May 24th, 2005, and then moved to Lanzhou City First Detention Centre in November 2005. After the Xigu District Court sentenced her in early April 2006, she went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Not long after, on April 12th, the guards sent her to Lanzhou Labour Education Hospital, where the doctors force fed her through a tube inserted into her nostril nearly 200 times during her stay there. She wasn’t brought back to the detention centre until October 10th that year. In July, while she was still in the hospital, a criminal inmate named Zhang Zhenyu hit her so hard that her mouth and nose bled profusely. Instead of treating her injury, guard Xu Li directed Zhang to cuff her four limbs to the four posts of an iron bed in a spread-eagle position, leaving her body suspended in the air for four hours.

Brutally Persecuted in Gansu Province Women’s Prison

Ms. Zhang was transferred from Lanzhou City First Detention Centre to Gansu Province Women’s Prison on December 18, 2006. Because she refused to wear the prison uniform, Team leads Li Yaqin and Meng Xianhui sent her straight to solitary confinement. During the day she was made to sit on a bench outside to freeze and at night she wasn’t allowed to go to bed until after midnight. During her lengthy confinement, she kept shouting messages to expose the persecution. After hearing her shouting one day, Ding Junhuan, deputy chief of the Prison Affairs Section, ordered staff to stuff her mouth with the mop used to clean the toilet.

On April 8th, 2007, Sun Liwei forced Ms. Zhang to stand for several hours without using the toilet, and afterwards put her in solitary confinement. Four days later the guards had to send her to Kangtai Hospital due to her deteriorating health. On September 23rd, 2007, they moved her to Division Three, where they cut her off from the outside world and deprived her of family visits for nearly six months.

In early March 2008, because Ms. Zhang refused to wear a name badge, Division head Wang Fukun and Political head Jing Yun ill-treated her for more than two weeks. During the day they dragged her to the workshop and handcuffed her to a radiator. At the end of the work day they handcuffed her to a small bench. At night they left her cuffed and exposed to the cold on a bed board.

In October 2008, Political head Wang Lei showered Ms. Zhang with kicks and punches, while Team leads Li Wenping and Wang Huifang tried to push her down. They caused severe trauma to her left leg, which was still not healed even after a year. Wang Lei also shocked her with electric batons for more than 30 minutes. When she went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution, Wang Lei ordered inmates Zhang Shengyan and Cao Rui to force feed her. After removing her coat and leaving only under garments on her, they held her down and began to force a large amount of water into her. The torture lasted more than two hours and she almost choked to death. Her mouth was also injured by the inmates during her struggle. Her face remained swollen for more than ten days.

Taken Straight to a Brainwashing Centre right after Her Release from Prison

Ms. Zhang was set to be released on April 22nd, 2010, the last day of her five-year prison term. At 5:00 a.m. that day, however, Lanzhou City 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) Head Gao Lina took her straight to Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre. She remains in custody to this today.

Ms. Zhang’s Mother, Ms. Long Lianqiu, Also Persecuted

Ms. Zhang’s mother, Ms. Long Lianqiu, suffered from migraines and vertigo since she was only in her 30s. She also had severe motion sickness and a really bad temper. After taking up the practice of Falun Gong, however, Ms. Long was able to enjoy improved health and she no longer suffered from motion sickness. She lived according to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, and her family all witnessed the tremendous changes in her.

At the end of July 2000, Ms. Long went to Beijing alone to appeal for Falun Gong. She was arrested and sent to a detention centre in Huairou County, Beijing. The cash she brought with her, over 400 yuan, was all confiscated by the police. She was later returned to Lanzhou City by its Liaison Office in Beijing. After that she became a target of persecution by the Jingyuanlu Police Station. The local police picked her up in late September 2000 and kept her in custody at a detention centre for 29 days.

The police went to Ms. Long’s home to harass her again at the end of September 2002. They threatened to send her to a brainwashing centre if she refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong. In order to avoid arrest, she escaped to her hometown in Shandong Province. The police, however, claimed to have taken her husband, who had long before stopped practising Falun Gong. When she heard that, she returned home half a month later. As soon as she set foot in her home, the police seized her and took her to Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre, where she remained for a month. Under pressure, she wrote a guarantee statement renouncing her practice of Falun Gong. One week later she suddenly had a stroke and was sent to the Armed Police Hospital, where she remained for more than 40 days. Despite medical care, one side of her body became paralysed. After she was discharged from the hospital, she kept studying the Fa and doing the exercises at home. Her partial paralysis disappeared for a period of time.
However, under pressure from the police, her husband threatened to divorce her if she kept studying the Falun Gong teachings and doing the exercises. He also forced her to take all kinds of medication. Since she was unable to practise Falun Gong, her health declined and she eventually passed away on September 11th, 2005.

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/2011/8/5/244910.html