Ms. Zhang Jin from Tangshan City Subjected to Forced Labour

Name: Zhang Jin
Gender: Female
Age: 34
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Purchasing guide at a large supermarket chain in Tangshan City
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 11th, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Kaiping Forced Labour Camp Brainwashing Centre
City: Tangshan
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Forced labour, forced drug administration, torture, force-feedings, detention, home ransacking, denial of restroom use

Ms. Zhang Jin is a purchasing guide at a large supermarket chain in Tangshan City. She was arrested on August 11th for no reason and detained for two weeks. She was arrested again on September 20th by officers from the Fenghuangdao Police Station and subjected to a one-year forced labour term. She is currently in the Kaiping Forced Labour Camp Brainwashing Centre.

About four officers from the Fenghuangdao Police Station broke into Ms. Zhang's home around 8:30 p.m. on August 10th, and ransacked it while she was absent. The police confiscated her books, a computer, a printer, a debit card and her ID card. Around 10:00 a.m. the next day, the police arrested Ms. Zhang and took her to the police station where they interrogated her. Officer Zhang Xiaofeng hit Ms. Zhang's head and face. Around 5:00 p.m., Ms. Zhang was taken to the Tangshang Administrative Detention Centre to be held for two weeks.

On the morning of September 20th, three officers from the Fenghuangdao Police Station arrested Ms. Zhang at the supermarket where she works. Without informing her family or going through any legal procedures, Ms. Zhang was taken to the Kaiping Forced Labour Camp to be held for a year.

This is the third time Ms. Zhang has been persecuted. The labour camp officials refused to allow her family to visit her.

Ms. Zhang Jin started practising Falun Gong in 1999.

She went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong on July 22nd, 1999, and was stopped and arrested on the way. She was detained for more than three months. While being held she was verbally and physically abused and mistreated.

Ms. Zhang's second arrest took place on December 9th, 2007 for distributing materials exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. Officers from the Railway Police Station body searched her and took more than 700 yuan¹ from her. They divided the money among themselves, right in front of her. One officer kicked her, grabbed her by the hair while they took her photo, and then forcefully held her hand to get her fingerprints. They proceeded to ransack her home, and took her to the Tangshan No.1 Detention Centre that same evening. Ms. Zhang was made to sleep on the floor on the winter nights in an unheated cell. She was given only thin bedding and a blanket. The cell head verbally abused her daily. Once a guard instigated inmates to slap her face more than 20 times, leaving her with a swollen face with a bruised nose.

After being held in the detention centre for 30 days, Ms. Zhang was sentenced to 21 months of forced labour. She was first held in the Kaiping Forced Labour Camp in Tangshan City where she was closely monitored daily by two inmates. One month later, she was transferred to the Shijiazhuang Women's Forced Labour Camp on January 28th, 2008, where she was also monitored daily and denied toilet use. The guards verbally abused her daily. She held a hunger strike three times to resist the persecution, but she was force-fed. The guards laced her food with unknown substances which caused her to become dizzy. Her physiological cycle became disordered as a result of the abuse, resulting in her having periods only a few times within 21months.

Ms. Zhang was recently arrested again and taken to a forced labour camp. Her mother brought her some daily necessities, but the guards refused to let her mum see her, and told her to come back after October 1st [regime's national day holiday].

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://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/9/25/247125.html