Mr. Zhang Puhe's Life in Imminent Danger after 12 Years of Abuse

Name: Zhang Puhe
Gender: Male
Age: 46
Address: Qindeli Farm, Jiansanjiang Administration, Heilongjiang Province Reclamation General Administration
Date of Most Recent Arrest: December 25th, 2002
Most recent place of detention: Lianjiangkou Prison in Jiamusi City
City: Jiamusi
Province: Heilongjiang
Persecution Suffered: Detention, forced labour, force-feeding, brutal beatings, electric shock, Iron Chair, interrogation by torture, imprisonment, solitary confinement
Key Persecutors: Dong Daquan, Yang Jiuzhi

Mr. Zhang Puhe has been subjected to 12 years of brutal mental, physical, and economic persecution for trying to be a kind person by following the principles of Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance. He was sentenced to two years of forced labour, and then ten years in prison. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials implicated his family. Mr. Zhang's wife was forced to divorce him. His mother died as a result of intimidation in 2003. His father has become paralyzed. At present, Mr. Zhang remains being detained at the No. 2 Team, No. 6 Ward, Lianjiangkou Prison in Jiamusi City. His life is in imminent danger.

Mr. Zhang, born in 1965, was employed in the Supplies Section at the headquarters of the Qindeli Farm, Jiansanjiang Administration of the Heilongjiang Province Reclamation General Administration. He poured his heart into Falun Gong after coming into contact with it. Jiang Zemin, then the head of the CCP, launched the nationwide campaign to slander and persecute Falun Gong in July 1999. On November 1st, 1999, Mr. Zhang went to Beijing to give a personal account to dispel the lies. As a result, he has been subjected to persecution for 12 years.

I. Inhuman Torture in Xigemu Forced Labour Camp

In November 1999, Mr. Zhang went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. As a result, he was sentenced to two years of forced labour. He was held in Xigemu Forced Labour Camp, where the guards brutally tortured him while trying to coerce him to give up his belief.

1. Unsanitary food. According to practitioners who were held in the labour camp during that time, the camp was strictly guarded. Each day, they were given half cooked, dirty buns, often with grains of sand in the mix. Only soups made from frozen vegetables and salt were served. They never had rice.

2. Vicious beatings as retaliation. Around 6:00 p.m. on February 12th, 2000, Mr. Wu Chunlong (who was later persecuted to death) and other practitioners did the Falun Gong exercises during their break. Shen Yan, a guard, viciously beat the practitioners. After work hours, the guards stripped the practitioners, took them outdoors, and poured cold water on them. The temperature was -20 degrees Celsius (about -4 degrees Fahrenheit). The guards then forced the practitioners to bend over 90 degrees. Other practitioners took off their jackets to put on those who had been stripped of their clothes. Yan Shen yelled at the practitioners. Mr. Zhang Hepu and four other practitioners went on a hunger strike to protest. The labour camp officials did not stop the guards for carrying out torture. Instead, they ordered the guards to force-feed practitioners with salt water. Three weeks later, the guards took Mr. Zhang and five other practitioners to the office and beat them with electric batons. The guards yelled, “We are here to beat you. You want to complain? Go try it if you can find a way!”

3. Frequent beatings for reading Falun Dafa books and doing the exercises. When Mr. Zhang was held in the “intense training” division in Xigemu Forced Labour Camp, he was beaten numerous times for doing the Falun Gong exercises. In January 2000, Xu Xingli, a section leader, hit Mr. Zhang's face and chest very hard. A team leader Li ordered Mr. Zhang to the office, where Li Guojun, the division leader, and a guard with the last name Liu took turns whipping him with leather belts until both were tired. On one evening, Mr. Zhang was beaten six times.

During Mr. Zhang's time in the No. 1 Team of the No. 1 Division, the guards frequently inspected his cell. If they found Falun Gong books, the guards beat every practitioner in the cell. Guard Yang Qingchao once punched Mr. Zhang in the face more than ten times, causing it to immediately swell up. At that time, the guards also went to the dining hall of the first team and beat practitioners Du Wenfu and Du Wenji.

On the morning of Dragon Boat Festival Day in May 2000, Mr. Zhang did the Falun Gong exercises. When guard Guo Zhenwei found out, he slapped Mr. Zhang in the face. Other guards then tied his hands and legs to an iron chair and took turns beating and shocking him with electric batons. The beating continued until his face was beyond recognition and his skin was coming off.

Due to the continuous torture, Mr. Zhang developed heart disease, anemia, and colitis, which physicians at the Jiamusi Central Hospital suspected developed into colon cancer. His weight also dropped from 175 pounds to less than 130 pounds. He was on the verge of death. The camp authorities finally released him on bail for medical treatment. His 65-year-old father had to travel thousands of miles to the forced labour camp to bring Mr. Zhang home.

4. Two failed attempts to take Mr. Zhang to the forced labour camp. Despite Mr. Zhang's dire condition, Yang Jiezhi, the CCP secretary of the Qindeli Farm, threatened Mr. Zhang's wife to divorce him. They were to take him to the forced labour camp and suspend the salary of everyone in his family in order to force Mr. Zhang to give up practising Falun Gong. When Mr. Zhang refused, the farm's 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) took him back to Xigemu Forced Labour Camp within seven days after he returned home.

The labour camp authorities worried that Mr. Zhang could die there and refused to take him. After much negotiation, the farm's 610 Office reluctantly took him back. To avoid around the clock surveillance, Mr. Zhang rented a place, which angered members of the 610 Office. They ordered officers from the police station to take him into custody to start a new round of abuse.

On January 26th, 2002, the 610 Office arrested Falun Dafa practitioners Yang Weibing and Zhang Puhe for the second time. Officers Cong Jun and Wang Dong from the branch security office of the farm were responsible for taking them to Suihua Forced Labour Camp. As it was Sunday, the practitioners were temporarily held at Suihua Detention Centre instead. A remark by Officer Cong Jun that, "These two were stubborn and refused to sign the guarantee statement" to renounce practising Falun Gong led three military officers to immediately start beating the practitioners. The hearing in both of Zhang's ears was seriously damaged and has not fully recovered yet. Upon arriving at Suihua Forced Labour Camp the next day, Zhang did not pass the physical and was refused admission. He required further medical treatment. The police had to take him back to Qindeli Farm, where he was again kept in the detention centre and kept in a state of semi-starvation, surviving on two small buns a day.

Later, Mr. Zhang managed to escape from the detention centre. He was forced to stay away from his home.

II. Inhuman Torture in Lianjiankou Prison in Jiamusi City

1. Arrest and imprisonment. On December 25th, 2002, Mr. Zhang was arrested again in Jiamusi City. Mr. Bi Jiaxin, who was arrested with him, died within 10 days after the police released him. At the time, he couldn't walk because the soles of his feet were frostbitten from when he escaped from Qindeli Farm. The police nonetheless still interrogated and tortured him. He was later sentenced to ten years imprisonment in Jiamusi City's Lianjiangkou Prison.

2. Beatings and electric shocks for not reciting prison regulations. In September 2003, guards Pei Gang, Guan Zhihui, and Meng Jun from the second team of Lianjiangkou Prison tortured Mr. Zhang. Guan Zhihui then ordered him to recite the prison rules. When Mr. Zhang refused, the guards used thirty-thousand volt electric batons to shock him all over his body. They also forbade him from speaking. Four inmates were ordered to monitor him around the clock. When Mr. Zhang still refused to recite the prison rules, the guards instigated inmates Li Chengtu, Feng Weizhi, Yang Jian, and Wang Xiaobin to punch him in the face, which swelled and developed blue and purple bruises. Afterwards, every couple of days, the camp authorities found an excuse to curse and beat him. He was continuously monitored by other inmates around the clock.

3. Beatings that resulted from studying the Falun Gong teachings and doing the Falun Gong exercises. At 1:00 a.m. on November 20th, inmate Liu Shaofu saw that Mr. Zhang got up at night to do the Falun Gong exercises. Mr. Zhang explained the reason for doing the exercises. Liu scolded him and kicked him. To avoid disrupting other people's sleep, Mr. Zhang looked for Gao, a guard in charge, and Cai, a guard on duty, and told them the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong. The next morning, Xu Liang, head of the team, called Mr. Zhang in for two conversations. He ordered Mr. Zhang to agree that he would not do the Falun Gong exercises and would not talk about Falun Gong. Mr. Zhang refused. As a result he was held in solitary confinement for 15 days in a small, damp room about 5 square yards, with no heat. He was given two small meals a day, not enough to live on.

In November and December 2007, the guards ordered inmates to monitor Mr. Zhang. They didn't allow him to read any Falun Gong books or do the exercises, and they beat him frequently. The inmates took away his copy of the Falun Gong book Zhuan Falun several times, which he had transcribed word for word. His face often had scars and bruises. He began losing his appetite and sometimes he couldn't eat anything for an entire day.

At 2:00 p.m. on July 9th, 2010, Wen Dong, head of the No. 1 Sub-ward of the No. 6 Ward (for patients); Yu Haipeng, political instructor; and two officials, Shan Shengrui and Luan, searched the belongings of Mr. Zhang, Mr. Huang Weizhong, and two other practitioners. The officials also body searched the practitioners. They found an electronic book, a copy of recent articles published by the founder of Falun Gong, and some articles that exposed the persecution.

4. Denial of release despite Mr. Zhang's poor health. In January 2008, Mr. Zhang was tortured until he lost control of his bladder and bowels. He often wet his bed and needed others' help to walk.

In mid-January 2008, Mr. Zhang was sent to Jiamusi City Prison Hospital to get "treatment." Before he was hospitalized, he could still walk with others' help and speak clearly. However, after he was hospitalized for a month, he couldn't walk or speak clearly. Mr. Zhang is still imprisoned and being tortured in Lianjiangkou Prison. He is extremely weak and is on the verge of death.

After years of torture and abuse, Mr. Zhang was on one occasion “transformed” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] by Xu Liang, a head of the team, when he was not able to think clearly. Xu lied to him, saying that he would be released on parole if he agreed to be “transformed.” As a result, Xu received a bonus of 1,000 yuan¹. Mr. Zhang remained in the prison, while Xu was transferred to be a team head in the “intense training” division in August 2008.

Officials of the Jiamusi prison system worried that Mr. Zhang could die anytime as his health deteriorated. Yet the officials demanded medical expenses from the family in exchange for the proposed medical parole. After the extortion failed, the officials blamed his family for not taking him home, and they claimed if anything happened, it would not be their fault, in an attempt to shift the blame to his family. Mr. Zhang has completely lost the ability to take care of himself. Every day, he curls up in the bed, enduring unimaginable misery.

III. Mr. Zhang's Family Implicated

The CCP officials also applied pressure to Mr. Zhang's family and colleagues to stir up misunderstandings toward Falun Gong and to intimate people. After Mr. Zhang was released from Xigemu Forced Labour Camp, Yang Jiuzhi, the CCP secretary of Qindel Farm, forced Mr. Zhang's wife to divorce him. The Qindeli Farm authorities then extorted 10,000 yuan from his parents and elder brother, and confiscated their family business as well as his parents' retirement pension as a guarantee that Mr. Zhang would give up practicing Falun Gong. After the forced labour camp tortured Mr. Zhang the first time, they feared that he would die in the camp, so they released him to the Qindeli Farm authorities. Yang Jiuzhi then instigated officer Liu Dianzhen from the local police department to implicate his work unit. They forced the work unit's manager, secretary, accountant, and cashier to pay 10,000 yuan and used their job posts as guarantees in trying to force Mr. Zhang to give up his belief.

Ms. Zhang's family has remained under constant harassment and pressure. In 2003, his mother died in the midst of the persecution, and she was not able to see her son before she passed away. Soon afterwards, Mr. Zhang's father became paralyzed. The family's ownership certificates for their privately owned houses were taken away by the farm's police department and local residential committee as further leverage for harassment. His relatives have lived in misery and have nowhere to file a complaint.

We appeal to international human rights organizations and all kindhearted people to pay attention to Mr. Zhang Puhe's situation and help him get released from prison.

Individuals responsible for the persecution:

Zhu Wenxue, chief of the Heilongjiang Province Prison Administration Department: +86-451-87519666, +86-451-86343651, +86-451-86362149, +86-13804588996 (Mobile)
Dong Daquan, 610 Office in the prison: +86-13946424222 (Mobile)

Related article:

“Practitioner Zhang Puhe of Heilongjiang Province Tortured to the Verge Of Death” (http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2009/9/14/110796.html)

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/2011/12/6/250238.html