Practitioner Mr. Zhou Zixian Imprisoned and Severely Abused for Six Years

Name: Zhou Zixian
Gender: Male
Age: 56
Address: Unknown
Occupation: Staff, Petroleum Company of Hengyang City
Date of Most Recent Arrest: March 11th, 2003
Most Recent Place of Detention: Wuling Prison
City: Changde
Province: Hunan
Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labour, brainwashing, imprisonment, beatings, hung up, solitary confinement, torture, forced-feeding, physical restraint, detention, denial of toilet use

Mr. Zhou Zixian, 56, was employed at the Petroleum Company in Hengyang City, Hunan Province. He began to practise Falun Gong in October 1997. After the communist regime banned Falun Gong in July 1999, Mr. Zhou made three trips to Beijing to appeal for the right to practise. He was detained in several places for two months, then sent to a labour camp for more than a year. In 2003 he was sentenced to six years of incarceration during which time prison guards and fellow inmates tortured him in a number of ways. They pried his mouth open with a screwdriver and force-fed him during a hunger strike, knocking out several teeth. He suffered an injury to his right eye that impairs his vision to this day.

The evening of July 20th, 1999, Mr. Zhou left for Beijing to appeal. Soon he was detained and sent back to a detention centre in Hengyang for a month. After his release in late October he went to Beijing again. On November 3rd, 1999, he was arrested, taken to the Qianmen Police Station, and tortured. After Hengyang police took him back to Hengyang, they took him to the Hengyang No.1 Detention Centre. He was forced to do slave labour. At the end of December he was sent to the Hengyang Forced Labour Camp.

Mr. Zhou was transferred to the Xinkaipu Forced Labour Camp in Changsha in July 2000. He shared a dark room with four other practitioners. A heater was put in the room during the summer. During the first week of incarceration, the guards forced the practitioners to stand still and form a circle. If they moved, the guards hit them. They were deprived of sleep for the entire week. Later on they were sent to separate teams. Two inmates monitored each practitioner all day long, including mealtimes and in the toilet. They had to do 16 hours of manual labour. Sometimes Mr. Zhou was forced to work 24 hours straight. He fainted more than once from exhaustion.

Police officers Zhou Zhuwen and Lei Zhenzhong from the Hengyang Domestic Security Department arrested Mr. Zhou on the evening of March 31st, 2003, and took him to the local police station. They handcuffed him high up to a window frame. He was suspended by the handcuffs, causing him extreme pain. After midnight officer Zhou Zhuwen grabbed Mr. Zhou Zixian’s hair and repeatedly hit his head against a wall. That night he was tortured for several hours—until early morning.

Mr. Zhou was later transferred to Hengyang County Detention Centre. To protest the gross abuse, he began a hunger strike. Under the direction of guards, criminal inmates used a screwdriver to pry his mouth open and fed him salt through a metal tube, causing him to vomit and suffer from diarrhea. They later shackled him with a 30-lb. shackle for more than a week. He had trouble using the toilet. Later on the Hengyang County Court sentenced Mr. Zhou to six years in prison.

On April 4th, 2004, Mr. Zhou was transferred to the Jinshi Prison. Upon arrival, six inmates began to assault him, resulting in an injured right eye. Three weeks later, on April 30th, he was transferred again, this time to Wuling Prison. He went on a nine-day hunger strike, during which criminal inmates force-fed him for five days.

In the middle of June 2004, team head Liu Jie handcuffed Zhou Zixian a window frame during the day and to his bed at night. To protest, he resorted once again to a hunger strike that lasted ten days. In mid-September, guards sent him to a strictly controlled team. On day one, team head Xie Ying and guard Zi Yan chained Mr. Zhou to the top of a door frame. Later on the guards told criminal inmates to drag him around while his arms were handcuffed behind his back. On another occasion, guards Liu Jie and Sun Hai used a high-voltage baton to shock his neck and arms.

In mid-November 2004, Mr. Zhou refused to recite the prison rules. To punish him, guards Liu Jie and Chen Gang had several inmates hang him on a metal gate, with only his toes touching the ground.

Another time, ward head Zhang Xuebiao, deputy head Sun Hai, and guards Zi Yan and Liu Jie suspended Mr. Zhou in the air by handcuffs for more than 20 minutes. They pushed him like a pendulum. The handcuffs cut into his wrists, and his hands were badly swollen. After he was returned to his cell, they chained him to a metal door from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. for two weeks. Even when he was asleep, he still had to wear the handcuffs.

In January 2005, political head Wang Liping chained Mr. Zhou to a window in a workshop hallway for six days. He had to sleep in the handcuffs and he could not use the toilet at night, so he had to relieve himself in bed. One night while chained in the hallway he yelled, “Falun Gong is great!” Zhang Xuebiao, a ward political head, took up a mop and hit him in the mouth, leaving him with a loose tooth and a bloody mouth.

On the sixth day of the 2005 Chinese New Year, Mr. Zhou refused to squat at the end of the work day. Several criminal inmates assaulted him. One man punched him repeatedly in the chest, causing great pain. His eye-glasses shattered and cut him near his right eye. Even today, the vision in this eye is still blurred. Following that incident, three inmates were assigned to harass Mr. Zhou, forcing him to work long hours. Team head Chen Changmao and political head Wang Liping forced Mr. Zhou to stand still in the workshop for 15 hours a day. This lasted two months. His feet were badly swollen as a result. One night in early April two guards assaulted him for 20 minutes, causing multiple injuries. After the beating, his eyes were red and his face was swollen.

In November 2005, Mr. Zhou refused to wear the prison uniform. Prison ward head Huang ordered inmates to forcibly put it on him. The inmates ripped off his clothes and put the uniform on him. They handcuffed his arms behind his back and chained him in the workshop hallway. The criminals hung a board around his neck. Words slandering Falun Gong were written on it. The next day the inmates again forced him to wear the uniform and dragged him to the dining hall with his arms handcuffed behind his back. He was later sent to a solitary confinement cell for two months. During the two months of confinement, his hair turned grey.

Zhou Zixian's daughter, who had traveled a thousand kilometres from Taiyuan City to visit her father, was denied the visit.

In late May or early June 2006, political head Zhang Xuebiao told Mr. Zhou that he had to participate in a “military training” exercise, which was a new and more violent form of physical abuse. Immediately after he arrived at the training site, several military police officers pushed him to the ground and kicked and punched him violently. Later on, deputy section head Yan Xiaosong arrived and led him away.

In August 2006, ward head Zhang Xianguo went to the workshop where Mr. Zhou was toiling and angrily accused him that he had leaked his phone number. Falun Gong practitioners in Spain had called him. He first threw several punches at Mr. Zhou, then handed a police baton to a criminal inmate, ordering him to hit Mr. Zhou’s shoulders and arms. The inmates hit Mr. Zhou in the head, knocking him down.

At the end of August 2006, Mr. Zhou Zixian passed practitioner Zhang Peng a letter he wrote that detailed the persecution he experienced in Wuling Prison. A criminal inmate saw it and took the letter to the prison authorities. As punishment, Mr. Zhou and Zhang Peng were sent to separate solitary confinement cells for 18 months, with no contact with the outside. They were forced to listen daily to slanderous recordings.

In the summer the area was heavily infested with mosquitos, but they had no protection against the insects and sustained innumerable bites. Every day at dawn, criminal inmates sprayed cold water at them while they were still in bed; even their blankets were drenched. In the winter, their rooms were so cold that they had a hard time sleeping. To protest the gross abuse and mistreatment, they held a 23-day hunger strike. The guards ordered criminal inmates to brutally force-feed them, causing great pain. Mr. Zhou had diarrhea for days. The criminal inmates were allowed to abuse the practitioners whenever and wherever they pleased.